FALAISE  , a

town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Calvados, on the right bank of the Ante, 19 M . S. by E. of Caen by road . Pop . (1906) 6215 . The principal object of interest is the castle, now partly in ruins, but formerly the seat of the dukes of Normandy and the birthplace of William the Conqueror . It is situated on a lofty crag overlooking the town, and consists of a square mass defended by towers and flanked by a small donjon and a lofty tower added by the English in the 15th century; the rest of the castle dates chiefly from the 12th century . Near the castle, in the Place de la Trinite, is an equestrian statue in bronze of William the Conqueror, to whom the town owed its prosperity . The churches of La Trinite and St Gervais combine the Gothic and Renaissance styles of architecture, and St Gervais also includes Romanesque workmanship . A street passes by way of a tunnel beneath the choir of La Trinite . Falaise has populous suburbs, one of which, Guibray, is celebrated for its annual fair for horses, cattle and wool, which has been held in August since the 11th century . The town is the seat of a subprefecture and has tribunals of first instance and commerce, a chamber of arts and manufacture, a board of trade-arbitrators and a communal college . Tanning and important manufactures of hosiery are carried on .

From 1417, when after a

siege of forty-seven days it succumbed to Henry V., king of England, till 1450, when it was retaken by the French, Falaise was in the hands of the English .