ARTOIS, an ancient province of France, corresponding to the present department of Pas de Calais, less the arrondisse ments of Boulogne and Montreuil, which belonged to Picardy. Its capital was Arras, and other important places were Saint Omer, Bethune, Aire, Hesdin, Bapaume, Lens, Lillers, Saint-Pol and Saint-Venant. The names Artois and Arras are derived from the Atrebates, who possessed the district in the time of Caesar. From the 9th to the 12th century Artois belonged to the counts of Flanders. It was bestowed in 118o on Philip Augustus of France by Philip of Alsace, as the dowry of his niece Isabella of Hainaut, and in 1237 was conferred as an appanage by Saint Louis on his brother Robert, who died in I250. His son, Robert II., was killed at the battle of Courtrai in 1302. After his death, his son Philip having predeceased him (1298), Artois was adjudged to his daughter Mahaut as against her nephew Robert, son of Philip, who attempted to support his claim to the countship by forged titles. Banished from France (1322), Robert of Artois took ref uge in England, where he became earl of Richmond, and incited Edward III. to make war upon Philip of Valois. His descend ants, the counts of Eu (q.v.), continued to style themselves counts of Artois. By the marriage of Mahaut (d.1329) with Otto IV., Artois passed to the house of Burgundy, in whose possession it remained till the marriage of Mary, the daughter of Charles the Bold, to the archduke Maximilian, brought it to the house of Austria. Louis XI., however, occupied portions of Artois, and the claims of Austria were contested by France until the treaty of Senlis • At the end of the Thirty Years' War Artois was again conquered by the French, and the conquest was ratified in the treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) by Spain, to whom the province had fallen in 1634. The treaties of Nijmwe gen (16 78) and Utrecht (z 713) confirmed the sovereignty of France. The title of count of Artois was borne by Charles X. of France before his accession to the throne. This new creation became extinct on the death of the Comte de Chambord in 1883.