The river flows from Haut Jacques and the forests to the south-east of the town; where it passes through Rambervillers it has been channeled, but the work was done without sufficient planning for the volume of water unleashed in stormy weather, which gives rise to flooding.

Rambervillers was the creation in the ninth century of a man called Rambert, who was the Count of Mortagne, or the Abbot of Senones: sources differ.

In the twelfth century the Bishop of Metz, Étienne of Bar protected the town with wooden fortifications and ditches: in the thirteenth century another Bishop of Metz, Jacques of Lorraine, replaced the stone fortifications with a stone wall backed up with 24 large towers.

Despite its fortifications, Rambervillers found itself torched by a Huguenot army acting on the orders of the Baron of Bollweiler, in the sixteenth century.

On 9 October 1870, manning the fortifications against the invading Prussians, 200 national guardsmen held out for a day against 2,000 Germans.