Bar-le-Duc in the context of "Duke Antoine of Lorraine"

The Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon (French: Transi de René de Chalon, also known as the Memorial to the Heart of René de Chalon or The Skeleton) is a late Gothic period cadaver monument (transi) in the church of Saint-Étienne at Bar-le-Duc, in northeastern France. It consists of an altarpiece and a limestone statue of a putrefied and skinless corpse which stands upright and extends his left hand outwards. Completed sometime between 1544 and 1557, the majority of its construction is attributed to the French sculptor Ligier Richier. Other elements, including the coat of arms and funerary drapery, were added in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.

The tomb dates from a period of societal anxiety over death, as plague, war and religious conflicts ravaged Europe. It was commissioned as the resting place of René of Chalon, Prince of Orange, son-in-law of Duke Antoine of Lorraine. René died at the age of 25 during the siege of St. Dizier on 15 July 1544, from a wound sustained in battle the previous day. Richier presents him as an écorché, with his skin and muscles decayed, leaving him reduced to a skeleton. This fulfilled his alleged deathbed wish, that his tomb depict his body as it would be three years after his death. His left arm is raised as if gesturing towards heaven. At one point, his heart was supposedly held in a reliquary, placed in the hand of the figure's raised arm. Unusually for contemporaneous objects of this type, his skeleton is standing, making it a "living corpse", an innovation that was to become highly influential. The tomb effigy is positioned above the carved marble and limestone altarpiece.

Ligier Richier (French pronunciation: [liʒje ʁiʃje]; c. 1500—1567) was a French sculptor active in Saint-Mihiel in Northeastern France.

Richier primarily worked in the churches of his native Saint-Mihiel. Starting in 1530, he enjoyed the patronage of Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, who commissioned his work. Whilst Richier did sometimes work in wood, he preferred the pale, soft limestone with its fine grain, and few veins, extracted at Saint Mihiel and Sorcy and when working in this medium he experimented with refined polishing techniques, with which he was able to give the stone a marble-like appearance. One of his finest works is the "Groupe de la Passion", consisting of 13 life-size figures made in the local stone of the Meuse region. It can be found in the Church of St. Étienne. It is also known as the "Pâmoison de la Vierge" (Swoon of the Virgin, the Virgin fainting, supported by St John). Other works attributed to him are in the Church of St. Pierre, Bar-le-Duc, and in the Louvre.

The University of Lorraine (French: Université de Lorraine), abbreviated as UL, is a public research university based in Lorraine, Grand Est region, France. It was created on 1 January 2012, by the merger of Henri Poincaré University, Nancy 2 University, Paul Verlaine University – Metz and the National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine (INPL). It aimed to unify the main colleges of the Lorraine region. The merger process started in 2009 with the creation of a Pôle de recherche et d'enseignement supérieur (PRES) and was completed in 2012.

The university has 51 campus sites, over the Lorraine region, the main ones are around Nancy and Metz. The other sites are in the towns of Epinal, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, Bar-Le-Duc, Lunéville, Thionville-Yutz, Longwy, Forbach, Saint-Avold, Sarreguemines.

The County of Bar, later Duchy of Bar, was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire encompassing the pays de Barrois and centred on the city of Bar-le-Duc. It was held by the House of Montbéliard from the 11th century. Part of the county, the so-called Barrois mouvant, became a fief of the Kingdom of France in 1301 and was elevated to a duchy in 1354. The Barrois non-mouvant remained a part of the Empire. From 1480, it was united to the imperial Duchy of Lorraine.

Both imperial Bar and Lorraine came under the influence of France in 1735, with Bar ceded to the deposed king of Poland, Stanisław Leszczyński. According to the Treaty of Vienna (1738), the duchy would pass to the French crown upon Stanisław's death, which occurred in 1766.