Cities of the Dawn

CHAPTER XIX

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 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 19,00 °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.

CHAPTER XX

DIJON, OR THE WINE COUNTRY

As an illustration of what a French provincial town is in the way of hotels, I would take Dijon, where I stopped a night on my way from Lyons to Paris. From Marseilles to Dijon the country is interesting, giving fine views of the valley of the Loire and hills and mountains far away. From thence to Paris the ride is uninteresting. I suppose a great many people stop at Dijon, as it abounds in magnificent hotels, all of which seem to flourish. I put up at the Hôtel de Jura, close to the railway-station, and I feel as proud as a lord as I enjoy the luxury of that well-appointed hotel. My bedroom is delicious, very unlike that of an English hotel. Everyone in the house seems smiling and civil. The dining-room is large and lofty, the cuisine is excellent, and the smoking-room is elegantly furnished, as much so as a drawing-room in England. I feel that I am in France, and that there they manage better than they do with us. I go into the shop, and the shopkeeper and his men all wear the blue blouse of the country. If I buy anything, it is done up for me in the most careful manner, and so profuse are the thanks of the shopkeeper and his wife that I leave with a feeling that my visit has been a real benefit to the town.