Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/637

Rh R O C R O C 613 the corner turrets of which have been surmounted with trophies since 1746. The cathedral of La Rochelle (St Louis or St Bartholomew) is a heavy Grecian building (1742-1862) with a dome above the transept, erected on the site of the old church of St Bartholomew, destroyed in the 16th century and now represented by a solitary tower dating from the 14th century. Externally the town-house (1486-1607) has the appearance of a fortress in the Gothic style and internally that of a Renaissance palace. The belfries are beautifully decorated with carved work, and the council-chamber, where the mayor Guiton presided during the siege, is now adorned by his statue. In the old episcopal palace (which was in turn the resid- ence of Sully, the prince of Cond<, Louis XIII., and Anne of Austria, and the scene of the marriage of Alphonso VI. of Portugal with a princess of Savoy) accommodation has been provided for a library of 25,000 volumes, a collection of records going back to the 13th century, and a museum founded in 1842 by the society of the Friends of the Arts. Other buildings of note are an arsenal, an artillery museum, a large hospital, a special Protestant hospital, a military hospital, and a lunatic asylum for the department. In the public gardens there is a museum of natural history. Mediaeval and Renaissance houses still give a peculiar character to certain districts of the town : several have French, Latin, or Greek inscriptions of a moral or religious turn and in general of Protestant origin. Of these old houses the most interesting is that of Henry II. or Diana of Poitiers. The parade-ground, which forms the principal public square, occupies the site of the castle, demolished in 1590. Some of the streets have side-arcades ; the public wells are fed from a large reservoir in the Champ de Mars ; and among the promenades are the Cours des Dames with the statue of Admiral Duperr6 (1869), and, outside, the tree-planted ramparts and the Mail, a beautiful piece of greensward. In this direction are the sea-bathing estab- lishments. La Rochelle, besides a celebrated manufactory of barrels, contains saw-mills, copper and iron foundries, and factories for patent fuel made out of coal dross. In 1882 465 vessels (225,449 tons) entered and 431 (215,820) cleared. Coals from England and iron-ore from Spain are among the staple imports. In the neighbourhood the principal industries are getting salt from the marshes and rearing oysters and mussels. La Rochelle existed at the close of tlie 10th century under the name of Rupella. In 1199 it received a communal charter from Eleanor, duchess of Guienne, and it was in its harbour that John Lackland disembarked when he came to try to recover the domains seized by Philip Augustus. Captured by Louis VIII. in 1224, it was restored to the English in 1360 by the treaty of Bretigny, but it shook off the yoke of the foreigner when Duguesclin recovered Saintonge. During the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries La Rochelle, then an almost independent commune, was one of the great maritime cities of France. From its harbour in 1402 Jean de Bethencourt set out for the conquest of the Canaries, and its seamen were the first to turn to account the discovery of the New World. The salt- tax provoked a rebellion at Rochelle which Francis I. had to come to repress in person ; in 1568 the town secured exemption by the payment of a large sum. At the Reformation La Rochelle early became one of the chief centres of Calvinism, and during the reli- gious wars it armed privateers which preyed on Catholic vessels in the Channel and the high seas. In 1571 a synod of the Protestant churches of France was held within its walls under the presidency of Beza for the purpose of drawing up a confession of faith. After the massacre of St Bartholomew, La Rochelle held out for six and a half months against the Catholic army, which was ultimately obliged to raise the siege after losing more than 20,000 men. The peace of 24th June 1573, signed by the people of La Rochelle in the name of all the Protestant party, granted the Calvinists full liberty of worship in several places of safety. Under Henry IV. the town remained quiet, but under Louis XIII. it put itself again at the head of the Huguenot party. Its vessels blockaded the mouth of the Gironde and stopped the commerce of Bordeaux, and also seized the islands of Re and Oleron and several vessels of the royal fleet. It was then that Richelieu resolved to siibdue the town once for all. In spite of the assistance rendered by the English troops under Buckingham and in spite of the fierce energy of their mayor Guiton, the people of La Rochelle were obliged to capitulate after eight months' siege (October 1628). During this investment Richelieu raised the celebrated mole which cut off the town from the open sea. La Rochelle then became the principal port for the trade between the mother-country of France and the colony of Canada. But the revocation of the Edict of Nantes deprived it of 3000 of its most industrious inhabitants, and the loss of Canada by France completed the ruin of its commerce. Its privateers, however, still maintained a vigorous struggle with the English during the republic and the empire. Among the men of mark born at La Rochelle may be mentioned Jean Guiton, Tallemant des Reaux, Reaumur the physicist, Admiral Duperre, Bonpland the botanist, and the painters Froinentin and Bouguereau. ROCHELLE SALT. See TARTARIC ACID. ROCHESTER, an episcopal city and municipal and parliamentary borough of Mid-Kent, is situated on the Medway, on the Medway Canal, and on the London, Chat- ham, and Dover and the South-Eastern railway lines, 33 miles east of London, contiguous to Chatham and Strood. Here the river is crossed by a railway bridge and by an iron swing bridge for carriage traffic, erected to take the place of a stone bridge destroyed in 1856. The present bridge occupies the site of that which spanned the Medway before the Conquest. On the eminence overlooking the right bank of the river and commanding a wide view of the surround- ing country are the extensive remains of the Norman castle which is generally supposed to have been built by Gun- dulph, bishop of Rochester, towards the close of the llth century, and which was besieged by King John, by Simon de Montfort in the reign of Henry III., and in the reign of Richard II. by a party of rebels during the insurrection of Wat Tyler. It was repaired by Edward IV., but soon afterwards fell into decay, although the massive keep is still in good preservation. The cathedral was originally founded by Augustine in 604, but was partially destroyed by the Danes, and was rebuilt by Bishop Gundulph in the beginning of the 12th century. Though a comparatively small building, being only 310 feet in length and 68 in breadth at the nave, it is of considerable architectural interest, the most remarkable feature being the Norman west front with a richly sculptured door. There is a large number of monuments of great antiquity. In the garden of the deanery there are portions of the wall of St Andrew's priory, founded about the same time as the cathedral. Among the principal public buildings of a secular character are the town-hall (1687), the corn exchange (1871), the county court offices (1862), the working men's institute (1880), and the Richard Watts's almshouses, in the Tudor style. Besides these almshouses there are a number of other charities. The principal schools are the cathedral grammar-school, founded in the reign of Henry VIII., and the Williamson mathematical school, formerly for the sons of freemen, but now open to all. The oyster fishing in of some importance, and there is a considerable shipping trade, a quay and landing-place having been erected by the corporation at great expense. In 1883 the number of vessels that entered the port was 5969 of 855,019 tons burden, and the number that cleared 5496 of 709,040 tons. There is a large steam-engine manufactory. Rochester returned two members to parliament down to 1885, when it was deprived of one. The population of the borough (area, 1 2909 acres) in 1871 was 18,352, and in 1881 it was 21,307 ; this includes 5395 persons in the town of Strood, situated on the opposite side of the Medway. Rochester was the Durobrivae of the Romans, and was intersected by the Roman Watling Street from Canterbury. It was formerly surrounded with walls, of which there are still a few remains. It was the foundation of the cathedral by Ethelbert that first raised it to importance. By the Saxons it was named Hrofe-ceostre, which was gradually corrupted into the present name. In 676 it l The parliamentary borough also includes 11,768 acres of tidal water and foreshore along the river Medway.