1804. J 
fon, nor the beauty and elegance of a 
. public edifice. 
St. John* is a regular Gothic building, 
mutilated and repaired from time to time, 
but (fill retaining an air of awful majetty 
unknown in molt of the other churches. 
At prefent, however, its {fpacious and lu- 
gubrious walls only ferve the purpofes of 
gallantry, and it is not unfrequently at 
once the facred temple of religion, and its 
dark recefles the theatre of connubial de- 
bauchery.t Ihe famous clock, which 
prefented a perpetual calendar, civil and 
ecclefiaftic, that marked the century, year, 
day, hour, and minute, has long been go- 
ing todecay. The afirolabe ftill remains 
well conditioned. The little chapel of 
Notre-Dame has been totally difmantled, 
and the tombs dug up to ferve the manu- 
facture of faltpetre; fo that the bones of 
the dead were literally conve:ted into the 
moft powerful inftruments of deftruction. 
This little chapel could contain but about 
fourteen or fifteen vats, which did not 
produce above a guintal a month. Such 
has been the fate of the greater part of the 
chapels and convents; one is made into a 
corn-market, another into a ftable, anda 
_ third in ruins! Before the Revolution 
Lyons contained five collegiate churches, 
thirteen parifhes, nine convents fér men, 
feven for women, and twelve chapters, of 
which principally remain only the parith 
churches and collegiates. Of the library 
and cabinet only part remains; and fo 
neglected is the library, though a public 
one, that the librarian will lock it up, and 
take the key with him to the country for 
four or five weeks together ! 
Commerce and Manufadures. 
Much has been faid of the extenfive 
commerce and riches of Lyons before the 
* The hiftorians of this church have not 
omitted to augment its grandeur and antiquity 
by the invention of pious falfehoods, equally 
as great as thofe they afcribe to the Spanifh 
authors. De Rubis, Severt, and the fathers 
Bullioud and St. Aubin, have afferted that 
this church, in the year 1245, had feventy- 
four canons, of whem one was fon of an em- 
peror, nine of kings, fourteen of dukes, 
thirty of earls, and twenty of lords ; all with- 
out any foundation in truth. 
+t The frequency of prayers in catholic 
churches renders them obnoxious to fuch 
abufes, where intrigue can b= difguifed under 
the mafk of piety, almoft at all hours of the 
day; and where married women are exempted 
from that fufpicicn which would naturally 
attend an aflignation in any other place. 
Thefe things are now indeed pretty indifferent 
to the Lyonefe, 
Sketches of the prefent State of Lyons. 
The Cathedra} Church of: 
285 
Revolution; but from its local fituation, - 
nearly furrounded by almoft inacceffible 
mountains, and on the banks of a large 
river, the rapid current of which renders 
its navigation both very difficult and dan- 
gerous, one mult doubt the authenticity 
of many reports of unbounded commerce. 
True, its pafflage to the Mediterranean is 
rapid and dangerous enough; but the re- 
turn is alfo as flow and difficult, which 
muft impede and confiderably diminith 
its trade, Nor is the paflage by land 
more eafy, as the traveller is obliged to 
pats the lower Alps going to Mariéilles. 
ft muft therefore be allowed that nature 
has fixed a limit to the extent of its com- 
merce, which art will not eafily fuperfede. 
Its manufactures indeed might be confi- 
derable; but their intimate relation with, 
and dependence on, commerce fubjeét 
them to the fame laws, and whatever em-~ 
barrafles the one will obfruét the other. 
Formerly 30,000 perfons were faid to have 
been employed, in the filk manufa@ure. 
But if fuch a number of people were oc 
cupied in one branch, unqueltionably ne- 
ceffity, if not genius, would have invented 
fome kind of machinery, fome mean of 
abridging or afiifting their labour by art. 
No fuch thing has yet appeared ; their 
rude implements of induftry (for they 
cannot be called machinery) are ftill {uch 
as were adopted in the moft uncultivated 
age. Thefe have not fuffer-d by the Ree 
volution, till lefs has it deflroyed others 
newer and better. Fo the want of ma- 
chinery may be objeéted the low price of 
labour ; but in Spain, where manual I~ 
bour has always been as low as in France, 
many grand and excellent machines are to. 
be feen in the filk manufa&tories. Indeed 
machinery has never been required, nor 
its value known in Lyons; and whatever 
may have been the numbers formerly em- 
ployed in this branch, at prefent, it is cer= 
tain, that, though fill the principal employ. 
ment of the people, they do not agually: 
exceed 6000. It is faid 2700 were for- 
meily occupied in making gauze and 
crape, at prefent they do not exceed 100; 
that 3000 were employed at the different 
kinds cf filver and gold jace, at this period 
there cannot be above 200, and thofe not: 
occupied much. more than two thirds cf 
their time; and that there were 6000 em= 
broiderers, now not more than fifty fami- 
lies of four perfons each, and perhaps 
nearly roo poor individuals dependants. 
If the ftatement be juft, that Lyons ma- 
nufactures only 10,000 dozen pairs of 
ftockings in the year, and that is the ut- 
molt, although this trade has fuffered lefs’ 
I perhaps 
