Lilith

LILITH, a female demon of Jewish folk-lore, equivalent to the English vampire. The personality and name ("night-mon ster") are derived from a Babylonian-Assyrian demon Lilit or Lilu. Lilith was believed to have a special power for evil over children. The superstition was extended to a cult surviving among some Jews even as late as the 7th century A.D. In the Rabbinical literature Lilith becomes the first wife of Adam, but flies away from him and becomes a demon.

LILLE

(L'Ile), a city of northern France, capital of the department of the Nord, 154 m. N. by E. of Paris on the North ern railway. Pop. (1931) 194,824. Lille lies in a rich agricultural and industrial plain on the right bank of the Defile. In 1030, Count Baldwin IV. of Flanders surrounded with walls a little town which had arisen around the castle of Buc. In the first half of the 13th century, the town obtained communal privileges. Destroyed by Philip Augustus in 1213, it was rebuilt by Joanna of Constantinople, countess of Flanders, but besieged and re taken by Philip the Fair in 1297. After having taken part with the Flemings against the king of France, it was ceded to the latter in 1312. In 1369 Charles V., king of France, gave it to Louis de Male, who transmitted his rights to his daughter Mar garet, wife of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy. Under Bur gundian rule Lille prospered and its merchants were at the head of the London Hansa. Philip the Good made it his residence. With Flanders it passed from the dukes of Burgundy to Austria and then to Spain. After the death of Philip IV. of Spain, Louis XIV. reclaimed the territory and besieged Lille in 1667. He forced it to capitulate, but preserved its liberties. In 1708, after an heroic resistance, it surrendered to Prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough. The treaty of Utrecht restored it to France.

In the World War Lille was first reached by advance German patrols in Aug., 1914. It was afterwards re-occupied by the French, but they retired again early in Oct., the serious de fence of the city not being part of the general plan of cam paign. After several days' bombardment the Germans entered on Oct. 12, 1914, and remained till Oct., 1918, when they were outflanked by the Allied capture of neighbouring towns. The deportation of a large number of citizens in 1916 was the cul minating point of tyranny suffered by the people of Lille under war conditions. The city was a favourite resort for German officers on leave, as it was not shelled by the Allies, although it was within range of the guns.

Lille is the headquarters of the I. army corps, and has an enceinte and a pentagonal citadel, one of Vauban's finest works, west of the town, across the Defile. Before 1858 the town, forti fied by Vauban about 1668, occupied an elliptical area of about 2,500 yd. by 1,300, with the church of Notre Dame de la Treille in the centre, but the southern ramparts and ditches were replaced by the Boulevard de la Liberte, a straight line from the goods railway station to the citadel. The new enceinte encloses the old communes of Esquermes, Wazemmes and Moulins-Lille, the area of the town being thus more than doubled and fine boule vards and squares added. The district of St. Andre to the north is the only elegant part of the old town. Outside the enceinte populous suburbs surround the city on every side, and on the north and east demolition of fortifications and rapid building are making Lille expand towards Roubaix and Tourcoing. At the

demolition of the southern fortifications, the Paris gate, erected in 1682 in honour of Louis XIV., after the conquest of Flanders, was preserved. On the east are the Ghent (1617) and Roubaix (1622) gates, in Renaissance style, in bricks of different col ours. On the same side the Noble-Tour is a relic of the me diaeval ramparts. There are water gates for the canal of the Defile and for the Arbonnoise, which extends into a marsh in the south-west. The citadel, with barracks and arsenal, is surrounded by public gardens. The churches possess valuable pictures and the modern cathedral of Notre Dame de la Treille has an ancient statue of the virgin, an object of pilgrimage. Lille was made a bishopric in 1913. The Bourse (17th century) is built round a courtyard ; the Hotel d'Aigremont, the Hotel Gentil and other houses are in the Flemish style ; the Hotel de Ville was destroyed in the explosion of a munition dump in 1916 but a part of an old palace of Philip the Good ( 15th cent.) near to it still remains. The Palais des Beaux-Arts contains a museum and pic ture galleries including a unique collection of original designs of the great masters and a celebrated wax model of a girl's head usually attributed to some Italian artist of the 16th century. Many pictures were removed before the French evacuated Lille in 1914 and the galleries have been largely restored since the end of the war in 1918. The large military hospital was once a Jesuit college.

Lille is the seat of a prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. It is the centre of an academie (educational division) and has a university with faculties of laws, letters, science and medicine and pharmacy, together with a Catholic institute comprising faculties of the ology, law, medicine and pharmacy, letters, science, a technical school, and a department of social and political science. There are also a higher school of commerce, a national technical school, schools of music and fine arts, and the industrial and Pasteur institutes.

The Chief Industries are the spinning of flax and the weaving of cloth, table-linen, damask, ticking and flax velvet. The spin ning of flax thread for sewing and lace-making is specially con nected with Lille. The manufacture of woollen fabrics and cotton-spinning and the making of cotton-twist of fine quality are also carried on. There are important printing establishments, state factories for the manufacture of tobacco and the refining of saltpetre and very numerous breweries, chemical, oil, white lead and sugar-works, distilleries, bleaching-grounds, dye-% orks, machinery and boiler works. Plant for sugar-works and distil leries, military stores, steam-engines, locomotives, and bridges of all kinds are produced by the company of Fives-Lille. Lille is one of the most important junctions of the Northern railway, and the Detile canal affords communication with neighbouring ports and with Belgium. Trade is chiefly in the raw material and machinery for its industries, in the products thereof, and in the wheat and other agricultural products of the surrounding district.