COGNAC, a town of France, at the head of an arrondissement in the department of Charente, on the left bank of the River Charente, about 32 miles by rail west of Angoulême. It has a tribunal of commerce, a communal college, a prison, a hospital, a church of the 12th century dedicated to St Leger, and an old castle, now used as a wine-store, in the park of which is a bronze statue of Francis I., marking the spot where, according to tradition, he was born in 1494. The most important industry of Cognac is the distillation and exportation of the celebrated brandy to which the town gives its name (see Brandy). Iron is also manufactured, and a considerable trade is main tained in grain and cattle. Cognac is probably to be identified with one of the many places that bore the name of Condate; it was known as Coniacum in the Middle Ages. At an early period it was governed by lords of its own, but in the 12th century it became subject to the counts of Angoumois. In 1238 it was the seat of an ecclesiastical council summoned by Gerard of Bordeaux; and in 1526 it gave its name to a treaty concluded against Charles V. by Francis I., Henry VIII. of England, the Pope, Venice, and Milan. In 1562 the town was captured by the Huguenots, and in 1651 it defied the prince of Condé. Before the Revolution it possessed a fine Benedictine monastery and two other convents. The population, which was only 4000 about the middle of the 18th century, had increased by 1872 to 12,950.