CHATEAUDUN  , a

town of north central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Eure-et-Loir, 28 M . S.S.W. of Chartres by rail . Pop . (1906) 58o5 . It stands on an eminence near the left bank of the Loire . The streets, which are straight and regular, radiate from a central square, a uniformity due to the reconstruction of the town after fires in 1723 and 187o . The chateau, the most remarkable building in the town, was built in great part by Jean, count of Dunois, and his descendants . Founded in the loth century, and rebuilt in the 12th and 15th centuries, it consists of a principal wing with a fine staircase of the 16th century, and, at right angles, a smaller wing adjoined by a chapel . To the left of the courtyard thus formed rises a lofty keep of the 12th century . The fine apartments and huge kitchens of the chateau are in keeping with its imposing exterior . The church of La Madeleine dates from the 12th century; the buildings of the abbey to which it be-longed are occupied by the subprefecture, the law court and the hospital . The medieval churches of St Valerien and St Jean and the ruined chapel of Notre-Dame du Champde, of which the facade in the Renaissance style now forms the entrance to the cemetery, are other notable buildings .

The public institutions include a tribunal of first instance and a communal

college . Flour-milling, tanning and leather-dressing, and the manufacture of blankets, silver jewelry, nails and machinery are the prominent industries . Trade is in cattle, grain, wool and hemp . Chateaudun (Castrodunum), which dates from the Gallo-Roman period, was in the middle ages the capital of the countship of Dunois . CHATEAU-GONTIER, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Mayenne, on the Mayenne, 18 m . S. by E. of Laval by road . Pop . (1906) 6871 . Of its churches, that of St Jean, a relic of the castle, dates from the 1th century . Chateau-Gontier is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance, a communal college for boys and a small museum . It carries on wool- and cotton-spinning, the manufacture of serge, flannel and oil, and is an agricultural market . There are chalybeate springs close to the town .

Chateau-Gontier owes its origin and its name to a castle erected in the first

half of the 1th century by Gunther, the steward of Fulk Nerra of Anjou, on the site of a farm belonging to the monks of St Aubin d'Angers . On the extinction of the family, the lordship was assigned by Louis XI. to Philippe de Comines . The town suffered severely during the wars of the League . In 1793 it was occupied by the Vendeans .