A town in the dep. of Saône-et-Loire, on an affluent of the Saône; renowned in the Middle Ages for its Benedictine abbey, founded in 910, and the most celebrated in Europe, having been the mother establishment of 2000 others of the like elsewhere; in ecclesiastical importance it stood second to Rome, and its abbey church second to none prior to the erection of St. Peter's; a great normal school was established here in 1865.