MOISSAC  , a

town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Tarn-et-Garonne, 17 M . W.N.W. of Montauban on the Southern railway between Bordeaux and Toulouse . Pop . (1906) town, 4523; commune, 8218 . Moissac stands at the foot of vine-clad hills on the right bank of the Tarn; it is divided into two parts by the lateral canal of the Garonne, which crosses the Tarn by way of an aqueduct a short distance above the town . It contains little of note except the abbey-church of St Pierre, a building of the 15th century with a porch of the 12th century which is decorated with elaborate Romanesque carving unsurpassed in France . The cloister of the early 12th century adjoining the north side of the church is also one of the finest of its kind . Romanesque in character, it has pointed arches resting alternately on single and clustered columns with sculptured capitals . Among other remains of the abbey is the abbot's palace, which contains two halls of the Romanesque period . St Martin, the oldest of the other churches of Moissac, dates from before the year 1oo0 . The town has a sub-prefecture, a tribunal of first instance, a communal college for boys, a library and a museum . Trade is in oil, wine, eggs, wool, poultry and fruit (peaches, apricots, &c.) .

The town owes its origin to an abbey probably founded in the 7th century by St Amand, the friend of Dagobert . After being devastated by the

Saracens, the abbey was restored by Louis of Aquitaine, son of Charlemagne . Subsequently it was made dependent on Cluny, but in 1618 it was secularized by Pope Paul V., and replaced by a house of Augustinian monks, which was suppressed at the Revolution . The town, which was erected into a commune in the 13th century, was taken by Richard Cceur de Lion and by Simon de Montfort .