CHAROLLES, a town of France, the capital of an arrondissement in the department of Saône-et-Loire, ∙3 miles by rail W.N.W. of Mâcon. It has tribunals of primary instance and commerce, an agricultural society, a communal college, a public hbrary, manufactories of potteryware, iron forges, and a considerable trade in corn, wine, cattle, and timber. It was the capital of Charolais, an old division of France, which from the 13th century gave the title of count to its possessors. In 1327 the countship passed by marriage to the house of Armagnac; and in 1390 it was sold to Philip of Burgundy. After the death of Charles the Bold, who in his youth had borne the title of count of Charolais, it was seized by Louis XT. of France; but in 1493 it was ceded by Charles VIII. to Maximilian of Austria, the representative of the Burgundian family. Ultimately passing to the Spanish kings, it became for a considerable period an object of dispute between France and Spain, until at length it was assigned to Condé the Great, in reward for the services he had rendered to the Spanish monarch. The ruins of the count’s castle occupy the summit of a hill in the immediate vicinity of the town. Population in 1872, 3064.