AURILLAC  , a

town of central France, capital of the department of Cantal, 140 M . N.N.E. of Toulouse, on the Orleans rail-way between Figeac and Murat . Pop . (1906) 14,097 . Aurillac stands on the right bank of the Jordanne, and is dominated from the north-west by the Roc Castanet, crowned by the castle of St Etienne, the keep of which dates from the 1th century . Its streets are narrow and uninteresting, with the exception of one which contains, among other old houses, that known as the Maison des Consuls, a Gothic building of the 16th century, decorated with sculptured stone-work . Aurillac owes its origin to an abbey founded in the 9th century by St Geraud, and the abbey-church, rebuilt in the 17th century in the Gothic style, is the chief building in the town . The former college, which dates from the 17th century, is now occupied by a museum and a library . There is a statue of Pope Silvester II., born near Aurillac in 930 and educated in the abbey, which soon afterwards became one of the most famous schools of France . Aurillac is the seat of a prefect, and its public institutions include tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a lycee, training-colleges and a branch of the Bank of France . The chief manufactures are wooden shoes and umbrellas, and there is trade in cheese and in the cattle and horses reared in the neighbourhood .