Abbeville

City, seat (1854) of Vermilion parish, southern Louisiana, U.S., on the Vermilion River, 20 miles (32 km) south-southwest of Lafayette. It was founded in 1843 by a Capuchin missionary, P�re Antoine Desire M�gret, who patterned it on a French Proven�al village. First called La Chapelle and settled by Acadians from Nova Scotia and Mediterranean immigrants, it was later named Abbeville (�Priest's