baptistery of St John (11th century), built on the foundations of a Roman building, is surrounded by walls and numerous remains of the period, partly uncovered by excavations. The church of St Lawrence (14th century) contains the tomb and statue of Bertrand du Guesclin, whose ashes were afterwards carried to St Denis.
Le Puy possesses fragmentary remains of its old line of fortifications, among them a machicolated tower, which has been restored, and a few curious old houses dating from the 12th to the 17th century. In front of the hospital there is a fine medieval porch under which a street passes. Of the modern monuments the statue of Marie Joseph Paul, marquis of La Fayette, and a fountain in the Place de Breuil, executed in marble, bronze and syenite, may be specially mentioned. The museum, named after Charles Crozatier, a native sculptor and metal-worker to whose munificence it principally owes its existence, contains antiquities, engravings, a collection of lace, and ethnographical and natural history collections. Among the curiosities of Le Puy should be noted the church of St Michel d’Aiguilhe, beside the gate of the town, perched on an isolated rock like Mont Corneille, the top of which is reached by a staircase of 271 steps. The church dates from the end of the 10th century and its chancel is still older. The steeple is of the same type as that of the cathedral. Three miles from Le Puy are the ruins of the Château de Polignac, one of the most important feudal strongholds of France.
Le Puy is the seat of a bishopric, a prefect and a court of assizes, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade arbitration, a chamber of commerce, and a branch of the Bank of France. Its educational institutions include ecclesiastical seminaries, lycées and training colleges for both sexes and municipal industrial schools of drawing, architecture and mathematics applied to arts and industries. The principal manufacture is that of lace and guipure (in woollen, linen, cotton, silk and gold and silver threads), and distilling, leather-dressing, malting and the manufacture of chocolate and cloth are carried on. Cattle, woollens, grain and vegetables are the chief articles of trade.
It is not known whether Le Puy existed previously to the Roman invasion. Towards the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century it became the capital of the country of the Vellavi, at which period the bishopric, originally at Revession, now St Paulien, was transferred hither. Gregory of Tours speaks of it by the name of Anicium, because a chapel “ad Deum” had been built on the mountain, whence the name of Mont Adidon or Anis, which it still retains. In the 10th century it was called Podium Sanctae Mariae, whence Le Puy. In the middle ages there was a double enclosure, one for the cloister, the other for the town. The sanctuary of Nôtre Dame was much frequented by pilgrims, and the city grew famous and populous. Rivalries between the bishops who held directly of the see of Rome and had the right of coining money, and the lords of Polignac, revolts of the town against the royal authority, and the encroachments of the feudal superiors on municipal prerogatives often disturbed the quiet of the town. The Saracens in the 8th century, the Routiers in the 12th, the English in the 14th, the Burgundians in the 15th, successively ravaged the neighbourhood. Le Puy sent the flower of its chivalry to the Crusades in 1096, and Raymond d’Aiguille, called d’Agiles, one of its sons, was their historian. Many councils and various assemblies of the states of Languedoc met within its walls; popes and sovereigns, among the latter Charlemagne and Francis I., visited its sanctuary. Pestilence and the religious wars put an end to its prosperity. Long occupied by the Leaguers, it did not submit to Henry IV. until many years after his accession.
LERDO DE TEJADA, SEBASTIAN (1825–1889), president
of Mexico, was born at Jalapa on the 25th of April 1825. He
was educated as a lawyer and became a member of the supreme
court. He became known as a liberal leader and a supporter
of President Juarez. He was minister of foreign affairs for
three months in 1857, and became president of the Chamber
of Deputies in 1861. During the French intervention and
the reign of the emperor Maximilian he continued loyal to
the patriotic party, and had an active share in conducting the
national resistance. He was minister of foreign affairs to
President Juarez, and he showed an implacable resolution in
carrying out the execution of Maximilian at Querétaro. When
Juarez died in 1872 Lerdo succeeded him in office in the midst
of a confused civil war. He achieved some success in pacifying
the country and began the construction of railways. He was
re-elected on the 24th of July 1876, but was expelled in January
of the following year by Porfirio Diaz. He had made himself
unpopular by the means he took to secure his re-election and by
his disposition to limit state rights in favour of a strongly
centralized government. He fled to the United States and
died in obscurity at New York in 1889.
See H. H. Bancroft, Pacific States, vol. 9 (San Francisco, 1882–1890).
LERICI, a village of Liguria, Italy, situated on the N.E. side of the Gulf of Spezia, about 12 m. E.S.E. of Spezia, and 4 m. W.S.W. of Sarzana by road, 17 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 9326. Its small harbour is guarded by an old castle, said to have been built by Tancred; in the middle ages it was the chief place on the gulf. S. Terenzo, a hamlet belonging to Lerici, was the residence of Shelley during his last days. Farther north-west is the Bay of Pertusola, with its large lead-smelting works.
LÉRIDA, a province of northern Spain, formed in 1833 of
districts previously included in the ancient province of Catalonia,
and bounded on the N. by France and Andorra, E. by Gerona
and Barcelona, S. by Tarragona and W. by Saragossa and
Huesca. Pop. (1900) 274,590; area 4690 sq. m. The northern
half of Lérida belongs entirely to the Mediterranean or eastern
section of the Pyrenees, and comprises some of the finest scenery
in the whole chain, including the valleys of Aran and La Cerdaña,
and large tracts of forest. It is watered by many rivers, the
largest of which is the Segre, a left-hand tributary of the Ebro.
South of the point at which the Segre is joined on the right by
the Noguera Pallaresa, the character of the country completely
alters. The Llaños de Urgel, which comprise the greater part of
southern Lérida, are extensive plains forming part of the Ebro
valley, but redeemed by an elaborate system of canals from the
sterility which characterizes so much of that region in Aragon.
Lérida is traversed by the main railway from Barcelona to
Saragossa, and by a line from Tarragona to the city of Lérida.
In 1904 the Spanish government agreed with France to carry
another line to the mouth of an international tunnel through the
Pyrenees. Industries are in a more backward condition than in
any other province of Catalonia, despite the abundance of water-power.
There are, however, many saw-mills, flour-mills, and
distilleries of alcohol and liqueurs, besides a smaller number of
cotton and linen factories, paper-mills, soap-works, and oil and
leather factories. Zinc, lignite and common salt are mined, but
the output is small and of slight value. There is a thriving trade
in wine, oil, wool, timber, cattle, mules, horses and sheep, but
agriculture is far less prosperous than in the maritime provinces
of Catalonia. Lérida (q.v.) is the capital (pop. 21,432), and
the only town with more than 5000 inhabitants. Séo de
Urgel, near the headwaters of the Segre, is a fortified city
which has been an episcopal see since 840, and has had a
close historical connexion with Andorra (q.v.). Solsona, on a
small tributary of the Cardoner, which flows through Barcelona
to the Mediterranean, is the Setelix of the Romans, and contains
in its parish church an image of the Virgin said to possess
miraculous powers, and visited every year by many hundreds
of pilgrims. Cervera, on a small river of the same name,
contains the buildings of a university which Philip V. established
here in 1717. This university had originally been founded at
Barcelona in the 15th century, and was reopened there in 1842.
In character, and especially in their industry, intelligence and
keen local patriotism, the inhabitants of Lérida are typical
Catalans. (See Catalonia.)
LÉRIDA, the capital of the Spanish province of Lérida, on the
river Segre and the Barcelona-Saragossa and Lérida-Tarragona
railways. Pop. (1900) 21,432. The older parts of the city, on
the right bank of the river, are a maze of narrow and crooked
streets, surrounded by ruined walls and a moat, and commanded
by the ancient citadel, which stands on a height overlooking
the plains of Noguera on the north and of Urgel on the south.
On the left bank, connected with the older quarters by a fine
