Montcenis

Montcenis stood on a height in the Autunois, the seat of a ducal castle and a Burgundian bailliage. The barony included the lands where Le Creusot later developed. In the eighteenth century François de la Chaise acquired Montcenis and obtained rights to exploit coal deposits in the neighbourhood. The royal foundry established at Le Creusot in the 1780s drew on these resources, marking a new industrial chapter in a district long governed from the older hilltop town.