St Étienne

St Étienne, one of the most important industrial towns in France, stands (dept. Loire) on a tributary of the Loire, 36 miles by rail SW. of Lyons and 312 SSE. of Paris. It is built in the midst of the second largest coalfield of France (the largest is that of Valenciennes in the north), in which some 17,000 men are employed, and from which 3,000,000 tons of coal are extracted annually. The town, which looks thoroughly grimy, has few buildings of interest; but a school of mines (1816), a national small-arms factory (1764), a gallery of art, an artillery and a commercial museum may be mentioned. The chief industries are in iron and steel and in ribbons. Its hardware workshops employ more than 20,000 workpeople, and turn out steel and iron plates, gun-armour, iron masts, large castings for machinery, firearms, locks, cutlery, files, nails, tools, &c. The government small-arms factory (4000 men) has since the period of the Revolution supplied nearly all the muskets and rifles and revolvers for the army. Some 40,000 persons, mostly hand-workers in their own homes, are engaged in the town and its vicinity in making ribbons, laces, fringes, and similar ornamental work. The production of ribbons is valued at £3,760,000 for a single year, and of this some £2,740,000 worth is exported. Besides these branches of industry, hats, pottery, and hemp cables are made. Pop. (1800) 16,000; (1851) 53,741; (1876) 126,019; (1891) 133,443. The coal-mines began to be worked in the 14th century, but only on an extensive scale in the end of the 18th. The town was twice captured by the Huguenots, in 1563 and 1570, and between this last date and 1629 it suffered terribly on three occasions from the plague. The first railways in France were built from St Étienne, one in 1828 to Andrezieu, the other in 1831 to Lyons.