In the second story of the Bourse is the [museum of the Art and Manufacture of silk]. Open to the public on Sundays and Thursdays between 11 and 4. The great hall contains, in high glass cases, specimens of silk, satin, velvet, crape, and lace, arranged according to centuries from the 13th and 14th to the 19th. The 19th, which is by far the richest and most beautiful, is in two cases, representing the first and the latter half of the century. This collection is choice and highly artistic, displaying miniature portraits, superb embroidery, and lovely designs in charming colours, woven in the loom. At the entrance to the hall is a portrait (about 13 in. by 10) of Jacquard, in a sitting posture, woven in white and black silk, like those at St. Etienne. Also the Will of Louis XVI. In the next room are looms and models of looms from the time of Louis XI. The models are so perfect that each contains part of a web woven in it. Among them is the model of the famous loom made by Jacquard in 1804, by which a single workman was enabled to produce elaborate fabrics as easily as the plainest web, and by merely changing the “cartoons” to make the most different textures on the same loom. Near the loom is the first [sewing machine]. The inventor was B. Thimonier of Lyons in 1829, from which those now in use are improved copies.
The cases round the inmost room are devoted to the natural history of silk—displaying every variety of the silk butterfly, Bombyx mori, as well as of the allied species; cocoons of every kind and in every condition; eggs and caterpillars at every stage of their existence; and hanks of raw silk from every part of the world where it is produced. Adjoining is a room with drawings, many by the great masters.
Formerly Lyons manufactured only high-class silks, but the demand for these having been for some years on the decrease, the manufacturers, to hold their place in the market against especially their Créfeld rivals, have had to turn their attention to cheaper stuffs. This in some measure is owing to the rapid and violent changes of fashion,
which makes a silk dress good only for a few months, whereas formerly, with an occasional alteration, it was worn for years.
In the street behind the east side of the Bourse are the large covered markets; where many of the fishes of the Rhone may be seen alive in tanks, and good Mont d’Or cheese be bought. It makes capital railway travelling provision. (See [page 42].)
Lyons: City Hospital and Workhouse.
Farther down the street, with the principal facade to the Rhône, and the other, containing the entrance, to the Rue de l’Hôpital, is the [Hôtel Dieu], or general hospital, with 1500 beds, founded in the 6th cent. by Childebert and Ultrogotha his queen. The present building is principally the work of Soufflet, the architect of the Pantheon in Paris. Of the beds, about 1300 are free, the remainder pay from 1¼ fr. to 12 frs. per day. The rooms are lofty and well ventilated. The principal female wards are arranged in the form of a cross, with an altar in the centre under the small dome, in such a position that all the patients can see it from their beds. From the large dome extends the principal ward of the men, containing 100 beds, and a smaller one on the other side. The sick are tended by nuns. The hospital has a house on the heights of the Croix-Rousse, near the terminus of the rope railway, and another at Oullins for incurables.
In the first court left of the large court, Dr. Young buried Mrs. Temple, the Narcissa of his Night Thoughts, who died in 1730 at Montpellier, but was there refused burial. At that time what is now a built-up court was a cemetery. Fifty years ago it was a garden, now it is covered with buildings. All trace of the grave has disappeared.
Near the entrance to the hospital is the church, 18th cent., richly decorated. In a chapel, left, is the enormous gilt shrine, in 5 stages, of Sainte Valentine.
Farther down the Rhône is the Hospice de la Charité, founded in 1531, on the occasion of a great famine. It receives the poor of both sexes who have reached 70; sick children under 15, and young women about to be mothers. The church was built in 1617.