small town of France, department of Vaucluse, arrondissement and 11 miles N.N.E. of Avignon, on a branch of the Ouvèze. Pop. 2500. About a mile S.W. of the town is a small salt lake.

Courtrai, in Flemish Kortrijk, a manufacturing and fortified town of Belgium, province of West Flanders, 26 miles S.W. of Ghent. It is a neat well-built town, situated on both sides of the Lys, and connected by railways with most of the principal places in Belgium. Among its remarkable public buildings are the Hôtel de Ville, a Gothic edifice, built in 1526, and containing two singularly carved chimney pieces, representing the virtues and vices, and events in the early history of the town; and the church of Notre Dame, a Gothic structure founded in 1238, by Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and Emperor of Constantinople, but, except a small portion on one side, modernized and lined with marble. This church contains Vandyck's celebrated painting of the Raising of the Cross. In St Martin's church is a beautiful tabernacle of carved stonework in the richest Gothic style, dating probably about the end of the fifteenth century. Courtrai has also an exchange, college, academy of design, two orphan asylums, and a public library. A great part of its inhabitants are employed in the spinning of flax, and the weaving of plain and damask linens; besides which, cotton and woollen goods, lace, paper, sugar, tobacco, leather, soap, &c., are manufactured. The vicinity is highly cultivated, producing large quantities of the finest flax for supplying the manufactories of the town and for exportation. Courtrai existed in the time of the Romans, under the name of Cortoriacum, which was afterwards changed to Curticum. In the seventh century it was a municipal city; and in 1302 was fought under its walls the famous battle of the Spurs, in which 20,000 Flemings, chiefly weavers from Ghent and Bruges, routed and put to flight a French army of 7000 knights and noblemen, and 40,000 infantry. About 700 gilt spurs were gathered on the field of battle, and hung up as a trophy in the church of the convent of Groeningen, now destroyed. The town was taken by the French in 1793, and made the capital of the department of Lys. Pop. (1851) 21,089.