LE PUY or LE PUY EN VELAY, a town of south-eastern France, capital of the department of Haute-Loire, 90 m. S.W. of Lyons on the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1931) 16,895. Towards the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century Le Puy be came the capital of the Vellavi, at which period the bishopric, orig inally at Revession, now St. Paulien, was transferred hither. Gregory of Tours speaks of it by the name of Anicium, because a chapel "ad Deum" had been built on the mountain, whence the name of Mt. Adidon or Anis, which it still retains. In the loth century it was called Podium Sanctae Mariae, whence Le Puy. The city rises in the form of an amphitheatre from a height of 2,050 ft. above sea-level upon Mont Anis. Narrow steep streets ascend from the new town in the valley of the Dolezon to the old feudal and ecclesiastical town. Mt. Corneille, 433 ft. above the Place de Breuil (in the lower town), is a steep rock of volcanic breccia, from which a good view is obtained of the town and of the adjacent volcanic mountains. The Romanesque cathedral of Notre-Dame (early 12th cent.) has a particoloured facade of white sandstone and black volcanic breccia.
Le Puy possesses remains of its old line of fortifications, among them a machicolated tower and a few mediaeval houses. In front of the hospital there is a fine mediaeval porch under which a street passes. The museum, named of ter Charles Crozatier, contains an tiquities, engravings, a collection of lace, and ethnographical and natural history collections. The church of St. Michel d'Aiguilhe, beside the gate of the town, stands on an isolated rock and is reached by a staircase of 271 steps ; it dates from the end of the loth century and its chancel is still older. The steeple is of the same type as that of the cathedral. Three miles from Le Puy are the ruins of the Château de Polignac, one of the most important feudal strongholds of France. Le Puy is the seat of a bishopric under the archbishop of Bourges, a prefect and a court of assizes, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade arbitrators and a chamber of commerce. The principal manufacture is that of lace and guipure.