Waldalenus, Patrician of Burgundy, had his palatium here at the end of the sixth century, and his son, Donatus, abbot of Luxeuil, established a monastery here, dedicated to Saint Vincent; the abbey church was noted in 654.

In the thirteenth century the barony of Arlay, on the borders with the Bresse region, passed into the dynasty of the counts of Chalons, the preeminent noblemen in the south of the Franche-Comté.

[6] The eighteenth-century Château d'Arlay[7] was built by the comtesse de Lauraguais, c 1770–80, on the former site of the convent of the Minimes near the foot of the small eminence occupied by the château-fort.

Its contents were dispersed at the French Revolution and Mme de Lauraguais died under the guillotine in 1794, but in 1825 the property was assumed by prince Pierre d’Arenberg, grandson of Mme de Lauraguais, who refurnished it with the classical furniture in pale veneers and fruitwoods (bois clair) characteristic of the reign of Charles X, which remain in the house today; in addition to its interior decor, it preserves remains of its park and modern flower gardens.

The caves called the Grottes de Saint-Vincent[8] contain marks of human presence in the Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian epoch.