(the Nemetaeum of the Romans), a fortified city of France, chief town of the arrondissement of the same name, and also of the department of Pas de Calais, and formerly capital of the province of Artois. It is situated on both sides of the Scarpe, where that river receives the Crinchon, 32 miles north-east of Amiens, and 100 miles N.N.E. of Paris. The town is well built, and adorned with many handsome edifices, such as the town-house, cathedral, citadel, arsenal, barracks, theatre, &c. Its fine old Gothic Arraswise cathedral was utterly destroyed during the revolutionary phrenzy. It is the seat of a bishop, and of a court of assize; and has a royal society, a college, a diocesan seminary, an institution for the deaf and dumb, and schools of design and belles lettres. It has also a public library of 36,000 volumes, a picture gallery, museum, and botanical garden. Its chief manufactures are lace, woollens, hosiery, beet-root sugar, salt, soap, and earthenware; with a considerable general trade in wine, oil, grain, sugar, &c. The river Scarpe is navigable up to the town. Arras is the birthplace of the assassin Damiers, the two brothers Robespierre, and Lebon. Pop. in 1846, 24,321. Lat. 50. 17. 31. N. Long. 2. 46. 49. E.

Arras is very ancient, and was the chief town of the Atrebates as early as the time of Caesar. (See ATRIBATI.) In 407 it was destroyed by the Vandals, and afterwards by the Normans in 880. It gives name to a treaty concluded here between France and Burgundy in 1435, and to another in 1482, between Maximilian of Austria and Louis XI. of France, by which Burgundy and Artois were given to the Dauphin as a marriage portion. In 1493 it came again into the possession of Maximilian. In 1640 the troops of Louis XIII. took Arras; and by the peace of the Pyrenees in 1659, France was confirmed in the possession of the town.