Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Paris, France. With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Père Lachaise is located in the 20th arrondissement and notable for being the first garden cemetery, as well as the first municipal cemetery in Paris, it is the site of three World War I memorials. The cemetery is on Boulevard de Ménilmontant; the Paris Métro station Philippe Auguste on Line 2 is next to the main entrance, while the station named Père Lachaise, on both Line 2 and Line 3, is 500 metres away near a side entrance. Many tourists prefer the Gambetta station on Line 3, as it allows them to enter near the tomb of Oscar Wilde and walk downhill to visit the rest of the cemetery; the cemetery of Père Lachaise opened in 1804. The cemetery takes its name from the confessor to Louis XIV, Père François de la Chaise, who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt during 1682 on the site of the chapel; the property, situated on the hillside from which the king watched skirmishing between the armies of the Condé and Turenne during the Fronde, was bought by the city during 1804.
Established by Napoleon during this year, the cemetery was laid out by Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart and extended. Napoleon, proclaimed Emperor by the Senate three days earlier, had declared during the Consulate that "Every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion”; as the city graveyards of Paris filled, several new, large cemeteries, outside the precincts of the capital, replaced them: Montmartre Cemetery in the north, Père Lachaise in the east, Montparnasse Cemetery in the south. Near the middle of the city is Passy Cemetery. At the time of its opening, the cemetery was considered to be situated too far from the city and attracted few funerals. Moreover, many Roman Catholics refused to have their graves in a place that had not been blessed by the Church. During 1804, the Père Lachaise contained only 13 graves; the administrators devised a marketing strategy and during 1804, with great fanfare, organized the transfer of the remains of Jean de La Fontaine and Molière.
The next year there were 44 burials, with 49 during 1806, 62 during 1807 and 833 during 1812. In another great spectacle of 1817, the purported remains of Pierre Abélard and Héloïse d'Argenteuil were transferred to the cemetery with their monument's canopy made from fragments of the abbey of Nogent-sur-Seine; this strategy achieved its desired effect: people began clamoring to be buried among the famous citizens. Records show that the Père Lachaise contained more than 33,000 graves during 1830. Père Lachaise was expanded five times: during 1824, 1829, 1832, 1842 and 1850. Presently there are more than 1 million bodies buried there, many more in the columbarium, which holds the remains of those who had requested cremation; the Communards' Wall, located within the cemetery, was the site where 147 Communards, the last defenders of the workers' district of Belleville, were shot on May 28, 1871. That day was the last of the "Bloody Week". Today, the site is a traditional rallying point for members of the French political Left.
Adolphe Thiers, the French president who directed "Bloody Week," is interred in the cemetery, where his tomb has been subject to vandalism. A funerary chapel was erected during 1823 by Étienne-Hippolyte Godde at the exact place of the ancient Jesuit house; this same Neoclassical architect created the monumental entrance a few years later. A columbarium and a crematorium of a Neo-Byzantine style were designed in 1894 by Jean-Camille Formigé. Père Lachaise is still an operating cemetery and accepting new burials. However, the rules to be buried in a Paris cemetery are rather strict: people may be buried in one of these cemeteries if they die in the French capital city or if they lived there. Being buried in Père Lachaise is more difficult nowadays as there is a waiting list: few plots are available; the grave sites at Père Lachaise range from a simple, unadorned headstone to towering monuments and elaborate mini chapels dedicated to the memory of a well-known person or family. Many of the tombs are about the size and shape of a telephone booth, with just enough space for a mourner to step inside, kneel to say a prayer, leave some flowers.
The cemetery manages to squeeze an increasing number of bodies into a finite and crowded space. One way it does. At Père Lachaise, it is not uncommon to reopen a grave after a body has decomposed and inter another coffin; some family mausoleums or multi-family tombs contain dozens of bodies in several separate but contiguous graves. Shelves are installed to accommodate them. During recent times, the Père Lachaise has adopted a standard practice of issuing 30-year leases on grave sites, so that if a lease is not renewed by a family, the remains can be removed, space made for a new grave, the overall deterioration of the cemetery minimized. Abandoned remains are boxed and moved to Aux Morts ossuary, in Père Lachaise cemetery. Plots can be bought in perpetuity or for 50, 30 or 10 years, the last being the least expensive option. For the case of mausoleums and chapels, coffins are most of the time below ground. Although some sources incorrectly estimate the number of interred as 300,000 in Père Lachaise, according to the official website of
War of the Second Coalition
The War of the Second Coalition was the second war on revolutionary France by the European monarchies, led by Britain and Russia, including the Ottoman Empire, Naples, various German monarchies and Sweden. Their goal was to contain the expansion of the French Republic and to restore the monarchy in France, they failed to overthrow the revolutionary regime and French territorial gains since 1793 were confirmed. In the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801, France held all of its previous gains and obtained new lands in Tuscany, while Austria was granted Venetia and the Dalmatian coast. Britain and France signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing an interval of peace in Europe that lasted for 14 months. By May 1803 Britain and France were again at war and in 1805 Britain assembled the Third Coalition to resume the war against France. On 20 April 1792, the French Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria. In the War of the First Coalition, France fought against most of the states with which it shared a border, as well as Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire.
Although the Coalition forces achieved several victories at the outset of the war, they were repulsed from French territory and lost significant territories to the French, who began to set up client republics in their occupied territories. The efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte in the northern Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars pushed Austrian forces back and resulted in the negotiation of the Treaty of Leoben and the subsequent Treaty of Campo Formio. In the summer of 1798, Bonaparte led an expedition to Egypt, where his army was trapped and which, after he returned to France, surrendered. Meanwhile, during his absence from Europe, the outbreak of violence in Switzerland drew French support against the old Swiss Confederation; when revolutionaries overthrew the cantonal government in Bern, the French Army of the Alps invaded, ostensibly to support the Swiss Republicans. In northern Italy, Russian general Aleksandr Suvorov won a string of victories, driving the French under Moreau out of the Po Valley, forcing them back on the French Alps and the coast around Genoa.
However, the Russian armies in the Helvetic Republic were defeated by French commander André Masséna, Suvorov withdrew. The Russians left the Coalition when Great Britain insisted on the right to search all vessels it stopped at sea. In Germany, Archduke Charles of Austria drove the French under Jean-Baptiste Jourdan back across the Rhine and won several victories in Switzerland. Jourdan was replaced by Massena, who combined the Armies of the Danube and Helvetia. From October 1797 until March 1799, the signatories of the Treaty of Campo Formio avoided armed conflict. Despite their agreement at Campo Formio, two primary combatants and Austria, remained suspicious of each other and several diplomatic incidents undermined the agreement; the French demanded additional territory not mentioned in the Treaty. The Habsburgs were reluctant to hand over much less additional ones; the Congress at Rastatt proved inept at orchestrating the transfer of territories to compensate the German princes for their losses.
Ferdinand of Naples refused to pay tribute to France, followed by the Neapolitan rebellion and the subsequent establishment of the Parthenopaean Republic. Republicans in the Swiss cantons, supported by the French army, overthrew the central government in Bern and established the Helvetic Republic. Other factors contributed to the rising tensions. On his way to Egypt, Napoleon had stopped at the fortified port city of Valletta, the capital city of Malta. Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim, who ruled the island, would only allow two ships at a time into the harbour, in accordance with the island's neutrality. Bonaparte ordered the bombardment of Valletta and on 11 June, General Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers directed a landing of several thousand French troops at strategic locations around the island; the French Knights of the order deserted, the remaining Knights failed to mount a successful resistance. Bonaparte forcibly removed the other Knights from their possessions, angering Paul, Tsar of Russia, the honorary head of the Order.
The French Directory, was convinced that the Austrians were conniving to start another war. Indeed, the weaker the French Republic seemed, the more the Austrians, the Neapolitans, the Russians and the British discussed this possibility. Military planners in Paris understood that the Upper Rhine Valley, the south-western German territories, Switzerland were strategically important for the defence of the Republic; the Swiss passes commanded access to northern Italy. Toward this end, in early November 1798, Jourdan arrived in Hüningen to take command of the French forces there, the so-called Army of Observation because its function was to observe the security of the French border on the Rhine. Once there, he assessed the quality and disposition of the forces and identified needed supplies and manpower, he found the army woefully inadequate for its assignment. The Army of the Danube, its two flanking armies, the Army of Helvetia and the Army of Mayence, or Mainz, were short of manpower, supplies and training.
Jourdan documented assiduously these shortages, pointing out in lengthy correspondence to the Directory the consequences of an under-manned and under-supplied army.
Battle of Novi (1799)
The Battle of Novi saw a combined army of Habsburg Austrians and Imperial Russians under Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov attack a Republican French army under General Barthélemy Catherine Joubert. After a prolonged and bloody struggle, the Austro-Russians broke through the French defenses and drove their enemies into a disorderly retreat. Joubert was killed while French division commanders Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon and Emmanuel Grouchy were captured. Novi Ligure is in the province of Piedmont in Italy a distance of 58 kilometres north of Genoa; the battle occurred during the War of the Second Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1799, Russian and Austrian forces swept across the Po River valley, recapturing lands taken by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1796; the French troops in Italy were badly defeated at the major battles of Magnano and the Trebbia. Subsequently and Cisalpine Italian troops retreated into Genoa and the Ligurian Republic. A new French government placed Joubert in command of the reformed Army of Italy and ordered him to take the offensive.
Accordingly, the French army moved north across the mountain crests and assembled on high ground at Novi Ligure on 14 August. To Joubert's dismay, it was clear; the next morning Paul Kray's Austrian corps assaulted the battle was on. After a delay, Suvorov committed a Russian corps to attack the center and Michael von Melas' Austrian corps to attack the French right flank. Kray's troops suffered heavy losses but by evening the French army was badly beaten and the French hold on the Italian Riviera was gravely weakened. However, the Coalition planners proceeded to throw away their advantage by sending Suvorov's Russians to Switzerland, a change of strategy that ended badly; the 1799 campaign in Italy began with the Battle of Verona, a series of costly but indecisive clashes around Verona on 26 March. At the Battle of Magnano on 5 April, the Habsburg Austrian army of Paul Kray triumphed over the Republican French army of Barthélemy Louis Joseph Schérer. While suffering losses of 4,000 killed and wounded and 2,000 captured, Kray's Austrians inflicted casualties of 3,500 killed and wounded and captured 4,500 men, 18 artillery pieces and seven colors from the French.
Two days a distraught Schérer begged to be relieved of command. Michael von Melas arrived to take command of the Austrian army from Kray on 9 April. Hearing that 12,000 Austrians were approaching from the Tyrol to the north, Schérer abandoned the line of the Mincio River on 12 April. Leaving 12,000 troops in the fortress of Mantua and 1,600 more in Peschiera del Garda, the demoralized French commander ordered his crippled army to withdraw; as the soldiers fell back, the skies turned the retreat into a sodden nightmare. On 15 April 1799, the veteran Russian field marshal Alexander Suvorov formally took command of the combined Austro-Russian army in Italy. On 27 April Suvorov defeated the French, now under Jean Victor Marie Moreau, at the Battle of Cassano; the Allies suffered 2,000 casualties while the French sustained losses of 2,500 killed and wounded plus 5,000 soldiers, 27 guns and three colors captured. The next day a 3,000-man French division was surrendered at Verderio Superiore; the next major action was the Battle of Trebbia from 17 to 20 June where Suvorov's 37,000-strong Austro-Russian army mauled Jacques MacDonald's 33,000-man French army.
The Allies suffered 5,500 casualties while inflicting 16,500 on the French including the taking of 7,000 prisoners. Meanwhile, Coalition forces besieged a number of key fortresses. Peschiera fell on 6 May, Milan was captured on 24 May and Turin fell on 20 June after a nine-day siege. Suvorov and his Austrian allies had evicted the French from all of Italy, while Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen beat André Masséna's French army at the First Battle of Zurich on 4–6 June. A day after defeating MacDonald at the Trebbia, the Allies captured the 17th Light Demi Brigade, 1,099 men, six guns and three colors. On 22 June Suvorov halted pursuit by his army, exhausted by continuous fighting. At first a division was allowed to follow the French, but this was soon reduced to an Austrian advanced guard under Johann von Klenau which went on to clear the Grand Duchy of Tuscany of enemy forces. On 20 June, Moreau and 14,000 French troops left the security of the mountains to defeat Count Heinrich von Bellegarde and 11,000 Austrians in the Second Battle of Marengo.
Bellegarde withdrew to the west after suffering 2,260 casualties but Moreau soon scampered back to the safety of the Apennines after hearing news of the Trebbia. French casualties numbered 1,000 wounded in this encounter. By 27 June, Suvorov moved his main army west to cover the sieges of Alessandria and Tortona while Kray was still reducing Mantua. Suvorov and his Austrian chief of staff Johann Gabriel Chasteler de Courcelles planned to evict the weakened and battered French forces from Genoa and the Italian Riviera. However, instructions soon arrived from Vienna squelching any notion of offensive operations. Emperor Francis and his foreign minister Johann Amadeus Francis de Paula, Baron of Thugut insisted that the Italian fortresses must first be captured. In fact the emperor and Thugut were suspicious of Russian designs on Genoa and Tuscany, areas which they considered to be in Austria's sphere of influence. For his part, Suvorov was annoyed with Viennese officials for trying to direct the war from long distance.
Repeated military defeats shook the public's faith in the French Directory. The Coup of 30 Prairial VII occurred on 18 June which pushed Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès and Paul Barras into leading roles and elevated Jean Baptiste Bernadotte to the post of Minister of War. There were
Siege of Toulon
The Siege of Toulon was a military operation by Republican forces against a Royalist rebellion in the southern French city of Toulon. After the arrest of the Girondist deputies on the 2 June 1793, there followed a series of insurrections within the French cities of Lyon, Avignon, Nîmes and Marseille. In Toulon, the revolutionaries evicted the existing Jacobin faction but were soon supplanted by the more numerous royalists. Upon the announcement of the recapture of Marseille and of the reprisals which had taken place there at the hands of the revolutionaries, the royalist forces, directed by the Baron d'Imbert, called for aid from the Anglo-Spanish fleet. On 28 August, Admiral Sir Samuel Hood of the Royal Navy and Admiral Juan de Lángara of the Spanish Navy, committed a force of 13,000 British, Spanish and Piedmontese troops to the French royalists' cause; this was a serious blow to the republic, as the city had a key naval arsenal and was the base for 26 ships of the line. Without this port there was no hope for French naval ambitions.
As a result, any desire to challenge the Allies, the British, for control of the seas would be out of the question. In addition, its loss could set a dangerous precedent for other areas that menaced the republic with revolt; the survival of the Republic was at stake. On 1 October, Baron d'Imbert proclaimed the young Louis XVII to be king of France, hoisted the French royalist flag of the fleur de lys, delivering the town of Toulon to the British navy; the troops of the army said to be of the "Carmagnoles", under the command of General Jean François Carteaux, arrived at Toulon on 8 September, after those troops had recovered Avignon and Marseille, Ollioules. They joined up with the 6,000 men of the Alpine Maritime Army, commanded by General Jean François Cornu de La Poype, who had just taken La Valette-du-Var, sought to take the forts of Mont Faron, which dominated the city to the East, they were reinforced by 3,000 sailors under the orders of Admiral de Saint Julien, who refused to serve the British with his chief, Trogoff.
A further 5,000 soldiers under General La Poype were attached to the army to retake Toulon from the Army of Italy. The Chief of Artillery, commander Elzéar Auguste de Dommartin, having been wounded at Ollioules, had the young captain Napoleon Bonaparte imposed upon him by the special representatives of the Convention and Napoleon's friends —Augustin Robespierre and Antoine Christophe Saliceti. Bonaparte had been in the area escorting a convoy of powder wagons en route to Nice and had stopped in to pay his respects to his fellow Corsican, Saliceti. Bonaparte had been present in the army since the Avignon insurrection, was imposed on Dommartin in this way despite the mutual antipathy between the two men. Despite the mutual dislike between Bonaparte and the chief of artillery, the young artillery officer was able to muster an artillery force, worthy of a siege of Toulon and the fortresses that were built by the British in its immediate environs, he was able to requisition cannon from the surrounding area.
Guns were taken from Marseille and the Army of Italy. The local populace, eager to prove its loyalty to the republic which it had rebelled against, was blackmailed into supplying the besieging force with animals and supplies, his activity resulted in the acquisition of 100 guns for the force. With the help of his friends, the deputies Saliceti and Augustin Robespierre, who held power of life and death, he was able to compel retired artillery officers from the area to re-enlist; the problem of manning the guns was not remedied by this solution alone, under Bonaparte's intensive training he instructed much of the infantry in the practice of employing and firing the artillery that his efforts had acquired. However, in spite of this effort, Bonaparte was not as confident about this operation as was his custom; the officers serving with him in the siege were incompetent, he was becoming concerned about the needless delays due to these officers' mistakes. He was so concerned that he wrote a letter of appeal to the Committee of Public Safety requesting assistance.
To deal with his superiors who were wanting in skill, he proposed the appointment of a general for command of the artillery, succeeding himself, so that "... command respect and deal with a crowd of fools on the staff with whom one has to argue and lay down the law in order to overcome their prejudices and make them take steps which theory and practice alike have shown to be axiomatic to any trained officer of this corps". After some reconnaissance, Bonaparte conceived a plan which envisaged the capture of the forts of l'Eguillette and Balaguier, on the hill of Cairo, which would prevent passage between the small and large harbours of the port, so cutting maritime resupply, necessary for those under siege. Carteaux, sent only a weak detachment under Major General Delaborde, which failed in its attempted conquest on 22 September; the allies now alerted, built "Fort Mulgrave", so christened in honour of the British commander, Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave, on the summit of the hill. It was supported by three smaller ones, called Saint-Phillipe, Saint-Côme, Saint-Charles.
The impregnable collection was nicknamed, by the French, "Little Gibraltar". Bonaparte was dissatisfied by the sole battery—called the "Mountain", positioned on the height of Saint-Laurent since 19 September, he established another, on the shore of Brégallion, called the "sans-culottes". Hood attempted to silence it, without success, but the British fleet was obliged to harden its resolve along the coast anew, becaus
Second Siege of Zaragoza
The Second Siege of Zaragoza was the French capture of the Spanish city of Zaragoza during the Peninsular War. It was noted for its brutality; as a part of the Dos de Mayo uprising the city had successfully resisted a first siege from 15 June 1808 to 14 August 1808. This was one of the first times in history that a regular army was defeated by irregulars in street fighting. Further defeats – the surrender of General Dupont at the Battle of Bailén – forced King Joseph Bonaparte to withdraw behind the Ebro River, abandoning most of Spain except a small corner in the north-east and a small area around Barcelona; the Spanish at this point missed their best chance to defeat the French. They did not appoint a Supreme Commander, so all the armies continued to operate independently; the main armies consisted of those of General Blake on the north coast, General Castaños around Tudela and General Palafox around Saragossa. Blake was the most active, but he was defeated at Zornoza on 31 October 1808. Napoleon's plan was to attack in strength towards Burgos in between the armies of Blake and Castaños.
Once they broke through they were to swing both north and south to envelope the remaining armies. In order to achieve this, Napoleon wanted the exposed Spanish armies to remain in their current advanced positions. To achieve this Marshal Moncey's 3rd Corps opposite General Castaños remained inactive from late October to 21 November while Ney's 4th Corps tried to get to his rear through Burgos and Soria. On 21 November 1808, the French 3rd Corps crossed the Ebro River at Logrono and headed east towards Calahorra. Marshal Ney's column headed for Tudela. To avoid being trapped, Castaños withdrew to Tudela and asked Palafox to help him hold a line running South of the city towards Cascante, where he intended to confront Moncey's Corps before the arrival of Ney's 4th Corps. Palafox's deputy in the area, general O'Neylle demurred stating that he had strict orders not to cross the borders of Aragon; when Palafox's approval arrived, the French attack had begun and got the Spanish in disarray. This battle was a major victory for the French, but the Spanish armies were able to flee, O'Neylle to Saragossa and Castaños to Madrid, escaping with the large majority of their war chests and cannons.
The stage was now set for a second siege. Considerable changes occurred in the defences of Saragossa after the first siege in June–August. In that siege, the city had few fortifications, except for the medieval walls that could not withstand the French artillery bombardment; the defenders consisted of only a handful of regular troops and gunners, plus a mass of thousands of volunteers. They had, been able to inflict heavy casualties on the French at the barricades in the narrow winding streets. Since September 1808, Colonel Sangenís had been working on a number of modern fortifications. To the south, the city was protected by the Huerva River, which Sangení s used as a moat with two redoubts on the south side of the river: "Our lady of the Pillar" in the south-west corner and the San Jose convent on the south-east corner; these were overlooked by the city walls. To the west, a solid rampart had been built outside the city walls, incorporating the Augustinian and Trinitarian convents; this provided a central gun battery, as well as a ditch, 14-metres deep.
San Lazaro was fortified with a rampart protected by waterways and the two convents on the north side of the Ebro River had been made into fortresses. On the key position of Monte Terrero, Sangenís built an entrenched military camp using the Aragon Canal as a moat. Progress on the fortifications had been slow until the Battle of Tudela. After that, it was clear the French could attack at any moment and 60,000 volunteers were available. If the French had attacked then this would not have helped. Due to the delay, the Spanish had time to improve the fortifications and obtain sufficient supplies. Inside the walls, the strong entirely inflammable masonry homes and apartment buildings were laced together with internal passageways, making each block of the city its own barricaded fortress, with the numerous church buildings standing as keeps and strong-points, from which grapeshot and counter-battery fire could command the streets; the garrison would be much stronger than in the first siege. Palafox had raised an additional 10-12,000 new recruits in Saragossa plus a further 17,000 survivors of the Battle of Tudela.
By the start of the siege Palafox had 2,000 cavalry and 10,000 armed volunteers. To prevent the danger of magazine explosions, the city manufactured its gunpowder. Supplies of Food and ammunition were sufficient for three months plus private stocks held by townspeople; the Battle of Tudela was over on 23 November 1808 but the siege of Saragossa did not commence until 20 December 1808. This allowed the Spanish sufficient time to lay in supplies. After the Battle of Tudela two corps had been available to attack Saragossa - the 3rd corps under Marshal Moncey and the 6th Corps under Marshal Ney. Both of these corps arrived at Saragossa on 30 November, they were about to commence the siege when Marshall Ney was ordered to take his army across the mountains to New Castille where he was to prevent the army of Castaños, retreating from Tudela, from interfering with his movements towards Madrid. There were now only 15,000 men under Moncey facing Saragossa, insufficient for a siege; as a result, Moncey retired to Tudela to await reinforcements from Marshal Mortier with his 5th Corps.
These troops arrived from Germany on 15 December giving a total of 38,000 infantry, 3,500 cavalry
Lyon
Lyon is the third-largest city and second-largest urban area of France. It is located in the country's east-central part at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, about 470 km south from Paris, 320 km north from Marseille and 56 km northeast from Saint-Étienne. Inhabitants of the city are called Lyonnais. Lyon had a population of 513,275 in 2015, it is the capital of the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The Lyon metropolitan area had a population of 2,265,375 in 2014, the second-largest urban area in France; the city is known for its cuisine and gastronomy, historical and architectural landmarks. Lyon was an important area for the production and weaving of silk. Lyon played a significant role in the history of cinema: it is where Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinematograph, it is known for its light festival, the Fête des Lumières, which begins every 8 December and lasts for four days, earning Lyon the title of Capital of Lights. Economically, Lyon is a major centre for banking, as well as for the chemical and biotech industries.
The city contains a significant software industry with a particular focus on video games, in recent years has fostered a growing local start-up sector. Lyon hosts the international headquarters of Interpol, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and Euronews, it was ranked 19th globally and second in France for innovation in 2014. It ranked second in 39th globally in Mercer's 2015 liveability rankings. According to the historian Dio Cassius, in 43 BC, the Roman Senate ordered the creation of a settlement for Roman refugees of war with the Allobroges; these refugees had been expelled from Vienne and were now encamped at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers. The foundation was built on Fourvière hill and called Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, a name invoking prosperity and the blessing of the gods; the city became referred to as Lugdunum. The earliest translation of this Gaulish place-name as "Desired Mountain" is offered by the 9th-century Endlicher Glossary. In contrast, some modern scholars have proposed a Gaulish hill-fort named Lugdunon, after the Celtic god Lugus, dúnon.
The Romans recognised that Lugdunum's strategic location at the convergence of two navigable rivers made it a natural communications hub. The city became the starting point of the principal Roman roads in the area, it became the capital of the province, Gallia Lugdunensis. Two Emperors were born in this city: Claudius, whose speech is preserved in the Lyon Tablet in which he justifies the nomination of Gallic Senators, Caracalla. Early Christians in Lyon were martyred for their beliefs under the reigns of various Roman emperors, most notably Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus. Local saints from this period include Blandina and Epipodius, among others. In the second century AD, the great Christian bishop of Lyon was Irenaeus. To this day, the archbishop of Lyon is still referred to as "Primat des Gaules". Burgundians fleeing the destruction of Worms by the Huns in 437 were re-settled at Lugdunum. In 443 the Romans established the Kingdom of the Burgundians, Lugdunum became its capital in 461.
In 843, by the Treaty of Verdun, Lyon went to the Holy Roman Emperor Lothair I. It was made part of the Kingdom of Arles. Lyon did not come under French control until the 14th century. Fernand Braudel remarked, "Historians of Lyon are not sufficiently aware of the bi-polarity between Paris and Lyon, a constant structure in French development...from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution". In the late 15th century, the fairs introduced by Italian merchants made Lyon the economic counting house of France; the Bourse, built in 1749, resembled a public bazaar where accounts were settled in the open air. When international banking moved to Genoa Amsterdam, Lyon remained the banking centre of France. During the Renaissance, the city's development was driven by the silk trade, which strengthened its ties to Italy. Italian influence on Lyon's architecture is still visible among historic buildings. In the 1400s and 1500s Lyon was a key centre of literary activity and book publishing, both of French writers and of Italians in exile.
In 1572, Lyon was a scene of mass violence by Catholics against Protestant Huguenots in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Two centuries Lyon was again convulsed by violence when, during the French Revolution, the citizenry rose up against the National Convention and supported the Girondins; the city was besieged by Revolutionary armies for over two months before surrendering in October 1793. Many buildings were destroyed around the Place Bellecour, while Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois and Joseph Fouché administered the execution of more than 2,000 people; the Convention ordered that its name be changed to "Liberated City" and a plaque was erected that proclaimed "Lyons made war on Liberty. A decade Napoleon ordered the reconstruction of all the buildings demolished during this period; the Convention was not the only target within Lyon during the 1789-1799 French Revolution. After the National Convention faded into history, the French Directory appeared and days after the September 4, 1797, Coup of 18 Fructidor, a Directory's commissioner was assassinated in Ly
Venice
Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges; the islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers. In 2018, 260,897 people resided in the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice. Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC; the city was the capital of the Republic of Venice. The 697–1797 Republic of Venice was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as an important center of commerce and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century.
The city-state of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center, emerging in the 9th century and reaching its greatest prominence in the 14th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Republic was annexed by the Austrian Empire, until it became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, following a referendum held as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence. Venice has been known as "La Dominante", "La Serenissima", "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", "City of Canals"; the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, artwork. Venice is known for several important artistic movements—especially during the Renaissance period—has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.
Although the city is facing some major challenges, Venice remains a popular tourist destination, an iconic Italian city, has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world. The name of the city, deriving from Latin forms Venetia and Venetiae, is most taken from "Venetia et Histria", the Roman name of Regio X of Roman Italy, but applied to the coastal part of the region that remained under Roman Empire outside of Gothic and Frankish control; the name Venetia, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, called by the Greeks Enetoi. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti and the Slavic Vistula Veneti. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean "beloved", "lovable", or "friendly". A connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color'sea-blue', is possible. Supposed connections of Venetia with the Latin verb venire, such as Marin Sanudo's veni etiam, the supposed cry of the first refugees to the Venetian lagoon from the mainland, or with venia are fanciful.
The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia. Although no surviving historical records deal directly with the founding of Venice and the available evidence have led several historians to agree that the original population of Venice consisted of refugees—from nearby Roman cities such as Padua, Treviso and Concordia, as well as from the undefended countryside—who were fleeing successive waves of Germanic and Hun invasions; this is further supported by the documentation on the so-called "apostolic families", the twelve founding families of Venice who elected the first doge, who in most cases trace their lineage back to Roman families. Some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen, on the islands in the original marshy lagoons, who were referred to as incolae lacunae; the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto —said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD 166–168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the main Roman town in the area, present-day Oderzo.
This part of Roman Italy was again overrun in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years by the Huns led by Attila. The last and most enduring immigration into the north of the Italian peninsula, that of the Lombards in 568, left the Eastern Roman Empire only a small strip of coastline in the current Veneto, including Venice; the Roman/Byzantine territory was organized as the Exarchate of Ravenna, administered from that ancient port and overseen by a viceroy appointed by the Emperor in Constantinople. Ravenna and Venice were connected only by sea routes, with the Venetians' isolated position came increasing autonomy. New ports were built, including those at Torcello in the Venetian lagoon; the tribuni maiores formed the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the lagoon, dating from c. 568. The traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio A
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "Suchet, Louis Gabriel", Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, p. 7
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the .svg)
