THE GREAT CITY OF LYONS.
In one of the first books which used to be placed in the hands of young
people when I was a lad—Fox’s ‘Book of Martyrs’—we get rather an
unpleasant idea of Lyons. ‘There,’ writes old Fox, ‘the martyrs were
condemned to sit in iron chains till their flesh broiled. Some were sewn
up in nets and thrown on the horns of wild bulls, and the carcases of
those who died in prison previous to the time of execution were thrown to
dogs. Indeed, so far did the malice of pagans proceed that they set
guards over the bodies while the beasts were devouring them, lest the
friends of the deceased should get them by stealth, and the offal not
devoured by the dogs was ordered to be burnt.’ After this we get a
little indignant as we turn to Gibbon, and read of the mild and
beneficent spirit of the ancient polytheism, which seems to find such
favour in his eyes. To-day all is changed. Christians, in the shape of
Roman Catholics, have it all their own way; yet one of the handsomest
places of worship I saw was that of the Reformed Church. One of the
earliest reformers, Waldo, the leader of the Albigenses, was born at
Lyons.
The McAll Mission is doing a good work at Lyons, though in some districts
they have to report a falling off. They seek to get hold of the
children, but they find in this respect the priests are as active as
themselves. By means of the _œuvres de patronage_ founded by the
Catholics many of the children are drawn away. In one of the immense
remote suburbs of Lyons the mothers’ meeting plays an important part in
the work of evangelization. In many quarters Bible-readings have been
found to be very successful, and there is a Y.M.C.A., to which many young
men belong. As a rule, French Protestantism is not aggressive, else it
would not be what it is to-day. Still, during the last few years the
churches have waked up wonderfully, and much good has been the result.
Be this as it may, Lyons is the finest city next to Paris that France can
boast of. It has a population of about half a million, and the Rhone
runs through it, adding much to its picturesqueness, as its banks are
lined with stately houses and offices and shops. There are some twenty
bridges over the river, most of them very handsome. At night you seem a
little lonely as you watch the long rows of lamps that glitter along the
banks. But by day the picture is reversed: there is busy life
everywhere, and so clean and handsome are the buildings that you can
scarcely realize that Lyons is planted with silk-mills, and that, in
fact, it is the centre of the great silk trade of France. The trees,
planted everywhere on the quays, which are used as promenades, make it a
very charming residence.
Lyons has a very ancient history. It was adorned by successive Roman
Emperors, and became the capital of Gaul. It was the principal mart for
the Western provinces of the Empire. Agrippa made it the starting-point
for four great military roads that traversed Gaul. Suddenly it
disappeared. As Seneca writes: ‘There was but one night between a great
city and nothing.’ Aided by Nero, however, it speedily rose from its
ashes. The city fared badly in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
Alaric, the scourge of God, sacked it. In 571 the Lombards ravaged it;
in 715 the Saracens appeared, and left it a heap of ruins. Under
Charlemagne it became a city of light and learning. Towards the end of
the ninth century it came under the rule of the Archbishops and Chapter
of St. John. In 1312 Philip le Bel annexed the city to France. The
Lyons of to-day is a stately city, splendidly situated at the junction of
the Rhone and the Saone—a junction which gave the great Pitt a fine
passage in one of his finest speeches.
The Lyonnais, says the writer of an excellent account of Lyons in
Cassell’s ‘Cities of the World,’ think the Place Bellecour the finest
square in Europe. It is planted with trees, and ornamented with basins
and fountains and two elegant pavilions, and is a very favourite
promenade of the people of Lyons, especially when the military band
plays. According to some, the name is derived from _bella curia_, and
denotes the site of a Roman tribunal. In the Middle Ages the Place was a
muddy swamp, often covered by the waters of the Rhone; it was gradually
drained and improved by the Consulate, and surrounded with fine
buildings. After the Peace of Utrecht, a bronze statue of Louis le
Grand—the King who, by revoking the Edict of Nantes, nearly ruined Lyons,
to please the Maintenon and her Jesuit [Picture: The Place Belleour,
Lyons. (From Cassell’s ‘Cities of the World.’)] friends—was set up in
the centre. At the Revolution of 1792 the statue was pulled down and
broken up. Some proposed simply to replace the King’s head with a head
of Brutus, but the multitude would not hear of it. On this spot perished
some of the first victims of the fusillade in the terrible siege by the
Republican army in the following year. When the siege was over, Couthon
set his troop of _démolisseurs_ to work, and the beautiful façades of the
Place Bellecour were soon irretrievably ruined, and the subsequent
erections have not reproduced the monumental character of the original
buildings. The Place was still covered with débris when, in April, 1805,
the populace of the city, upon their knees, received the blessing of Pope
Pius VII., who was then in France as the half-guest, half-prisoner, of
Napoleon. On March 11, 1815, the Orleans princes hastened from the town
as the advance guard of Napoleon, returning from Elba, was crossing the
Pont de la Guillotière. On the morrow the Emperor reviewed 15,000
soldiers in the Place Bellecour, amidst the acclamations of the populace.
But the Empire passed away, and in 1825 the restored King placed a second
statue of Louis XIV. in the centre of the Place.
Churches abound in Lyons. One of them, that of St. Nizien, in memory of
a bishop of that name, is placed on the spot where one of its martyr
bishops, St. Pothinus, assembled his flock. It has been rebuilt many
times, and is interesting not only as the cradle of Christianity in
Lyons—it was also the cradle of its civil liberty. Here the growing
commune met in the days of its resistance to the bishops, and the bell of
the ancient tower used to call the citizens together to elect their
magistrate. Near the Church of Ainay was the ancient Forum, where
Greeks, Orientals, Africans, Gauls, and Spaniards met to exchange the
products of their various commerce. In the Forum was an altar dedicated
to the Emperor Augustus and Rome, and near it was the Temple of Augustus.
In the church was sacredly preserved some hair of the Virgin Mary, and
part of the cradle and some of the swaddling clothes of our Saviour. In
the western part of the city, beyond the Saone, are found some very
interesting churches. St. Irénée was built by the Bishop St. Patient in
the fifth century. In the crypt is a well into which, according to
tradition, the bodies of 19,000 Christians were thrown when the Emperor
Severus revenged himself on Lyons for its adherence to the cause of
Albinus. Nearer to the river stands the Church of St. Just. In
connection with it was a vast monastery, with massive walls and towers.
In its cloisters many sovereigns found a safe asylum. Innocent IV. was
one, another was the Regent Louise, while her son Francis I. was fighting
in Italy, and here she received the famous letter after the Battle of
Pavia: ‘All is lost except honour.’
Still nearer to the river stands the Church of St. Jean Baptiste, the
Cathedral of Lyons. In one of the chapels attached to the church was
some wood of the true cross; in another is preserved the heart of St.
Vincent de Paul. The Chapter of the Cathedral of Lyons was the most
important body of clergy in France; they were thirty-two in number, all
Counts of Lyons, the rank of Premier Canon being held by the reigning
King of France. Amongst the remarkable events that have occurred here
was the Council General of 1245, when Innocent IV. hurled the thunders of
the Church against Frederick II., and where, for the first time, the
Cardinals wore the red dress to distinguish them from other prelates. In
1274 a Council General held here formed a short-lived union of the Latin
and Greek Churches. In this church Henry II., Emperor of Germany,
performed mass, in one of his efforts to desert his throne and take Holy
Orders. And here, in 1600, Henry of Navarre renewed his marriage with
Marie de Medicis. Close by is the Archiepiscopal Palace, the magnificent
apartments of which have accommodated many kings and queens and eminent
personages. Napoleon passed a night here on his return from Elba. On
that awful St. Bartholomew’s Day, in the courtyard of the Palace, 300
Protestants were murdered.
Thence you ascend by steep and narrow steps to the Church of Notre Dame,
on the hill of St. Fourvières. All round are priestly residences and
numerous shop for the sale of ecclesiastical millinery. Higher up are
the merchants who deal in rosaries, devotional pictures, medals, and wax
models of different parts of the body, for offerings in the church, when
the time comes for the multitudes of pilgrims who throng thither to
obtain pardon of sin and restoration of health. One would have thought
that an anachronism in the France of to-day; but we know how credulity
reigns rampant, in spite of the philosopher, in every nation in the
world. It was our Thomas à Becket, who spent part of an exile in Lyons,
who seems to have suggested a church on this spot. In 1643 Lyons was
ravaged by a terrible pest, and the municipality dedicated Lyons to Notre
Dame in perpetuity, and until the Revolution of 1789 the whole city
celebrated, on the Feast of the Nativity, the anniversary of the event.
Pope Pius, in 1805, superintended the rededication of the building to
Divine worship, and, amidst a grand display of flags, discharge of
cannon, and ringing of bells from the summit of the hill, blessed the
city of Lyons, as Innocent had done centuries before. In December, 1852,
Lyons was _en fête_ day and night, on the occasion of the planting of a
colossal statue of the Virgin on the top of the tower. Like ancient
Ephesus, it lived on its saints. Happily, unlike Ephesus, it stuck to
trade, and became wealthy, and populous, and great. The Quai de St.
Clair is the finest in Lyons, and was formerly the rendezvous of
merchants and foreigners, and the centre of Lyonese trade. One of the
many quays in Lyons, that known as Les Etroit, a charming promenade, is
associated with the memory of Rousseau, in the days of his youthful
poverty.
Its modern Hôtel de Ville is held to be one of the handsomest in Europe,
and that is saying a great deal when we think of Brussels or Louvain.
Its cathedral of St. Jean Baptiste took three centuries to build. The
city is one of the Roman Catholic strongholds, and to some of its
churches resort every year as many as 1,500,000 pilgrims, who obtain
similar privileges to those accorded to the devotees at Loretto.
Now that Lyons is at peace, it exports to England, America, and Russia,
manufactured silks to the amount of £18,000,000 yearly. It is to
Jacquard that it owes its silk manufacture, and a statue of him properly
graces the city. For many years it had been renowned for its
manufactures, but in 1802, a workman originally, Jacquard lived to
revolutionize the silk trade, and laid the foundation of its present
prosperity. Its workshops for the construction of machinery, its
manufactories of chemical products and coloured papers, are justly
celebrated; but it is from the production of its silk fabrics that Lyons
derives its chief fame. This industry, in which Lyons has no rival, was
first brought from Italy. Florentines, Genoese, and others, driven away
by revolutions, did for France what in after-times expatriated Frenchmen
did for other countries to which they were compelled to flee by reason of
tyranny at home. By decree of Louis XI., experienced workmen settling at
Lyons were exempt from taxes levied on other inhabitants. Twelve
thousand silk-weavers were busy at work in Lyons by the middle of the
sixteenth century. At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, it seemed
as if the silk industry was about to be annihilated. More than
three-fourths of the looms were silenced; but in the course of a couple
of generations the industry resumed its former proportions, and steadily
increased, till Lyons became _par excellence_ the city of beautiful
silks. The Lyonnese silk-weavers mostly work in their own dwellings. A
man with his family will keep from two to six or eight looms going, often
employing journeymen. The silk-merchants of Lyons, about 600 in number,
supply the patterns and the silk; there are about 40,000 looms at work in
the city and in the vicinity. Formerly, the weavers were nearly all
grouped together in the northern part of the city, but the employers, in
order to lessen the influence of the close trade organizations, have
succeeded in distributing the industry throughout the neighbouring
villages, though La Croix-Rousse still holds the lion’s share. Its silks
still maintain their prestige. The Empress of Germany last year
purchased at Lyons white silk, with flowers, birds, and foliage in
relief, at twenty-five pounds a yard, five-sixths of the price being the
actual value of the raw silk. She intended to have a dress made of it,
but it was so beautiful that she used it for a curtain. This is believed
to be the highest priced silk goods ever made. Louis XIV. paid twelve
pounds a yard for the cloth-of-gold material of which his dressing-gown
was made. Lyons has been the birthplace of many distinguished and
illustrious personages—Germanicus, and the Emperors Claudius and Marcus
Aurelius, the philosopher-king; the ruler who preferred the solitude of
the student to the splendour of the palace; the soldier who loved the
arts of peace better than the glory of war; who left to the world his
‘Meditations,’ which, even at this era of the world’s history, it does us
good to read. Another native of Lyons whose works were at one time much
read in England was J. B. Say, the famous political writer. Another of
the modern glories of Lyons was Louise Labé, the Lyons Sappho, surnamed
La Belle Cordière. Another was Roland, the great statesman, the husband
of a yet more illustrious wife. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, was one of the
victims of what Fox terms the fifth general persecution, and it is
generally supposed that the account of the persecution in Lyons was
written by him. He was beheaded in A.D. 202.
‘Lyons,’ says the Guide-Book, ‘embraced with ardour the cause of the
Revolution, and it suffered frightfully in consequence; but the Patriots
knew nothing of the dark days to come, as they formed one bright May
morning the Federation of Lyons, in which some fifty or sixty thousand of
its citizens took part. What a picture Carlyle gives us of the Lyons
guardsmen meeting at five on the Quai de Rhone, marching thence to the
Federation Field, amid waving of hats and ladies’ handkerchiefs, great
shoutings of some two hundred thousand patriot voices and hearts—the
beautiful and brave! ‘amongst whom, courting no notice, and yet notablest
of all, what queen-like figure is this, with her escort of house friends
and Champagneux, the Patriot editor? Radiant with enthusiasm are those
dark eyes in that strong Minerva face, looking dignity and earnest
joy—joy-fullest she where all is joyful! It is Roland de Platière’s
wife; that elderly Roland, King’s inspector of manufactures here, and now
likewise, by popular choice, the strictest of our new Lyons Municipals—a
man who has gained much, if worth and faculty be gain; but, above all
things, has gained to wife Philipon, the Paris engraver’s daughter.
Reader, mark that queen-like burgher woman, beautiful, graceful to the
eye, much more so to the mind.’
Lyons had a bitter awakening—famine, ruin, and despair; a long siege and
an awful doom. The cry in Paris is, ‘Lyons has rebelled against the
Republic; Lyons is no more.’ The infamous Fouché is there, and the
hangman follows. There is no end to the fusillading and filibustering,
and mangled corpses float down the Rhone. The picture is too awful; let
us draw the curtain, and think of Madame Roland, as in her grace and
glory she helped to give—alas! in vain—freedom to Lyons and to France. I
think of her as I take the train, and bid adieu to a city so splendid and
so replete with associations, some pleasant, others much the reverse.
Under the Consulate and the Empire Lyons once more rose to life and
prosperity. Bonaparte did much for the city in the way of restoration.
In 1829 General La Fayette, that mild, well-meaning, but mistaken man,
came there to receive an ovation. Once more Lyons throbbed with joy.
But its troubles were not over. In 1831 the workmen rose in revolution,
and the Duke of Orleans and Marshal Soult had to come there to put it
down. This was followed by a disastrous inundation, and in 1849, and
again in 1870, it was on the point of and was in connection with the
Commune of Paris, which had active agents there. The French _ouvrier_ is
always discontented, and has no faith in God; yet Lyons is still the
second city of France, in spite of the fact that not long since the
President of the French Republic was assassinated there.