a town of France, department of Charente, capital of a cognominal arrondissement, stands on the left bank of the Charente, 22 miles W. of Angoulême. It carries on an extensive trade in the celebrated brandy to which it gives name. The town is ill built, and has no remarkable buildings except an old castle, in the park of which is a bronze statue of Francis I., marking the spot where he was born in 1494. Pop. (1851) of town 5738; of arrondissement 57,959.