Autun

Autun, a town in the French department of Saône-et-Loire, in the Burgundian district of Autnois, situated on the river Arronx, 31 miles NW. of Châlon by rail. It is the seat of a bishop, and has a fine cathedral (12th century, restored 1865), college, museum, and library, and many ruins of Roman temples, gates, triumphal arches, and other antiquities. Cloth, carpets, and velvet are manufactured, and there is an active trade in horses, corn, and wood. Autun was the ancient Augustodunum, and has been by many identified with the earlier Bibracte, the chief city of the Ædui, though it seems more likely that the site of the latter was Beauvray, 10 miles distant. Under the Romans it became a famous school of eloquence. It was destroyed by Tetricus in 270 A.D., but was rebuilt by Constantine the Great. It was burned and pillaged by the Vandals in 406, Burgundians in 414, Huns in 451, Franks in 539, and Saracens in 739, and nearly destroyed by the Normans in 895. In 1379 it was burned by the English. At the Council of Autun (1094), King Philip I. was excommunicated for divorcing his queen, Bertha. The famous Talleyrand was bishop of the diocese, and here Macmahon was born. Pop. 13,593.