CARPENTRAS, the chief town of an arrondissment in the department of Vaucluse in France, is situated on the left bank of the Auzon, 15 miles north-east of Avignon, with which it is connected by means of a branch railway leaving the main line at Sorgues. It is well built, but the streets are narrow. Part of its old walls and towers are still standing, and the Porte d’Orange is a fine specimen of an ancient gateway. Among its buildings the most interesting are the Cathedral of St Siffrein, rebuilt in 1405, a triumphal arch, which forms the only important relic of the Roman period, the old Episcopal palace, and a hospital of the 18th century; and there are also a theatre, a public hbrary of 12,000 volumes, and a museum of antiquities, as well as various municipal buildings. Water is brought to the town by an aqueduct of 48 arches, completed in 1734; and a canal of quite recent construction communicates with the Durance. Soap-works, distilleries, dye-works, and cotton factories are the chief industrial establishments; and there is trade in silk, saffron, oil, honey, and fruits. Carpentras is identified with Carpentoracte, a town of Gallia Narbonensis mentioned by Pliny, which appears to have been of some importance during the Roman period. In the Middle Ages its history is full of vicissitudes; it was captured and plundered by Vandal, Lombard, and Saracen. About 1313 it was for a time the residence of Pope Clement V.; and it continued, along with Avignon and the district of the Venaissin, of which it was regarded as the capital, to be administered by the Papal legate till the Revolution. The name of the “Carpentras Inscription” is specially appropriated by Semitic scholars to a few lines of Aramaic preserved on a stone in the Episcopal library, which are remarkable as ...