Lyons (Fr. Lyon), the second city of France, stands at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône, by rail 315 miles SSE. of Paris and 218 N. by W. of Marseilles. The commercial and fashionable quarters of the city lie on the long narrow tongue of land between the rivers, and are connected with the suburbs beyond by more than twenty bridges. This central part of Lyons contains many narrow streets, with tall gloomy houses; but much has been done to lighten it since 1852 by the making of long straight, wide streets, and the opening up of squares. In this district stand the museum (1667), with valuable Roman antiquities, a library of 120,000 vols. and 1500 MSS., pictures by the great masters, and other art collections; the church of St Martin d'Ainay, the oldest in Lyons, going back to the 10th century; St Nizier Church, at first the cathedral, a fine 15th-century Flamboyant building, with the crypt in which St Pothinus is said to have officiated; the graceful town-house, built in 1646 and restored in 1702; the museum of arts and industry; the academy, with five faculties; the hospital, founded in the 6th century, and perhaps the oldest in France, though the present building dates only from 1773; and the arsenal. To the north lies the suburb of La Croix Rousse, where the silk-weavers dwell. Across the Saône, and on its right bank, is the steep, high suburb of Fourvières, the ancient Forum Vetus of Trajan, whose summit (410 feet) is now crowned by the church of Notre Dame (the new church begun in 1872). Here is the miracle-working image of our Lady of Fourvières that is believed to have preserved the city from the cholera in 1832, 1835, and 1850; it is visited by thousands of pilgrims annually, whose offerings cover the walls of the church. From its tower, which is surmounted by a gilded statue of the Virgin, 18 feet high, a view can be had of the distant Alps. On this elevated site too stands the church of St Irenæus, in the crypt of which are preserved what purport to be the bones of 19,000 Christian martyrs who perished in the persecution by Severus. At the foot of the hill next the Saône is the archiepiscopal cathedral of St John, of the 13th and 14th centuries, with magnificent stained-glass windows of the same date and a celebrated clock of 1598; the palace of the archbishop, who ranks as primate of France; and the law-courts. On the left bank of the Rhone, which is so low that it has to be protected with embankments to prevent it from overflowing and flooding the city, is the handsome new suburb of Les Brotteaux, termin- ated on the north by the park of the Tête-d'Or, in which are an oriental museum, a zoological collection, and a fine botanical garden; while more to the south is the squalid suburb of La Guillotière. Lyons possesses also a Roman Catholic University with three faculties, a first-class veterinary school, a school of art with 1200 pupils, of great value for the silk manufactures, a school of the industrial arts, a municipal library of 66,000 vols., a natural history and other museums, and a silk-conditioning house. The city is a fortress of the first rank, being defended by a double ring of forts. Pop. (1872) 301,868; (1891) 398,027, or, of the commune, 438,077. The staple industry is the silk; it is computed that there are in all, within the city and its environs, from 75,000 to 85,000 hand-loom and 20,000 power-loom employed in this manufacture. Raw silk is imported, principally from China (28 per cent.), Japan (24 per cent.), Italy and the Levant, and France, to the annual value of £2,124,650, and manufactured silk goods exported to the yearly value of £9,510,960; the annual production reaches in value £43,936,000. The commodities specially characteristic of the Lyons manufacture used to be heavy figured stuffs, such as velvets, satins, watered silks, plushes, moirés, and so forth; but of late years, owing to a change in taste or fashion, there has been a growing demand for lighter stuffs dyed in the piece. Silk-dyeing and printing give employment to nearly 4000 workmen; 25,000 more are engaged in the various chemical industries (dyes, starch, candles, soap), machinery-making establishments, foundries, brass-works, fancy-ware manufactories, gold and silver goods, hats, paper, mathematical instruments, and numerous minor branches. The admirable position of Lyons makes it a great emporium of trade between central and southern Europe. Besides importing silk raw and exporting it manufactured, chiefly to Great Britain and the United States, cotton is imported from America and Egypt, and a large amount of business done in cloth and linen, chestnuts, coal, charcoal, cheese, and wine and spirits. The list of notable persons born in Lyons includes Germanicus and the Roman emperors Claudius, Marcus Aurelius, and Caracalla, Jules Favre, Roland, Say, Suchet, the De Jussieux, Ampère, Recamier, Bonnet, Delorme, Meissonier, and Jacquard.
The Romans settled a colony here in 43 B.C. and made it the starting-point for their great network of highways through Gaul. It soon became the ecclesiastical metropolis of that great province and its first commercial and manufacturing town, under the name of Lugdunum. But ill fortune attended it: it was burned to the ground in 59 A.D., and again in 197; it suffered severely during the barbarian invasions; and was conquered by the Saracens in 736. Yet it was visited by gleams of glory: in 478 it was made capital of the Burgundian kingdom, and, passing to the empire in 1032, was invested with self-government and the privileges of a free imperial town. But after the condemnation of the Emperor Frederick II. at the Council of Lyons in 1245 the city reverted to the French crown. The introduction of the silk industry must be set down to the credit of Francis I. The Reformation, entering from Geneva, had a short but violent reign; the emigration of the Huguenots struck a blow at the industrial prosperity of the town from which it did not recover for some time. In 1789 the city embraced the cause of the Revolution, though royalist feeling was also strong here. In 1792 it refused obedience to the National Convention; in revenge it was besieged, captured, its buildings destroyed, its name changed (till 1794) to Ville-Affranchie, and 6000 of its citizens slain under the direction of Collot d'Herbois,
Couthon, and Fouché. The 19th century was chiefly memorable for trade riots, which sometimes, as in 1831, 1834, and 1849, assumed very formidable dimensions. Since the war of 1870 it has been known as a focus of red republicanism.
See Histories by Clerjon (4 vols. 1829-35), Beaulieu (1838), Monfalcon (8 vols. 1866-70), Metzger (9 vols. 1881-85), the topographical account by Joanne (1885), and works by Josse (1892) and Steyers (1895).