a city of France, capital of the Franche Compte, now the department of Doubs. It is one of the most ancient cities of Europe, was formerly the see of an archbishop, and had a parliament as well as a university. It is seated on the river Dreux, which BESANCON which divides it into two parts, the greatest of which is a peninsula. The entrance is shut up by a mountain, on which they have built a large citadel, which commands all the city. There are many names of places in and about the city, that are plainly corruptions of the Latin, and are marks of its antiquity, as Chamars, Campus Martis; Chamose, Campus Musarum; Chandane, Campus Diane, &c. The metropolitan church is built at the bottom of St Stephen's hill; and is a very handsome structure with a high tower steeple. The great altar is placed in the middle choir, where on high days they expose relics in silver shrines, enriched with gold and jewels. There are several tombs and other things remarkable in the churches; and after you have past the church of Notre Dame, and the square that it looks into, you come to a triumphal arch, erected in honour of the emperor Aurelian, on which are several figures of men and animals, pretty entire. It serves as a gate to the cloister of St John the Great. The great hospital of the order of the Holy Ghost is a structure worth seeing. The streets are wide and handsome; and the houses are well built with freestone, and covered with slate, chiefly about the square called Bottom, which is adorned with a fountain, the water of which proceeds from a statue of Bacchus. The river Dreux is passed over by a stone bridge. The market-place is at the entrance; and on the left is another square, adorned with a fountain, where the great street begins. The new square is not far from this street, from whence you go to the town-house, which is a large structure with four wings, before the front of which is the statue of Charles V. in bronze, with a globe in one hand and a sword in the other. The imperial eagle is raised over a large basin, and spouts out water by both his beaks; and there is also a fountain adorned with the figure of a naked woman, with water springing out at her nipples. The university, which was dissolved at the revolution, was re-established as a Lyceum and college in 1801. The population in 1815 was 28,200. E. Long. 6° 10' N. Lat. 47° 26'.