Abstract
Our initiative cleary describe the historic interweavings between our city of Lyon and the international market of the silk. The story of the silk begins dates back to the Chinese tradition in XVIIth century BC and continues with three millenniums of exclusivity in the course of which China traded this precious tissue without passing on the secret. The art to make silk was then gradually passed on to other civilizations owing to spies, (monks, princesses) looters and traders. In Europe, silk was for a long time a monopoly of the Roman Empire in the East. Arrived in Western Europe at the end of the Middle Ages, the silk production reached the stage of the industrialization from XIXth century but experienced a grave decline connected to the competition of modern fibers (like the nylon), to the evolution of the clothing customs in Europe, to the development of certain Asian countries and to the epidemics which touch it in France in this period.
