The Col du Chat is a mountain pass located in France, in the commune of La Chapelle-du-Mont-du-Chat, in the French department of Savoie in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.

Because of the region's particular flora and fauna, the pass is located within the perimeter of and close to natural zones of ecological, faunal and floristic interest and Natura 2000 reserves.

[8] Dauzat and Rostaing, for their part, explain the name of the mountain's "dent du Chat" by its shape, which they believe evokes that of a cat's canine.

He notes the existence of a 1582 source in which the Col du Chat is called "la Sciaz", and links this to the names of places in the Vaud Alps, where the toponymy is explained by the presence of a ridge evoking the teeth of a saw.

Without dwelling on this possibility, Gros points out that similar-sounding names can be found in charters from the south-east of France: Dominus Rodulfus Cati or even Johannes dictus Chat.

[12][13] A second, undoubtedly more serious, is Wipf's mention of the possibility of a common root between "Chat" and "Chambéry", both of which could derive from the name of the legendary king Caturix.

[8] The hypothesis favored by Wipf is derivation from a Celtic root car or cal, designating mountain in pre-Celtic languages.

"[8] Gros, for his part, explains mons Munitus by a Latin etymology: a via munita or iter munitum, designating a road or path that required development.

[7] Finally, referring to "Mailland", Palluel-Guillard suggests a derivation from the Celtic root chai, designating a fight or ambush.

[15] The thinness of the Urgonian limestones beneath the first Miocene marine transgression layers at Bourdeau, in contrast to the thicker limestones to the north of the fault at the eastern base of the anticline on the edge of Lac du Bourget, suggests that the fault was formed during the uplift of the Jura at the same period, resulting in a difference in uplift between Mont de la Charvaz and Mont du Chat.

[24] Several scholars, such as Albanis Beaumont, Jean André Deluc and John Antony Cramer around 1800, and later the historian Theodor Mommsen,[25] hypothesized that the pass was used by Hannibal to cross the Alps on his way to Italy; this outdated thesis has now been invalidated.

The route of the Praetorian road, which linked Vienne to Milan via the Little St Bernard Pass and crossed the Épine-Chat range above a mysterious Labisco about halfway between Augustum (now Aosta, at the confluence of the Rhône and Guiers rivers) and Lemencum (now Lémenc, a district of Chambéry), is not precisely known.

Alphonse d'Elbène, abbot of Hautecombe, wrote at the end of the 16th century: The Mont du Chat, situated between the Rhône and Lac du Bourget, is not very difficult to climb, and when you reach the summit and see the walls of an old sanctuary still standing, you will see a stone on which are engraved capital Roman letters, but which, because they are so ancient, no one can understand.More recently, Albanis Beaumont and Prefect Jean-Joseph de Verneilh-Puyraseau [fr] refer to a "temple to Mercury.

A second campaign, led by Claude Duc in 1939, uncovered a larger treasure trove of 240 coins from the 2nd and 4th centuries, some 100 metres from the hamlet.

In 1581, Michel de Montaigne, the most famous tourist ever to cross the Col du Chat, on his return from Italy: "Already we came to pass the Mont du Chat, high, steep, and stony but by no means dangerous or uneasy, at the foot of which sits a large lake, and along it a castle named Bordeau.

Like Montaigne, he recognized that the route was not too difficult, but was not entirely reassuring: "Well, it's true that it's not at all so rough and nasty, but it's a perilous passage because of the woods it's filled with, and a large lake at the foot, to which easily from the top of the mountain you would throw those you would like to kill to get their money.

[33] Around 1670, King Charles Emmanuel II had a new road built between France and Savoie Propre [fr], via Les Échelles and the Col de Couz.

In 1807, Verneilh, Prefect of Mont-Blanc, reported that the route via the Col du Chat had become "impassable for driving in several places.

A stagecoach service via the Col du Chat left Chambéry at 2 p.m. and reached La Balme at 6.30 p.m.: a four-and-a-half-hour journey covering less than thirty kilometers.

By replacing the light stagecoaches with thirteen-seater carriages pulled by four horses, the journey time was reduced to three hours, but this innovation only remained in service for ten months.

[35] On the eve of the First World War, road service over the Col du Chat was still provided by a four-seater patache pulled by a single horse.

A law passed in 1907 declared the construction of a funicular railway between the port of Bourdeau and the Col du Chat to be of public interest.

[38] From the mid-19th century to the Second World War, the proximity of the Aix-les-Bains Spa town made the Col du Chat a popular excursion destination.

[40] On July 11, 1937, President Albert Lebrun, who was on an official trip to Savoie, paid a "private escapade" visit - he had breakfast on the terrace of the Col du Chat hotel -[41] and in July 1943, Jean Giono stayed at the same hotel, where he wrote the play Le Voyage en calèche.

[50] French rider Jérémy Roy was the first to reach the summit, just a few weeks before winning the Combativity Award at the 2011 Tour de France.

[21] 400 m west of the pass, on the edge of the road leading down to the Rhône valley, lie the former Pommaret quarries, also classified as a type I ZNIEFF (no.

[56][57] Local folklore has variations on this story, in which the cat's death is attributed to two brothers who attack him with a war machine and finish him off with a cutlass, or to a soldier from Le Bourget, who kills him with an arquebus.

In 1619, the Franciscan Jacques Fodéré recopied the legend as a cat the size of a tiger, and introduced Arthur's two brother knights, Berius and Melianus.