Franche-Comté

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• A historical region and former province of eastern France. Settled by the Burgundians in the fifth century AD and later incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire, Franche-Comte passed to Austrian and then to Spanish rule before being finally conquered by France in 1676.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• proper noun A region of France.