the capital of the department Eure-et-Loire, 55 miles S.W. from Paris, and connected with it by railway, stands on a slope skirted by the river Eure, which flows partly within and partly without the ramparts. The houses are antique and straggling; but there are four fine squares, in one of which, used as the herb-market, is an obelisk in memory of General Marceau. It is the seat of tribunals of the first instance and commerce; of a communal college and diocesan seminary; and has a weekly corn-market, which is well managed by a corporation of women. Its chief manufactures are woollens and leather. Its cathedral of Notre Dame, founded by Bishop Fulbert in 1269, is a vast Gothic edifice, and is reckoned one of the finest cathedrals in France. The churches of St Pierre and St André may also be noticed. Pop. (1851) 16,680.

Chartres was one of the principal towns of the Carmites, and by the Romans was called Autricum from the river Andura (Euro). From the Romans it passed into the hands of the Frankish kings, and was successively taken by Thierry II., king of Orleans and Bourgogne, and by the Normans, who burnt it in 852 and 872. It afterwards fell into the hands of the English, from whom it was again recovered in 1432. It was attacked unsuccessfully by the Protestants in 1568, and taken in 1591 by Henry IV., who was consecrated there three years afterwards. Since the time of Louis XIII. the title of Duke de Chartres has been hereditary in the family of Orleans.