two dry docks, 426 ft. long, with a depth on the sill of over 32 ft. There are several building slips, and the yard is supplied with a gun foundry and wharf, fitting-shops, boiler works, victualling and other establishments, rolling mills and magazines. Le Mourillon is a subsidiary yard at Toulon, devoted chiefly to ship-building, and possessing large facilities, including five covered slips.
The Roman Telo Martius is supposed to have stood near the lazaretto. The town was successively sacked by Goths, Burgundians, Franks and Saracens. During the early middle ages, and till conquered by Charles of Anjou in 1259, it was under lords of its own, and entered into alliance with the republics of Marseilles and Arles. St Louis, and especially Louis XII. and Francis I. strengthened its fortifications. It was seized by the emperor Charles V. in 1524 and 1536. Henry IV. founded a naval arsenal at Toulon, which was further strengthened by Richelieu, and Vauban made the new dock, a new enceinte, and several forts and batteries. In 1707 the town was unsuccessfully besieged by the duke of Savoy, Prince Eugene and an English fleet. In 1720 there was an outbreak of the plague. In 1792 after great and sanguinary disorder, the royalists of the town sought the support of the English and Spanish fleets cruising in the neighbourhood. The Convention having replied by putting the town “hors la lei,” the inhabitants opened their harbour to the English. The army of the republic now (1793) laid siege to the town, and on this occasion Napoleon Bonaparte first made his name as a soldier. The forts commanding the town having been taken, the English ships retired after setting fire to the arsenal. The conflagration was extinguished by the prisoners, but not before 38 out of a total of 56 vessels had been destroyed. Under the Directory Toulon became the most important French military fort on the Mediterranean; here Napoleon organized the Egyptian campaign, and the expedition against Algiers set out from Toulon in 1830. The fortifications have been strengthened by Napoleon I., Louis Philippe, Napoleon III., and since 1870.
Battle of Toulon.—This naval battle took place on the 11th of February 1744, near the port of Toulon. A British fleet of thirty sail of the line under command of Thomas Mathews, who combined the offices of naval commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean and envoy to the courts of Sardinia and the Italian princes, engaged a combined force of Spaniards under Don José Navarro and French under M. de Court. They were in all twenty-seven sail. The allies left Toulon on the 9th of February. Mathews was at anchor in Hyéres Bay to watch them, for though France and Great Britain were already engaged as allies on opposite sides in the War of the Austrian Succession, there had been no declaration of war between them. It was known that the allies meant to transfer Spanish troops to Italy to serve against the Austrians, and Mathews had no hesitation in attacking them, Great Britain being at war with Spain. He left Hyères in very light wind with a heavy westerly swell, and with his fleet in confusion. The British ships were straggling over a distance of ten miles, but he put himself between the enemy and Toulon. Mathews was on bad terms with his second in command, Lestock, who commanded the rear division and showed little disposition to support his superior. By the morning of the 11th the interval between the van and centre of the British fleet and its rear had increased in the light breezes, and also through the voluntary or involuntary misapprehension of Mathews's orders by Lestock. The allies were in a fairly well-formed line, heading to the south, and southward of the British. Mathews pursued, and at 1.30 p.m., when his leading ship was abreast of the centre ship of the allies, he attacked. Some hot fighting took place between Mathews and the Spaniards who formed the allied rear. The action was notable as the last occasion on which an attempt was made to use a fireship on the open sea. One was sent against the “Real” (114), the Spanish flagship, but she was reduced to a sinking state by the fire of the Spaniards, and blew up prematurely, with the loss of all on board. At about five o'clock, the French in the van turned back to support the Spaniards, and Mathews drew off. One Spanish ship, the “Poder” (60), which had surrendered was recaptured, and then set on fire by the allies. Mathews made only a feeble attempt to renew the battle on the following days, and on the 13th returned towards the coast of Italy, which he said he had to defend. The British rear division had not come into action at all.
The battle, though a miserable affair in itself, is of great importance in naval history because of the pronouncement of doctrine to which it led. Mathews, who was dissatisfied with his subordinate, Lestock. suspended him from command and sent him home for trial. Several of the captains had behaved ill, and the failure of a superior British fleet to gain a success over the allies caused extreme discontent at home. A parliamentary inquiry was opened on the 12th of March 1745, which on the 18th of April, after a confused investigation, ended in a petition to the king to order trials by court-martial of all the officers accused of misconduct. A long series of courts-martial began on the 11th of September 1745, and did not end till the 22nd of October 1746. Several captains were sentenced to be dismissed the service. Lestock was acquitted, but Mathews was condemned and sentenced to dismissal. The finding of the court, which blamed the officer who actually fought, and acquitted the other who did not, puzzled and angered public opinion. The technical points were not appreciated by laymen. The real evil done by the condemnation of Mathews was not understood even in the navy. Mathews was blamed on the ground that he had not waited to engage till his van ship was abreast of the van ship of the enemy. By this declaration of principle the court confirmed the formal system of naval tactics which rendered all sea-fighting between equal or nearly equal forces so ineffective for two generations.
See Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs, i. 197 seq. (London, 1804), a full and fair narrative. ( D. H.)
TOULOUSE, LOUIS ALEXANDRE DE BOURBON, Count of
(1678–1737), third son of Louis XIV. and Mme de Montespan
was born on the 6th of June 1678. At the age of five he was
created admiral of France. He distinguished himself during
the War of the Spanish Succession, and inflicted a severe
defeat on Admiral Rooke near Malaga in 1704. He kept
aloof from the intrigues of his sister-in-law, the duchess of
Maine, and died on the 1st of December 1737. His son, Louis
Jean Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthievre (1725–1793), succeeded
his father in his posts, among others in that of grand admiral.
He served under Marshal de Noailles, and fought brilliantly
at Dettingen (1743) and Fontenoy (1745). He then lived in
retreat at Rambouillet and Sceaux, protecting men of letters,
and particularly the poet Florian, and dispensing charity.
He lost his son, the prince of Lamballe, in 1768, and survived
his daughter-in-law, Louise Marie Therese of Savoy-Carignan,
the friend of Marie Antoinette, who was killed by the populace
on the 3rd of September 1792. He died on the 4th of March
1793; his daughter and heiress, Louise Marie Adelaide, married
Philippe (Égalité), duke of Orleans.
TOULOUSE, a city of south-western France, capital of the department of Haute-Garonne, 443 m. S. by W. of Paris by the Orleans railway, and 159 m. S.E. of Bordeaux by the Southern railway. Pop. (1906), town, 125,856; commune, 149,438. Toulouse is situated on the right bank of the Garonne, which here changes a north-easterly for a north-westerly direction, describing a curve round which the city extends in the form of a crescent. On the left bank is the suburb of St Cyprien, which is exposed to the inundations of the river owing to its low situation. The river is spanned by three bridges—that
of St Pierre to the north, that of St Michel to the south, and the Pont Neuf in the centre; the last, a fine structure of seven arches was begun in 1543 by Nicolas Bachelier, the sculptor, whose work is to be seen in many of the churches and mansions of the city. East and north of the city runs the Canal du Midi, which here joins the lateral canal of the Garonne. Between the Canal du Midi and the city proper extends a long line of boulevards leading southwards by the Allee St Etienne to the Grand Rond, a promenade whence a series of allees branch out in all directions. South-west the Allee St Michel leads towards the Garonne, and south the Grande Allee towards the Faubourg St Michel. These boulevards take the place of the old city
walls. Between them and the canal lie the more modern faubourgs of St Pierre, Arnaud-Bernard, Matabiau, &c. The Place du Capitole, to which streets converge from every side, occupies the centre of the city. Two broad straight thoroughfares of modern construction, the Rue de Metz and the Rue d'Alsace-Lorraine, intersect one another to the south of this point, the first running east from the Pont Neuf, the other running north and south. The other streets are for the most part narrow and irregular.
The most interesting building in Toulouse is the church of St Sernin or Saturnin, whom legend represents as the first preacher of the gospel in Toulouse, where he was perhaps martyred about the middle of the 3rd century. The choir, the oldest part of the oldest part of the
