BERGERAC  , a

town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Dordogne, on the right bank of the Dordogne, 6o m . E. of Bordeaux on the railway to Cahors . Pop . (1906) town, Io,545; commune, 15,623 . The river is rendered navigable by a large dam and crossed by a fine bridge which leads to the suburb of La Madeleine . Apart from a few old houses in the older quarter by the river, the town contains no monuments of antiquarian interest . There is a handsome modern church built in the middle of the 19th century . Bergerac is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce and a communal college . Wine of fine quality is grown in the district and is the chief source of the commerce of the town, which is mainly carried on with Libourne and Bordeaux . There is trade in grain, truffles, chestnuts, brandy and in the salmon of the Dordogne . The town has flour-mills, iron-works, tanneries, distilleries and nursery-gardens, and it has manufactures of casks and of vinegar . There are quarries of millstone in the vicinity .

In the 16th century Bergerac was a very flourishing and populous

place, but most of its inhabitants having embraced Calvinism it suffered greatly during the religious wars and by the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685) . It was in 1577 the scene of the signing of the sixth peace between the Catholics and Protestants . Its fortifications and citadel were demolished by Louis XIII. in 1621 .