n, an air of cleanness, and rurality, which seldom belong to a
populous city. The distant Alps, moreover, rising in the back ground,
add magnificence to beauty. Beyond all possibility of doubt, Lyons is
unrivalled in the loveliness of its situation. The approach to it is
like the avenue to fairy-land.

The horrible ravage of the Revolution has much defaced this town. La
Place de Belle Cour was once the finest square which any provincial town
in Europe could boast. It was composed of the most magnificent houses,
the habitations of such of the nobility as were accustomed to make Lyons
their winter or summer residence. That demon, in the human shape, Collot
d'Herbois, being sent to Lyons as one of the Jacobin Commissioners, by
one and the same decree condemned the houses to be razed to the ground,
and their possessors to be guillotined. A century will pass before Lyons
will recover itself from this Jacobin purgation. In this square was
formerly an equestrian statue of Louis the Fourteenth, adorned on the
sides of the pedestal with bronze figures of the Rhone and the Saone.
This statue is destroyed, but the bronze figures remain.

The town-hall of Lyons is in every respect worthy of the city. It is in
the form of a parallelogram, with wings on each side of the front, each
wing being nearly one hundred and fifty yards in length. The middle of
the wings are crowned with cupolas, and the gates have all Ionic
pillars. The walls and ceilings are covered with paintings. There are
several inscriptions in honour of the Emperor Napoleon; but as these
have been already noted in other books of travels, I deem it unnecessary
to say more of them. But the best praise of Lyons is in its institutions
for charity, in its hospitals, and in its schools. In no city in the
world have they so great a proportion to the actual population and
magnitude of the town. They are equal to the support of one eighth part
of the inhabitants. The Hotel Dieu is in fact a palace built for the
sick poor. The rooms are lofty, with cupolas, and all of them very
carefully ventilated. The beds are clean to an extreme degree, as was
likewise every utensil in the kitchen, and the kitchen itself. The
nursing, feeding, &c. of the sick is performed by a religious society of
about one hundred men, and the same number of women, who devote
themselves to that purpose. The men are habited in black; the women in
the dress of nuns. This charity is open to all nations; to be an