an arrondissement of the department of the Two Sèvres, in France, extending over 594 square miles. It contains ten cantons, which are divided into ninety-four communes, and inhabited by 87,500 persons. The capital, both of the arrondissement and the department, is the city of the same name situated on the navigable river Sèvres-Mortaise. It has a fine Gothic church, an atheumum, with a library of 12,000 volumes, a chemical laboratory, a botanic garden, and a cabinet of physical preparations. It contains 1980 houses, and 15,500 inhabitants, who find occupation in making woollen goods, and in preparing leather, chiefly for gloves, of which about 20,000 dozen pairs are annually produced. It suffered much in consequence of the insurrection in La Vendée during the Revolution, but has in a great degree recovered since the return of tranquillity. Long. 0° 34' 32" W., Lat. 46° 20' 8" N.