in cereals.

Chalons-sur-Marne occupies the site of the chief town of the Catalauni,
and some portion of the plains which lie between it and Troyes was the
scene of the defeat of Attila in the conflict of 451. In the 10th and
following centuries it attained great prosperity as a kind of
independent state under the supremacy of its bishops, who were
ecclesiastical peers of France. In 1214 the militia of Chalons served at
the battle of Bouvines; and in the 15th century the citizens maintained
their honour by twice (1430 and 1434) repulsing the English from their
walls. In the 16th century the town sided with Henry IV., king of
France, who in 1589 transferred thither the parlement of Paris, which
shortly afterwards burnt the bulls of Gregory XIV. and Clement VIII. In
1856 Napoleon III. established a large camp, known as the Camp of
Chalons, about 16 m. north of the town by the railway to Reims. It was
situated in the immediate neighbourhood of Grand Mourmelon and Petit
Mourmelon, and occupied an area of nearly 30,000 acres. The "Army of
Chalons," formed by Marshal MacMahon in the camp after the first
reverses of the French in 1870, marched thence to the Meuse, was
surrounded by the Germans at Sedan, and forced to capitulate. The camp
is still a training-centre for troops.

About 5 m. E. of Chalons is L'Epine, where there is a beautiful
pilgrimage church (15th and 16th centuries, with modern restoration)
with a richly-sculptured portal. In the interior there is a fine
choir-screen, an organ of the 16th century, and an ancient and
much-venerated statue of the Virgin.

CHALON-SUR-SAONE, a town of east-central France, capital of an
arrondissement in the department of Saone-et-Loire, 81 m. N. of Lyons
by the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906) 26,538. It is a well-built town,
with fine quays, situated in an extensive plain on the right bank of the
Saone at its junction with the Canal du Centre. A handsome stone bridge
of the 15th century, decorated in the 18th century with obelisks,
connects it with the suburb of St Laurent on an island in the river. The
principal building is the church of St Vincent, once the cathedral. It
dates mainly from the 12th to the 15th centuries, but the facade is
modern and unpleasing. The old bishop's palace is a building of the 15th
century. The church of St Pierre, with two lofty steeples, dates from
the late 17th century. Chalon preserves remains of its ancient ramparts
and a number of old h