Lyons

Lyons (Fr. Lyon), a city of eastern France, capital of the department of Rhône, 315 m. S.S.E. of Paris and 218 m. N. by W. of Marseilles on the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906) town, 430,186; commune, 472,114. Lyons, which in France is second only to Paris in commercial and military importance, is situated at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône at an altitude of 540 to 1000 ft. above sea-level. The rivers, both flowing south, are separated on the north by the hill on which lies the populous working quarter of Croix-Rousse, then by the narrow tongue of land ending in the Perrache Quarter. The peninsula thus formed is over 3 m. long and from 650 to 1000 yds. broad. It is traversed lengthwise by the finest streets of the city, the rue de la République, the rue de l’Hôtel de Ville, and the rue Victor Hugo. Where it enters Lyons the Saône has on its right the faubourg of Vaise and on its left that of Serin, whence the ascent is made to the top of the hill of Croix-Rousse. Farther on, its right bank is bordered by the scarped heights of Fourvière, St Irénée, Ste Foy, and St Just, leaving room only for the quays and one or two narrow streets; this is the oldest part of the city. The river sweeps in a semicircle around this eminence (410 ft. above it), which is occupied by convents, hospitals and seminaries, and has at its summit the famous church of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, the resort of many thousands of pilgrims annually.

On the peninsula between the rivers, at the foot of the hill of Croix-Rousse, are the principal quarters of the town: the Terreaux, containing the hôtel de ville, and the chief commercial establishments; the wealthy residential quarter, centring round the Place Bellecour, one of the finest squares in France; and the Perrache. The Rhone and Saône formerly met on the site of this quarter, till, in the 18th century, the sculptor Perrache reclaimed it; on the peninsula thus formed stands the principal railway station, the Gare de Perrache with the Cours du Midi, the most extensive promenade in Lyons, stretching in front of it. Here, too, are the docks of the Saône, factories, the arsenal, gas-works and prisons. The Rhone, less confined than the Saône, flows swiftly in a wide channel, broken when the water is low in spring by pebbly islets. On the right hand it skirts first St Clair, sloping upwards to Croix-Rousse, and then the districts of Terreaux, Bellecour and Perrache; on the left it has a low-lying plain, occupied by the Parc de la Tête d’Or and the quarters of Brotteaux and Guillotière. The park, together with its lake, comprises some 285 acres, and contains a zoological collection, botanical and pharmaceutical gardens, and the finest greenhouses in France, with unique collections of orchids, palm-trees and Cycadaceae. It is defended from the Rhone by the Quai de la Tête d’Or, while on the east the railway line to Geneva separates it from the race-course. Brotteaux is a modern residential quarter. Guillotière to the south consists largely of workmen’s dwellings, bordering wide, airy thoroughfares. To the east extend the manufacturing suburbs of Villeurbanne and Montchat. The population, displaced by the demolition of the lofty old houses and the widening of the streets on the peninsula, migrates to the left bank of the Rhone, the extension of the city into the plain of Dauphiné being unhindered.

The Rhone and the Saône are bordered by fine quays and crossed by 24 bridges—11 over the Rhone, 12 over the Saône, and 1 at the confluence. Of these the Pont du Change over the Saône and the Pont de la Guillotière over the Rhone have replaced medieval bridges, the latter of the two preserving a portion of the old structure.

Of the ancient buildings Notre-Dame de Fourvière is the most celebrated. The name originally applied to a small chapel built in the 9th century on the site of the old forum (forum vetus) from which it takes its name. It has been often Public Buildings. rebuilt, the chief feature being a modern Romanesque tower surmounted by a cupola and statue of the Virgin. In 1872 a basilica was begun at its side in token of the gratitude of the city for having escaped occupation by the German troops. The building, finished in 1894, consists of a nave without aisles flanked at each exterior corner by a turret and terminating in an apse. The façade, the lower half of which is a lofty portico supported on four granite columns, is richly decorated on its upper half with statuary and sculpture. Marble and mosaic have been lavishly used in the ornamentation of the interior and of the crypt. Round the apse runs a gallery from which, according to an old custom, a benediction is pronounced upon the town annually on the 8th of September. From this gallery a magnificent view of the city and the surrounding country can be obtained. At the foot of the hill of Fourvière rises the cathedral of St Jean, one of the finest examples of early Gothic architecture in France. Begun in the 12th century, to the end of which the transept and choir belong, it was not finished till the 15th century, the gable and flanking towers of the west front being completed in 1480. A triple portal surmounted by a line of arcades and a rose window gives entrance to the church. Two additional towers, that to the north containing one of the largest bells in France, rise at the extremities of the transept. The nave and choir contain fine stained glass of the 13th and 14th centuries as well as good modern glass. The chapel of St Louis or of Bourbon, to the right of the nave, is a masterpiece of Flamboyant Gothic. To the right and left of the altar stand two crosses preserved since the council of 1274 as a symbol of the union then agreed upon between the Greek and Latin churches. Adjoining St Jean is the ancient Manécanterie or singers’ house, much mutilated and frequently restored, but still preserving graceful Romanesque arcades along its front. St Martin d’Ainay, on the peninsula, is the oldest church in Lyons, dating from the beginning of the 6th century and subsequently attached to a Benedictine abbey. It was rebuilt in the 10th and 11th centuries and restored in modern times, and is composed of a nave with four aisles, a transept and choir terminating in three semicircular apses ornamented with paintings by Hippolyte Flandrin, a native of Lyons. The church is surmounted by two towers, one in the middle of the west front, the other at the crossing; the four columns supporting the latter are said to have come from an altar to Augustus. A mosaic of the 12th century, a high altar decorated with mosaic work and a beautifully carved confessional are among the works of art in the interior. St Nizier, in the heart of the city, was the first cathedral of Lyons; and the crypt in which St Pothinus officiated still exists. The present church is a Gothic edifice of the 15th century, with the exception of the porch, constructed by Philibert Delorme, a native of Lyons, in the 16th century. The Church of St Paul (12th and 15th centuries), situated on the right bank of the Saône, preserves an octagonal central tower and other portions of Romanesque architecture; that of St Bonaventure, originally a chapel of the Cordeliers, was rebuilt in the 15th and 19th centuries. With the exception of the imposing prefecture, the vast buildings of the faculties, which are in the Guillotière quarter, and the law court, the colonnade of which overlooks the Saône from its right bank, the chief civil buildings are in the vicinity of the Place des Terreaux. The east side of this square (so called from the terreaux or earth with which the canal formerly connecting the Rhone and the Saône hereabouts was filled) is formed by the hôtel de ville (17th century), the east façade of which, towards the Grand Theatre, is the more pleasing. The south side of the square is occupied by the Palais des Arts, built in the 17th century as a Benedictine convent and now accommodating the school of fine arts, the museums of painting and sculpture, archaeology and natural history, and the library of science, arts and industry. The museums are second in importance only to those of Paris. The collection of antiquities, rich in Gallo-Roman inscriptions, contains the bronze tablets discovered in 1528, on which is engraved a portion of a speech delivered in A.D. 48, by the emperor Claudius, advocating the admission of citizens of Gallia Comata to the Roman senate. The “Ascension,” a masterpiece of Perugino, is the chief treasure of the art collection, in which are works by nearly all the great masters. A special gallery contains the works of artists of Lyons, among whom are numbered Antoine Berjon, Meissonier, Paul Chenavard, Puvis de Chavannes. In the Rue de la République, between the Place de la Bourse and the Place des Cordeliers, each of which contains one of its highly ornamented fronts, stands the Palais du Commerce et de la Bourse, the finest of the modern buildings of Lyons. The Bourse (exchange) has its offices on the ground floor round the central glass-roofed hall; the upper storeys accommodate the commercial tribunal, the council of trade arbitration, the chamber of commerce and the Musée historique des Tissus, in which the history of the weaving industry is illustrated by nearly 400,000 examples. In the buildings of the lycée on the right bank of the Rhone are the municipal library and a collection of globes, among them the great terrestrial globe made at Lyons in 1701, indicating the great African lakes.

The Hôtel Dieu, instituted according to tradition in the beginning of the 6th century by King Childebert, is still one of the chief charitable establishments in the city. The present building dates from the 18th century; its façade, fronting the west quay of the Rhone for over 1000 ft., was begun according to the designs of Soufflot, architect of the Pantheon at Paris. The Hospice de la Charité and the military hospital are on the same bank slightly farther down stream. The Hospice de l’Antiquaille, at Fourvière, occupies the site of the palace of the praetorian prefects, in which Germanicus, Claudius and Caracalla were born. Each of these hospitals contains more than 1000 beds. Lyons has many other benevolent institutions, and is also the centre of the operations of the Société de la Propagation de la Foi. The chief monuments are the equestrian statue of Louis XIV. in the Place Bellecour, the monuments of President Carnot, Marshal Suchet, the physicist André-Marie Ampère, and those in honour of the Republic and in memory of the citizens of the department who fell in the war of 1870-71. The most noteworthy fountain is that in the Place des Terreaux with the leaden group by Bartholdi representing the rivers on their way to the ocean.

There are Roman remains—baths, tombs and the relics of a theatre—in the St Just quarter on the right bank of the Saône. Three ancient aqueducts on the Fourvière level, from Montromant, Mont d’Or and Mont Pilat, can still be traced. Magnificent remains of the latter work may be seen at St Irénée and Chaponost. Traces also exist along the Rhone of a subterranean canal conveying the water of the river to a naumachia (lake for mimic sea-fights). Agrippa made Lyons the starting-point of the principal Roman roads throughout Gaul; and it remains an important centre in the general system of communication owing to its position on the natural highway from north to south-eastern France. The Saône above the town and the Rhone below have large barge and steamboat traffic. The main line of the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway runs first through the station at Vaise, on the right bank of the Saône, and thence to that of Perrache, the chief station in the city. The line next in importance, that to Geneva, has its station in the Brotteaux quarter, and the line of the eastern Lyonnais to St Genix d’Aoste has a terminus at Guillotière; both these lines link up with the Paris-Lyon main line. The railway to Montbrison starts from the terminus of St Paul in Fourvière and that to Bourg, Trévoux and the Dombes region from the station of Croix-Rousse. A less important line to Vaugneray and Mornant has a terminus at St Just. Besides the extensive system of street tramways, cable tramways (ficelles) run to the summits of the eminences cf Croix-Rousse, Fourvière and St Just.

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.