THIERS  , a

town of central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Puy-de-D61ne, 24 M . E.N.E. of Clermont-Ferrand, on the railway between that town and St Etienne . Pop . (1906) town, 12,601; commune, 17,413 . Thiers is most picturesquely situated on the side of a hill at the foot of which the Durolle rapidly descends through a narrow valley into the Dore, a tributary of the Allier . The streets rising in steep rows contain a large number of stone and wooden houses, some of which date to the 15th century . A fine view of the Plain of Limagne and the Dome mountain is obtainable from the terraces . The church of St Genes was built in 575 by Avitus, bishop of Clermont, and rebuilt in the 12th century . It has some curious mosaic work of the Merovingian period and a fine tomb of the 13th century . The church of Le Moutier, which formerly formed part of a Benedictine monastery, dates chiefly from the Ilth century . Thiers is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade arbitration, a communal college, a commercial and industrial school, and a branch of the Bank of France . Its special industry is the manufacture of cutlery, which employs some 12,000 hands in the town and its vicinity .

The manufacture of handles and buttons of

bone, pasteboard, stamping, hand-made and other papers and machinery are also carried on . Thiers was sacked about 531 by the soldiers of Thierry, son of Clovis . About the same period Gregory of Tours speaks of a wooden chapel which may have occupied the site of the pre-sent church of Le Moutier . The commercial importance of the town was much increased in the 16th century when the manufacture of cutlery was introduced from the neighbouring town of Chateldon .