Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/128

Rh 112 LYONS Besides the Academic des Sciences, Belles Lettres, et Arts (founded in 1700), Lyons possesses societies of agriculture, natural history, useful arts and sciences, geography, and horticulture. The Hotel Dieu, instituted in the beginning of the 6th century by King Childebert, is still one of the chief establishments of its kind in the city, and contains 920 beds. Its facade, fronting the Quai du Rhone for 10GO feet, was commenced according to the designs of Soufflot, architect of the Pantheon at Paris. The Hospice de la Charit6 and the military hospital are a little larger than the Hotel Dieu. The Hospice de 1 Antiquaille, at Fourvieres (2000 beds), occupies the site of the ancient palace of the praetorian prefects, in which Germanicus, Claudius, and Caracalla were born. Lyons has many other benevolent institutions, and is also the centre of the operations of the Propagation de la Foi. The museum is one of the best provincial collections in France, alike in its ancient, mediaeval, and modern depart ments. Among the Gallo-Roman inscriptions, in which it is particularly rich, are the bronze tables discovered at Lyons in 1528, which contain the speech of the emperor Claudius in regard to the admission of the citizens of Gallia Comata into the Roman senate. The numismatic collection (30,000 pieces) includes a series of the coins struck at Lyons from 43 B.C. to 1857. There is a special gallery of works of Lyonese painters ; and the Bernard collection of about 300 pictures is kept entire. The museum of natural history (for which a new build ing is to be erected in the Pare de la Tete d Or) contains a zoological department ranking next to that of Paris, and mineralogical, geological, and anthropological sections the last enriched with specimens from the classic site of Solutre (Saone and Loire). The museum of art and industries, founded in 1864 by the chamber of commerce, is divided into three sections, the first intended to illustrate the various conceptions of the beautiful formed by different peoples, the second to show the whole method of the textile industry, and the third to give an historical con spectus of woven textures. The Guimet Museum, in a special building in the Tete d Or, consists of objects brought from the extreme East (mainly by M. ^mile Guimet) and designed to facilitate the comparative study of religions, especially those of the Eastern world. Since 1880 the institution has published its Annales, consisting of original essays or translations of foreign works. The library of the school of arts contains Go, 000 volumes and 22,000 engravings, and the town library 108,000 volumes and 1300 manuscripts, about GOO of the printed works being incunabula, and 25 of the MSS. belonging to the Carlovingian period. In the latter institution is the great terrestrial globe made at Lyons in 1701, indicating the great African lakes, ther rediscovery of which has been one of the events of the present century. Under the Romans Lyons was admirably provided with water. Three ancient aqueducts on the Fourvieres level, from Montroman, Mont d Or, and Mont Pilat, can still be traced ; and the last was no less than 52 miles long, and capable of supplying 11,000,000 gallons per day. Magni ficent remains of this work may be seen at St Irende and Chaponost, Traces also exist along the Rhone of a subterranean canal conveying the water of the river to a naumachia. At present the water supply of Lyons is obtained from the Rlione by powerful hydraulic engines situated above the town, which raise the water to the Montcssuyand the Fourvieres plateaus, 45G feet above the low level of the river. The reservoirs arc capable of supplying 1,7G5,829 cubic feet of water per day. Agrippa made Lyons the starting-point of the principal Roman roads throughout Gaul ; and it still remains an important centre in the general system of communication. The Saone above the town and the Rhone below have large barge and steamboat traffic ; and the latter river above the town may be used by steamboats during summer as far as Aix in Savoy. Navigation, however, is often interrupted, even below the town, by the lowness of the water, and a canal is projected to remedy this defect. The current of the Saone is less rapid than that of the Rhone, and is controlled by weirs. The railway from Paris to Marseilles has two stations (Yaise and Perrache) in Lyons ; and the line from Lyons to Geneva two (Brotteaux and St Clair). The Montbrison line starts from St Paul, on the right of the Saone. The terminus of Part-Dieu for the newly-opened East of Lyons line is between Perrache and Brotteaux. Within the town there are two rope railways, the first mounting to Fourvieres, and the second, popularly called the ficellr, from Rue Terme to Croix-Rousse. In a city of such importance as Lyons the number of industries is naturally large, but by far the most extensive of them all is the silk manufacture. Derived from Italy, this industry rapidly developed under the patronage of Francis I., Henry II., and Henry IV. ; and from time to time new kinds of fabrics were invented silk stuffs woofed with wool or with gold and silver threads, shawls, watered silks, poplins, velvets, satinades, moires, etc. In the beginning of the present century Jacquart introduced his famous loom by which a single workman was enabled to produce elaborate fabrics as easily as the plainest web, and by changing the &quot; cartoons &quot; to make the most different textures on the same looms. In the 17th century the silk manufacture employed at Lyons 9000 to 12,000 looms. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes the number sank to 3000 or 4000 ; but after the Reign of Terror was past it rose again about 1801 to 12,000. At present there are about 70,000 in operation when no great commercial crisis comes to diminish production, giving employment to about 140,000 weavers. There are also a large number of persons engaged in the silk-worm hatcheries established in France. The workmen live for the most part in the Croix-Rousse quarter, but many of them inhabit the outskirts. The mean annual value of the silk goods manufactured is estimated at 375,000,000 francs (15,000,000), 250,000,000 representing the value of the raw material and 125,000,000 the value of the labour. In cluding the purchase of raw materials and the sale of the manufactured goods, the silk trade gives a total turnover of 1000 million francs (40,000,000). A special office (known as La Condition des Soies) determines the weight and nature of the silk. Extensive dye-works, chemical works, breweries, pork factories, engineering works, print ing establishments, and hat factories represent the second ary industries of the place. A large trade is carried on in chestnuts brought from the neighbouring departments, and known as marrons de Lyon. The earliest Gallic occupants of the territory at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone were the Segusians. In 5!) B.C., sonic Greek refugees from the banks of the Herault, having obtained per mission of the natives to establish themselves beside the Croix Eousse, called their new town by the Gallic name Lugdunum; and in 43 B.C. Munatius Plancus brought a Roman colony to Fourvieres from Vienne. This settlement soon acquired importance, and W.H made by Agrippathe starting point of four great roads. Augustus, besides building aqueducts, temples, and a theatre, gave it a senate and made it the seat of an annual assembly of deputies from the sixty cities of Gallia Comata. Under the emperors the colony of Forum Yetus and the municipium of Lugdunum were united, receiving the jus senntus. The town was burnt by Xero in 59 A. D. , and afterwards rebuilt by him in a much finer style ; it was also adorned by Trajan, Adrian, and Antoninus. The martyrdom of Pothinus and Blandina occurred under Marcus Aurelius (177 A. P.), and in 197 a still more savage persecution of the Christians to k place under Septimius Severus, in which Ircnjous, according to