Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Roanne

ROANNE, a town of France, at the head of an arrondissement in the department of the Loire, lies on the left bank of the Loire in 46° 2′ 26″ N. lat. at a height of 912 feet above the sea. It is now the point of junction for the railway from Paris (262 miles north-north-west) to Lyons (50 miles south-east), via Tarare, with the line from Paris to St Étienne (50 miles south-south-east), and a branch connecting Roanne with Paray le Monial; and as the terminus of the Roanne-Digoin Canal (1832–38) the town is the real starting-point of the Loire navigation. Besides the modern town-house (1868–73), it is enough to mention the ruins of a castle with a tower dating from the 11th century, and a fine bridge of seven arches connecting Roanne with the industrial suburb of Le Côteau on the right bank of the river. Cotton is the staple manufacture, employing 1200 hands. Hosiery, hats, woollen yarn, weaving looms, chemicals, and paper are also produced; and, as the town stands in the centre of the Loire and Rhone coal-field (output 4224 tons in 1884) and in the neighbourhood of the St Étienne coal-field, it has a considerable trade in coal and coke. In 1881 Roanne had a population of 24,992.

Roanne (Rodomna, Ptolemy; Roidomna, Tab. Peut.) was an ancient city of the Segusiani and a station on the great Roman road from Lyons to the ocean. The absence of coins later than the time of Constantius II. among the numerous local relics of the Roman period seems to show that the town was sacked by the barbarians in the 4th century. In 1447 the lordship of Roanne became the property of the celebrated banker Jacques Cœur. A favourite scheme of his was to make the town a great industrial centre by regulating the course of the Renaison, an affluent from the Monts de la Madeleine which joins the river a little higher up; his death prevented its execution, but the subject has since been frequently revived.