DOUAI, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondisse ment in the department of Nord, 20 M. S. of Lille on the Northern railway between that city and Cambrai, Pop. (1931), 28,750. Douai, the site of which was occupied by a castle (Castrum Duacense) as early as the 7th century, belonged in the middle ages to the counts of Flanders, passed in 1384 to the dukes of Burgundy, and so in 1477 with the rest of the Netherlands to Spain. In 1667 it was captured by Louis XIV., and was ceded to France by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Historically Douai is important as the centre of the political and religious propaganda of the exiled English Roman Catholics. In 1562 Philip II. of Spain founded a university here, in which several English scholars were given chairs; and in connection with this William Allen (q.v.) in 1568 founded the celebrated English college. It was here that the "Douai Bible" was prepared. There were also an Irish and a Scots college and houses of English Benedictines and Fran ciscans. All these survived till 1793, when the university was suppressed. The modern university is at Lille. Douai stands in a marshy plain on the banks of the Scarpe which supplies water to a canal on the west. The old fortifications, of which the Porte de Valenciennes (15th century) survives are now boulevards and gardens. The industrial towns of Dorignies, Sin-le-Noble and Aniche are practically suburbs of Douai. The church of Notre Dame (12th and 14th centuries) possesses a fine altar-piece (early 16th century) of wooden panels painted by Jean Bellegambe of Douai. The handsome hotel de ville, partly of the 15th century, has a lofty belfry. The Palais de Justice (18th century) was formerly the town house (refuge) of the abbey of Marchiennes. Houses of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries are numerous. The municipal museum contains a good library, and a fine collection of sculpture and paintings, but was damaged during the war.
Douai is the seat of a court of appeal, a court of assizes, and of a subprefect, and has a tribunal of first instance, a board of trade-arbitrators, an exchange, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. Its educational institutions include a lycee, training colleges, a school of mines, an artillery school, schools of music, agriculture, drawing, architecture, etc., and a national school for instruction in brewing and other industries connected with agriculture. In addition to other iron and engin eering works, Douai has a large cannon foundry and an arsenal; coal-mining and the manufacture of glass bottles and chemicals are carried on on a large scale in the environs; among the other industries are flax-spinning, rope-making, and the manufacture of farm implements, oil and sugar. Trade, which is largely water borne, is in grain and agricultural products, coal and building material.
See F. Brassart, Hist. du château et de la chdtellenie de Douai (Douai, 1877-87) ; C. Mine, Hist. pop. de Douai (ib. 1861) ; B. Ward, Dawn of the Catholic Revival (London, 19o9) ; Handecoeur, Hist. du College anglais, Douai (Reims, 1898) ; Daucoisne, Etablissements britanniques a Douai (Douai, 1881).