PONTOISE  , a

town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement of the department of Seine-et-Oise, ,8 m . N.W. of Paris on the railway to Dieppe . Pop . (1906), 7963 . Pontoise is picturesquely situated on the right bank of the Oise where it is joined by the Viosne . The traffic on the main river is large, and the tributary drives numerous mills . Of the many churches that used to exist in the town two only remain: St Maclou, a church of the 12th century, altered and restored in the ,5th and 16th centuries by Pierre Lemercier, the famous architect of St Eustache at Paris, and containing a fine holy sepulchre of the r6th century; and Notre-Dame, of the close of the 16th century, which contains the tomb of St Gautier, abbot of Meulan in the 12th century . At the top of the flight of steps by which St Maclou is approached is the statue of General Leclerc, a native of the town and husband of Pauline Bonaparte . Grain and flour are the principal staples of the trade; a well-known fair is held in November . The town has a sub-prefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce and a communal college . At Meriel, near Pontoise, there are interesting remains of the Cistercian abbey of Le Val . Pontoise existed in the time of the Gauls as Briva Isarae (Bridge of the Oise) .

It was destroyed by the

Normans in the 9th century, united with Normandy in 1032, and acquired by Philip I. in 1064 . Capital of the French Vexin, it possessed an important stronghold and played a conspicuous part in the wars'between the French and the dukes of Normandy and in the Hundred Years' War . The English took it in 1419, and again in 1437 . In 1441 Charles VII. took it by storm after a three months' siege . After belonging to the count of Charolais down to the treaty of Conflans, it was given as a dowry to Jeanne of France when she was divorced by Louis XII . The parlement of Paris several times met in the town; and in 1561 the states-general convoked at Orleans removed thither after the death of Francis II . During the Fronde it offered a refuge to Louis XIV. and Mazarin . Henry III. made it an apanage for his brother the duke of Anjou . At a later period it passed to the duke of Conti . Down to the Revolution it remained a monastic town .