CHOLET  , a

town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Maine-et-Loire, 41 M . S.E. of Nantes on the Ouest-Etat railway between that town and Poitiers . Pop . (1906) 16,554 . Cholet stands on an eminence on the right bank of the Moine, which is crossed by a bridge of the 15th century . A public garden occupies the site of the old castle; the public buildings and churches, the finest of which is Notre-Dame, are modern . The public institutions include the sub-prefecture, a tribunal of first instance, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, and a communal college . There are granite quarries in the vicinity of the town . The chief industry is the manufacture of linen and linen handkerchiefs, which is also carried on in the neighbouring communes on a large scale . Woollen and cotton fabrics are also produced, and bleaching and the manufacture of preserved foods are carried on . Choletis'the most important centre in France for the sale of fat cattle, sheep and pigs, for which Paris is the chief market . Megalithic monuments are numerous in the neighbourhood .

The town owes the rise of its prosperity to the

settlement of weavers there by Edouard Colbert, count of Maulevrier, a brother of the great Colbert . It suffered severely in the War of La Vendee of 1793, insomuch that for years afterwards it was almost without in-habitants .