ANGERS  , a

city of western France, capital of the department of Maine-et-Loire, 191 m . S.W. of Paris by the Western railway to Nantes . Pop . (1906) 73,585 . It occupies rising ground on both banks of the Maine, which are united by three bridges . The surrounding district is famous for its flourishing nurseries and market gardens . Pierced with wide, straight streets, well provided with public gardens, and surrounded by ample, tree-lined boulevards, beyond which lie new suburbs, Angers is one of the pleasantest towns in France . Of its numerous medieval buildings the most important is the cathedral of St Maurice, dating in the main from the 12th and 13th centuries . Between the two flanking towers of the west facade, the spires of which are of the 16th century, rises a central tower of the same period . The most prominent feature of the facade is the series of eight warriors carved on the base of this tower . The vaulting of the nave takes the form of a series of cupolas, and that of the choir and transept is similar . The chief treasures of the church are its rich stained glass (12th, 13th and 15th centuries) and valuable tapestry (14th to 18th centuries) .

The

bishop's palace which adjoins the cathedral contains a fine synodal hall of the 12th century . Of the other churches of Angers, the principal are St Serge, an abbey-church of the 12th and 15th centuries, and La Trinite (12th century) . The prefecture occupies the buildings of the famous abbey of St Aubin; in its courtyard are elaborately sculptured arcades of the 11th and 12th centuries, from which period dates the tower, the only survival of the splendid abbey-church . Ruins of the old churches of Toussaint (13th century) and Notre-Dame du Ronceray (11th century) are also to be seen . The castle of Angers, an imposing building girt with towers and a moat, dates from the 13th century and is now used as an armoury . The ancient hospital of St Jean (12th century) is occupied by an archaeological museum; and the Logis Barrault, a mansion built about 1500, contains the public library, the municipal museum, which has a large collection of pictures and sculptures, and the Musee David, containing works by the famous sculptor David d'Angers, who was a native of the town . One of his masterpieces, a bronze statue of Rene of Anjou, stands close by the castle . The Hotel de Pince or d'Anjou (1523—1530) is the finest of the stone mansions of Angers; there are also many curious wooden houses of the 15th and 16th centuries . The palais de justice, the Catholic institute, a fine theatre, and a hospital with 1500 beds are the more remarkable of the modern buildings of the town . Angers is the seat of a bishopric, dating from the 3rd century, a prefecture, a court of appeal and a court of assizes . It has a tribunal of first instance, a tribunal of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce, a branch of the Bank of France and several learned societies . Its educational institutions include ecclesiastical seminaries, a lycee, a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy, a university with free faculties (facultes fibres) of theology, law, letters and science, a higher school of agriculture, training colleges, a school of arts and handicrafts and a school of fine art .

The prosperity of the town is largely due to the

great slate-quarries of the vicinity, but the distillation of liqueurs from fruit, cable, rope and thread-making, and the manufacture of boots and shoes, umbrellas and parasols are leading industries . The weaving of sail-cloth and woollen and other fabrics, machine construction, wire-drawing, and manufacture of sparkling wines and preserved fruits are also carried on . The chief articles of commerce, besides slate and manufactured goods, are hemp, early vegetables, fruit, flowers and live-stock . Angers, capital of the Gallic tribe of the Andecavi, was under the Romans called Juliomagus . During the 9th century it became the seat of the counts of Anjou (q.v.) . It suffered severely from the invasions of the Northmen in 845 and the succeeding years, and of the English in the 12th and 15th centuries; the Huguenots took it in 1585, and the Vendean royalists were repulsed near it in 1793 . Till the Revolution, Angers was the seat of a celebrated university founded in the 14th century . See L . M . Thorode, Notice de la ville d'Angers (Angers, 1897) .