FIGEAC  , a

town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Lot, 47 M . E . N.E. of Cahors on the Orleans railway . Pop . (1906) 4330 . It is enclosed by an amphitheatre of wooded and vine-clad hills, on the right bank of the Cele, which is here crossed by an old bridge . It is ill-built and the streets are narrow and dirty; on the outskirts shady boulevards have taken the place of the ramparts by which it was surrounded . The town. is very rich in old houses of the 13th and 14th centuries; among them may be mentioned the Hotel de Balene, of the 14th century, used as a prison . Another house, dating from the 15th century, was the birthplace of the Egyptologist J . F . Champollion, in memory of whom the town has erected an obelisk . The principal church is that of St Sauveur, which once belonged to the abbey of Figeac .

It was built at the beginning of the 12th century, but restored later; the

facade in particular is modern . Notre-Dame du Puy, in the highest part of the town, belongs to the 12th and 13th centuries . It has no transept and its aisles extend completely round the interior . The altar-screen is a fine example of carved woodwork of the end of the 17th century . Of the four obelisks which used to mark the limits of the authority of the abbots of Figeac, those to the south and the west of the town remain . Figeac is the seat of a subprefect and has a tribunal of first in-stance, and a communal college . Brewing, tanning, printing, cloth-weaving and the manufacture of agricultural implements are among the industries . Trade is in cattle, leather, wool, plums, walnuts and grain, and there are zinc mines in the neighbour-hood . Figeac grew up round an abbey founded by Pippin the Short in the 8th century, and throughout the middle ages it was the property of the monks . At the end of the 16th century the lord-ship was acquired by King Henry IV.'s minister, the duke of Sully, who sold it to Louis XIII. in 1622 .