NÎMES, or Nismes, a city of France, chief town of the department of Gard, a bishop’s see and seat of a court of appeal, lies 450 miles south-south-east of Paris by the Clermont-Ferrand Railway, and 80 miles north-west of Marseilles. The importance of the place is due to its central position between the Rhone, the Cevennes, and the sea, to the richness of the surrounding district, which before the ravages of the Phylloxera was clothed with vines, to its commerce and industry, and lastly to its archaeological treasures. No town in France can show so many remains of the Roman period. The amphitheatre is still in a good state of preservation. Occupied during the Middle Ages by a special quarter, with even a church of its own, it was cleared in 1809, and since then has been well kept in repair. It is built of large stones without mortar. In form it is elliptical, measuring 437⅜ by 332∣ feet externally; the arena is 327 by 222 feet. The elevation (70 feet in all) consists of a ground story of 60 arches, an upper story of 60 arches, and an attic with consoles pierced with holes for sunnorting the velarium or awning. There are four main gates, one at each of the cardinal points; and no fewer than one hundred and twenty-four doorways gave exit from the tiers of the amphitheatre to the inner galleries. Originally designed for gladiatorial shows, or stag or boar hunts, the area has in recent times been sometimes used for bull-fights. The celebrated Maison Carrée, a temple in the style of the Parthenon, but on a smaller scale, 82 feet long by 40 wide, is one of the finest monuments of the Roman period, and probably dates from the time of the Antonines. It contains a collection of antique sculptures and inscriptions. The temple of Diana,—possibly a building connected with ...the neighbouring baths,—is now overgrown with fig trees and climbing plants, but preserves a few fragments of statues and some rustic columns. The Tour Magne (Turris Magna), situated on the highest point in the city, 375 feet above sea-level, is still 92 feet in height, and was formerly a third higher. Admittedly the oldest monument of Nîmes, it has been variously regarded as an old signal tower, a treasure-house, or the tomb of a Greek family settled in Gaul along with the earliest Phoenician colonists. Attached to the ramparts erected by Augustus, and turned into a fortress in the Middle Ages by the counts of Toulouse, the Tour Magne was restored about 1840. From the top there is a magnificent view extending from Canigou at the east end of the Pyrenees to Mont Ventoux, an outpost of the Alps; northward it takes in the vine-and olive-clad Garrigues and the Cevennes, eastward the valley of the Rhone and the Vaucluse and Alpine ranges, and southward the Mediterranean and the Aigues Mortes ramparts. Near the Tour Magne has been discovered the reservoir from which the water conveyed by the Pont du Gard was distributed throughout the city. Two gates, that of Augustus dating from 16 b.c., and the Porte de France, both semicircular arches, are preserved as historical monuments. Many of the finest buildings known to have existed have disappeared. When it still possessed its capitol, the temple of Augustus, the basilica of Plotina erected under Hadrian, the temple of Apollo, the hot baths, the theatre, the circus, constructed in the reign ot Nero, the Campus Martius, and the fortifications built by Augustus, Nîmes must have been one of the richest of the Roman cities of Gaul. The cathedral (St Castor), occupying, it is believed, the site of the temple of Augustus, is partly Roman and partly Gothic in style. It contains the tombs of Flèchier and Cardinal de Bernis. The church of St Paul, a modern Romanesque building, is adorned with frescos by Flandrin; St Baudile (modern Gothic) is of note for the two stone spires which adorn its façade; and the court-house has a fine Corinthian colonnade and a pediment. Other buildings and institutions of note are the hospitals, the barracks, the old citadel (dating from 1687, and now used as a central house of detention), the picture gallery in the old lycée, the public library (50,000 volumes), and the museum of natural history.
The esplanade in front of the court-house has in the centre a handsome fountain with five marble statues by Pradier. The Fountain Gardens, in the north-west of the town, owe their peculiar character as well as their name to a spring of water which after heavy rains is copious enough not only to fill the ornamental basins (constructed in the 18th century with balustrades and statues on ancient foundations) but also to form a considerable stream. Neither the spring, however, nor the Vistre into which it discharges, is sufficient for the wants of the city, and water has consequently been brought from the Rhone, a distance of 17 miles. A beautiful avenue, the Cours Neuf, runs south for nearly a mile from the middle walk of the garden.
At the close of the Middle Ages the industries of Nîmes were raised to a state of great prosperity by a colony from Lombardy and Tuscany; and, though the plague, the wars of religion, and the revocation of the edict of Nantes were all sufficiently disastrous in their effects, before the Revolution about half of the whole community, or from 10,000 to 12,000 persons, had come to be engaged in manufactures. Since then, however, the numbers of this class have hardly increased, while the population of the city has been doubled. The silk manufacture (reeling, spinning, weaving) no longer occupies all hands. Upholstery materials (which have - almost displaced shawls), carpets, handkerchiefs, tapes, braidings, hosiery, leather, clothes, and boots and shoes are also produced; and, coal being worked in the neighbourhood, a number of foundries have been established. Nîmes is, besides, one of the great southern markets for wine and brandy, silks and cocoons; and there is a good trade in grain, groceries, and colonial wares. The population of the city in 1881 was 61,210; that of the commune was 62,394 in 1871, and 63,552 in 1881.
Nemausus, the ancient Nîmes, derived its name from the sacred wood in which the Volcae Arecomici (who of their own accord surrendered to the Romans in 121 b.c.) were wont to hold their assemblies. Constituted a colony of veterans by Augustus, and endowed with numerous privileges, it built a temple and struck a medal in honour of its founder. The medal, which afterwards furnished the type for the coat of arms granted to the town by Francis I., bears on one side the heads of Caesar Augustus and Vipsanius Agrippa (the former crowned with laurel), while on the other there is a crocodile chained to a palm-tree, with the legend Col. Nem. It was Agrippa who built the public baths at Nîmes, the temple of Diana, and the aqueduct of the Pont du Gard. The city-walls, erected by Augustus, were nearly 4 miles in circuit, 30 feet high, and 10 feet broad, flanked by ninety towers, and pierced by ten gates. Hadrian on his way back from Britain erected at Nîmes two memorials of his benefactress Plotina. In the very height of its prosperity the city was ravaged by the Vandals; the Visigoths followed, and turned the amphitheatre into a stronghold, which at a later date was set on fire along with the gates of the city when Charles Martel drove out the Saracens. Nîmes became a republic under the protection of Pippin the Short; and in 1185 it passed to the counts of Toulouse, who restored its prosperity and enclosed it with ramparts whose enceinte, less extensive than that of Augustus, may still be traced in the boulevards of the present day. The city took part in the crusade against the Albigenses in 1207. Under Louis VIII. it received a royal garrison into its amphitheatre; under Louis XI. it was captured by the duke of Burgundy, and in 1420 was recovered by the dauphin (Charles VII. ). On a visit to Nîmes Francis I. enriched it with a university and a school of arts. By 1558 about three-fourths of the inhabitants had become Protestant, and the city suffered greatly during the religious wars. From the accession of Henry IV. till the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685) the Protestant community devoted itself to active industry; but after that disastrous event great numbers went into exile or joined the Camisards. Louis XIV. built a fortress (1687) to keep in check the disturbances caused by the rival religious parties. Nîmes passed unhurt through the storms of the Revolution; but in 1815 Trestaillon and his bandit followers pillaged and burned and plundered and massacred the Bonapartiste and Protestants. Since then the city has remained divided into two strongly-marked factions—Catholics and Protestants; happily, however, there has been no repetition of such scenes. Domitius Afer (Quintilian’s master), Jacques Saurin the Protestant divine, Nicot the introducer of tobacco into France, Séguier the archaelogist, Guizot, and Reboul (the Provencal poet whose statue adorns the Promenade de la Fontaine) are among the celebrated natives of Nîmes.
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