sections and to command the westward approaches by the valley of Charbonnières.
Lyons is the headquarters of the XIV. army-corps, the seat of an archbishop who holds the title of primate of the Gauls and also that of archbishop of Vienne, and of a prefect, a court of appeal, a court of assizes, tribunals of commerce and of first instance, and of two boards of trade arbitration (conseils de prud’hommes). It is the centre of an académie (educational division) and has a university with faculties of law, letters, science and medicine and pharmacy. There are also Catholic faculties (facultés libres) of law, theology, science and letters, three lycées, training colleges for teachers and numerous minor educational establishments. There are besides many special schools at Lyons, the more important being the school of fine arts which was founded in the 18th century to train competent designers for the textile manufactures, but has also done much for painting and sculpture; an army medical school, schools of drawing, agriculture, music, commerce (école supérieure de commerce), weaving, tanning, watch-making and applied chemistry, and the écoles La Martinière for free instruction in science and art as applied to industry. The veterinary school, instituted in 1761, was the first of its kind in Europe; its laboratory for the study of comparative physiology is admirably equipped. Besides the Académie des Sciences, Belles Lettres et Arts (founded in 1700), Lyons possesses societies of agriculture, natural history, geography, horticulture, &c.
Its trade in silk and silk goods has formed the basis of the prosperity
of Lyons for several centuries. Derived from Italy, this industry
rapidly developed, thanks to the monopoly granted to the
city in 1450 by Charles VII. and to the patronage of
Francis I., Henry II. and Henry IV. From time to time
Industry
and trade.
new kinds of fabrics were invented—silk stuffs woofed with
wool or with gold and silver threads, shawls, watered silks, poplins,
velvets, satinades, moires, &c. In the beginning of the 19th century
J. M. Jacquard 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 “cartoons” 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. Towards the middle of the 19th century the weaving
branch of the industry began to desert Lyons for the surrounding
districts. The city remains the business centre for the trade and
carries on dyeing, printing and other accessory processes. Lyons
disputes with Milan the position of the leading silk market of Europe.
In 1905 the special office (la Condition des soies) which determines
the weight of the silk examined over 4700 tons of silk. France
furnished barely one-tenth of this quantity, two-thirds came from
China and Japan, the rest from Italy and the Levant. The traders
of Lyons re-export seven-twelfths of these silks, the industries of the
town employing the remainder. An almost equal quantity of cotton,
wool and waste-silk threads is mixed with the silk. A few thousand
hand-looms are still worked in the town, more especially producing
the richest materials, 50,000 or 55,000 in the surrounding districts,
and some 33,000 machine looms in the suburbs and neighbouring
departments. Allied industries such as dyeing, finishing and printing,
employ 12,000 workers. Altogether 300,000 workpeople depend
upon the silk industry. In 1905 the total value of the manufacture
was £15,710,000, the chief items being pure silk textures (plain)
£3,336,000; textures of silk mixed with other materials £3,180,000;
silk and foulards £1,152,000; muslins £3,800,000, this product
having increased from £100,000 in 1894. Speaking roughly the raw
material represents half the value, and the value of the labour the
remaining half. About 30% of the silk goods of Lyons finds a
market in France. Great Britain imported them to the value of
over £6,000,000, and the United States to the value of over £1,600,000,
notwithstanding the heavy duty. The dyeing industry and the
manufacture of chemicals have both developed considerably to meet
the requirements of the silk trade. Large quantities of mineral and
vegetable colouring matters are produced and there is besides a large
output of glue, gelatine, superphosphates and phosphorus, all made
from bones and hides, of picric, tartaric, sulphuric and hydrochloric
acids, sulphates of iron and copper, and pharmaceutical and other
chemical products.
Lyons does a large trade in metals, iron, steel and copper, and utilizes them in the manufacture of iron buildings, framework, bridges, machinery, railway material, scales, metal cables, pins and needles, copper-founding and the making of clocks and bronzes. Gold and silver-working is of importance, especially for embroidery and articles used in religious ceremonies. Other industries are those of printing, the manufacture of glass goods, of tobacco (by the state), the preparation of hides and skins (occupying 20,000 workmen), those connected with the miller’s trade, the manufacture of various forms of dried flour-paste (macaroni, vermicelli, &c.), brewing, hat-making, the manufacture of chocolate, and the pork-butcher’s industry. Apart from the dealings in silk and silk goods, trade is in cloth, coal and charcoal, metals and metal goods, wine and spirits, cheese and chestnuts. Four miles south-west of Lyons is Oullins (pop. 9859) which has the important works of the Paris-Lyon railway.
Lyons is the seat of important financial companies; of the Crédit Lyonnais, which does business to the amount of £200,000,000 annually in Lyons alone; also of coal and metallurgical companies and gas companies, the former extending their operations as far as Russia, the latter lighting numerous towns in France and foreign countries.
History.—The earliest Gallic occupants of the territory at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône were the Segusians. In 59 B.C. some Greek refugees from the banks of the Hérault, having obtained permission of the natives to establish themselves beside the Croix-Rousse, called their new town by the Gallic name Lugudunum (q.v.) or Lugdunum; and in 43 B.C. Lucius Munatius Plancus brought a Roman colony to Fourvières from Vienne. This settlement soon acquired importance, and was made by Agrippa the 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. At the same time the place became the Gallic centre for the worship of Rome and the emperor. Under the emperors the colony of Forum Vetus and the municipium of Lugdunum were united, receiving the jus senatus. The town was burnt in A.D. 59 and afterwards rebuilt in a much finer style with money given by Nero; it was also adorned by Trajan, Adrian and Antoninus. The martyrdom of Pothinus and Blandina occurred under Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 177), and some years later a still more savage persecution of the Christians took place under Septimius Severus, in which Irenaeus, according to some authors, perished.
After having been ravaged by the barbarians and abandoned by the empire, Lyons in 478 became capital of the kingdom of the Burgundians. It afterwards fell into the hands of the Franks, and suffered severely from the Saracens, but revived under Charlemagne, and after the death of Charles the Bald became part of the kingdom of Provence. From 1032 it was a fief of the emperor of Germany. Subsequently the authority over the town was a subject of dispute between the archbishops of Lyons and the counts of Forez; but the supremacy of the French kings was established under Philip the Fair in 1312. The citizens were constituted into a commune ruled by freely elected consuls (1320). In the 13th century two ecclesiastical councils were held at Lyons—one in 1245, presided over by Innocent IV., at which the emperor Frederick II. was deposed; the second, the œcumenical, under the presidency of Gregory X., in 1274, at which five hundred bishops met. Pope Clement V. was crowned here in 1305, and his successor, John XXII., elected in 1316. The Protestants obtained possession of the place in 1562; their acts of violence were fiercely avenged in 1572 after the St Bartholomew massacre. Under Henry III. Lyons sided with the League; but it pronounced in favour of Henry IV. The executions of Henri d’Effiat, marquis of Cinq-Mars, and of François de Thou, who had plotted to overthrow Richelieu, took place on the Place des Terreaux in 1642. In 1793 the Royalists and Girondists, powerful in the city, rose against the Convention, but were compelled to yield to the army of the republic under General Kellermann after enduring a siege of seven weeks (October 10). Terrible chastisement ensued: the name of Lyons was changed to that of Ville-affranchie; the demolition of its buildings was set about on a wholesale scale; and vast numbers of the proscribed, whom the scaffold had spared, were butchered with grape shot. The town resumed its old name after the fall of Robespierre, and the terrorists in their turn were drowned in large numbers in the Rhone. Napoleon rebuilt the Place Bellecour, reopened the churches, and made the bridge of Tilsit over the Saône between Bellecour and the cathedral. In 1814 and 1815 Lyons was occupied by the Austrians. In 1831, 1834, 1849, 1870 and 1871 it was the scene of violent industrial or political disturbances. In 1840 and 1856 disastrous floods laid waste portions of the city. International exhibitions were held here in 1872 and 1894, the latter occasion being marked by the assassination of President Carnot.
See S. Charléty, Histoire de Lyon (Lyon, 1903); J. Godart, L’Ouvrier en soie. Monographie du tisseur lyonnais (Lyon, 1899); A. Vachet, A travers les rues de Lyon (Lyon, 1902); A. Steyert, Nouvelle Histoire de Lyon et des provinces de Lyonnais Forez, Beaujolais (3 vols., Lyon, 1895–1899).
LYONS, COUNCILS OF. The first Council of Lyons (the thirteenth general council) met at the summons of Pope Innocent
