Paris! The "City of Lights"!  

Not only is this city the capital of France, it is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been in. But before we get started, here is a little of the history of Paris.

From Antiquity to the French Revolution

Paris was in existence by the end of the 3^rd century BC. Gauls of the Parisii tribe settled there between 250 and 200 BC and founded a fishing village on an island in the river that is the present-day "L'Île de la Cité" -- the center around which Paris developed.

The first recorded name for the settlement was Lutetia (Latin: "Midwater-Dwelling"). When the Romans arrived, the Parisii were sufficiently organized and wealthy to have their own gold coinage. Julius Caesar wrote in his Commentaries (52 BC) that the inhabitants burned their town rather than surrender it to the Romans. In the 1^st century AD Lutetia grew as a Roman town and spread to the left bank of the Seine. The straight streets and the public buildings in this locale were characteristically Roman, including a forum, several baths, and an amphitheatre. A series of barbarian invasions began in the late 2^nd century. The town on the left bank was destroyed by the mid-3^rd century, and the inhabitants took refuge on the island, around which they built a thick stone wall. From the early 4^th century the place became known as Paris.

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By this time, Christianity seems to have spread to Paris. A 10^th-century sacramentary cites St. Denis (Latin: Dionysius) as having been the first bishop of Paris, in about 250 AD. A graveyard excavated near the Carrefour des Gobelins shows that there was a Christian community in very early times on the banks of the Bièvre (a left-bank tributary of the Seine); but it was probably under St. Marcel, the ninth bishop (c. 360-436), that the first Christian church, a wooden structure, was built on the island.

By the end of the 5^th century, the Salian Franks, under Clovis, had captured Paris from the Gauls, making it their own capital. It remained the capital until the end of Chilperic's reign in 584, but succeeding Merovingians carried the crown elsewhere. Charlemagne's dynasty, the Carolingians, tended to leave the city in the charge of the counts of Paris, who in many cases had less control over administration than did the bishops. After the election of Hugh Capet, a count of Paris, to the throne in 987 to the French throne, Paris, as a Capetian capital, became more important.

HUGH CAPET c.944 - 996 Hugh Capet was a duke who controlled estates around Paris and Orlean. Hugh was allied with the German emperors and exercised greater influence than the weak Carolingian king Lothair. After Lothair and his son died the archbishop of Reims convinced an assembly of nobles to elect Hugh Capet king. Elected and crowned king with the assistance of the pro-German party in Paris Hugh Capet initiated a hereditary line of French kings, the Capetians.

Notre Dame was built on the ruins of two earlier churches, which were themselves predated by a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter. The cathedral was initiated by Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, who about 1160 conceived the idea of converting into a single building, on a larger scale, the ruins of the two earlier basilicas. The foundation stone was laid by Pope Alexander III in 1163, and the high altar was consecrated in 1189. The choir, the western facade, and the nave were completed by 1250, and porches, chapels, and other embellishments were added over the next 100 years.

The population and commerce of Paris increased with the gradual return of political stability and public order under the Capetian kings. The maintenance of order was entrusted to a representative of the king, the provost of Paris (prévôt de Paris), first mentioned in 1050. In the 11^th century the first guilds were formed, among them the butchers' guild and the river-merchants' guild, or marchandise de l'eau. In 1141 the crown sold the principal port (near the Hôtel de Ville) to the marchandise, whose ship-blazoned arms eventually were adopted as those of Paris. In 1171 Louis VII gave the marchandise a charter confirming its "ancient right" to a monopoly of river trade.

During the reign of Philip II (1179-1223), Paris was extensively improved. Streets were paved, the city wall was enlarged, and a number of new towns were enfranchised. In 1190, when Philip II went on a crusade for a year, he entrusted the city's administration not to the provost but to the guild. In 1220 the crown ceded one of its own precious rights to the townsmen--the right to collect duty on incoming goods. The merchants were also made responsible for maintaining fair weights and measures. The King's formal recognition of the University of Paris in 1200 was also a recognition of the natural division of Paris into hree parts. On the Right Bank were the mercantile quarters, on the island was the cité, and the Left Bank contained the university and academic quarters. Numerous colleges were also founded, including the Sorbonne (about 1257).

In the 14^th century the development of Paris was hindered not only by the Black Death (1348-49) but also by the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and by internal disturbances resulting from it. The provost of the merchants in 1356 was Étienne Marcel, who wanted a Paris as rich and free as the independent cities of the Low Countries. He gave the House of Pillars to the municipal government, and he slew the Dauphin's counselors in the palace throne room and took over the city. Marcel showed great executive skill and equally great political stupidity and allied himself with the revolting peasants (the Jacquerie), with the invading English, and with Charles the Bad, the ambitious king of Navarre. While going to open the city gates to the Navarrese in 1358, Marcel was slain by the citizens.

In 1382 a tax riot grew into a revolt called the "Maillotin uprising." The rioters, armed with mauls (maillets), were ruthlessly put down, and the municipal function was suspended for the next 79 years. It was not until 1533, when Francis I ordered the teetering House of Pillars replaced by a new building, that a monarch manifested an encouraging interest in municipal government.

The dynastic and political vendetta between the Burgundian and the Armagnac faction (1407-35) had continual repercussions in Paris, where the butchers and skinners, led by Simon Caboche, momentarily seized power (1413). The resumption of the Hundred Years' War by the English in 1415 made matters worse. After a revolt of the Parisians (1418), the Burgundians occupied Paris; the Anglo-Burgundian Alliance (1419) was followed by the installation of John Plantagenet, duke of Bedford, as regent of France for the English king Henry VI (1422). Whereas Charles VI had lived in his father's Hôtel Saint-Paul, Bedford lived in the Hôtel des Tournelles, on the southeastern edge of the Marais, which was to be the Paris residence of later kings until 1559. During the reign of Charles VI, construction began on the Notre-Dame Bridge (1413).

In 1429 Joan of Arc failed to capture Paris. Only in 1436 did it fall to the legitimists, who welcomed Charles VII in person in 1437. Successive disturbances had reduced the population, but the Anglo-French truce of 1444 allowed Charles to begin restoring prosperity.

In 1469, during Louis XI's reign (1461-83), the Sorbonne installed the first printing press in Paris. Otherwise this was a period of intellectual stagnation. Churches were rehabilitated and new houses were built, however; from 1480 splendid private mansions began to appear, such as the Hôtel de Sens and the Hôtel de Cluny.

The influence of the Italian Renaissance on town architecture appeared in the new building for the accounting office and in the reconstruction of the Notre-Dame Bridge (1500-10) in Louis XII's reign. Under François I (1515-47) this influence grew stronger, finding notable expression in the new Hôtel de Ville. Furthermore, whereas from Charles VII's time the kings of France had preferred to reside in Touraine, Francis returned the chief seat of royalty to Paris. With this in mind he had extensive alterations made to the Louvre from 1528 onward. The new splendour of the monarchy, which was well on its way toward absolute rule, was reflected in the way Paris developed as the capital of an increasingly centralized state. The population increased and the town expanded again. Rigorous measures were taken to stamp out Protestantism, which first appeared in Paris during François I's reign.

The Renaissance in Paris culminated with Henry II, who made his solemn entry into the capital in 1549. The new impulse given to building mansions for the nobility and bourgeoisie began to transform Paris from a medieval to a modern city. In 1548 the Brothers of the Passion began performing secular plays at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, in the rue Française, thus inaugurating the first theatre in Paris.

The transfer of the royal residence from the Hôtel des Tournelles to the Louvre, signaling the development of the neglected western outskirts of Paris, was completed after Henry II's death in 1559. Catherine de Médicis began to build the Tuileries Palace, the gardens of which became a meeting place for elegant society. Classical taste was brilliantly exemplified by the Pont-Neuf, begun in 1577.

Pont-Neuf (or the New Bridge) spans the Seine River connecting the left and right banks of Paris with L'Île de la Cité (where Lutetia once stood).

In the mid-16th century the Wars of Religion broke out in France between Roman Catholics and Huguenots, which in Paris brought about the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572); the Day of the Barricades (1588), when the Catholic League rose against Henry III; and the long resistance of the Parisians to the Protestant Henry of Navarre, who succeeded as Henry IV in 1589. Henry IV's siege in 1590 was unsuccessful, and only after his conversion to Catholicism did Paris submit to him (1594).

In Louis XIII's reign (1610-43) Paris expanded farther. On the Left Bank, outside the wall, the queen mother, Marie de Médicis, built the Luxembourg Palace, with its spacious gardens; along the Right Bank, west of the Tuileries, she laid out the Cours-la-Reine as a promenade for carriages. While the Marais north of the Place Royale was being reclaimed and developed, two uninhabited islets east of the cité were united to form the Île Saint-Louis. On the western fringe of the town, a quarter with straight streets was laid out north of Richelieu's new palace, the Palais-Cardinal (1624-36; later the Palais-Royal), which also had a magnificent garden; west of this there was more building and a new fortification was erected.

Versailles The original residence, built from 1631 to 1634, was primarily a hunting lodge and private retreat for Louis XIII and his family. Under the guidance of Louis XIV, it was transformed (1661-1710) into an immense and extravagant complex surrounded by stylized English and French gardens; every detail of its construction glorified the king. The additions were designed by such renowned architects as Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Robert de Cotte, and Louis Le Vau. Charles Le Brun oversaw the interior decoration. Landscape artist André Le Nôtre created symmetrical French gardens that included ornate fountains with "magically" still water, expressing the power of humanity--and, specifically, the king--over nature. Declared the official royal residence in 1682 and the official residence of the Court of France on May 6, 1682, the Palace of Versailles was abandoned after the death of Louis XIV in 1715. In 1722, however, it was returned to its status as royal residence. Further additions were made during the reigns of Louis XV (1715-74) and Louis XVI (1774-92). Following the French Revolution of 1789, the complex was nearly destroyed; it was subsequently restored by Louis-Philippe (1830-48), but its utility gradually decreased. By the 20th century, though it was occasionally used for plenary congresses of the French parliament or to house visiting heads of state, the primary utility of the palace lay in tourism.

The war of the Fronde (1648-53) was the major event of the first two decades of Louis XIV's reign. From 1661, when Cardinal Mazarin died and Louis started his personal rule, Paris was dedicated to reflecting the glory of the monarch, even though he was early resolved to establish himself and the seat of his government outside of Paris (he chose Versailles). For the planning of the new splendours of Paris, the greatest part of the credit must go to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the king's superintendent of buildings.

Work on the Louvre had been resumed in 1624 and was completed by Claude Perrault's magnificent colonnade (1667-74). The Tuileries Palace was altered and sumptuously decorated. Beyond its gardens to the west, outside the walls of Paris, the tree-planted avenues of the Champs-Élysées were laid out (1667); these were complemented, at the opposite end of Paris, by the Cours de Vincennes.

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In 1702 the Marquis d'Argenson (Marc René de Voyer), who as lieutenant general of police succeeded the provosts of Paris, raised the number of districts from 16 to 20 (15 on the Right Bank, five on the Left). Paris had nearly 600,000 people, and from the Left Bank new suburbs were advancing toward the villages on the surrounding hills.

During the 18^th century a great deal was done to improve and beautify Paris. Louis XV's temporary residence in the Tuileries during his younger days encouraged development nearby, so that the Faubourg Saint-Honoré expanded and became, like the Faubourg Saint-Germain, an aristocratic quarter. The garden of the Palais-Royal became a center of elegant society. The Grands Boulevards began to be bordered with houses, including some fine mansions, and the eastern stretch became a fashionable promenade with little theatres and cafés. Villas built by nobles and financiers were scattered around this outlying sector. On the Left Bank the southern course of boulevards was laid out and the routes were lined with trees and houses. Some of the houses that had been built earlier on the bridges were razed in 1786-88; others remained until 1808. Water was supplied to both banks by two fire pumps, developed by Jacques-Constantin Périer and his father, Auguste-Charles. The wall of the farmers-general, built in the 1780s to facilitate the levying of duties on imports, represented the extension and the unity of Paris.

The Revolution and Napoleon I

The French Revolution of 1789 destroyed those vestiges of the seigneurial systems that had remained in Paris and consolidated the status of Paris as the capital of a centralized France. The major events of the Revolution took place in Paris, including the storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789); the conveying of the King and the National Constituent Assembly from Versailles to Paris (October 1789); the establishment of the numerous clubs in the convents of the old religious orders, Jacobins, Cordeliers, and Feuillants; the insurrection that heralded the abolition of the monarchy (Aug. 10, 1792); the execution of the King (Jan. 21, 1793) in the Place de la Révolution, not yet named Place de la Concorde; the most prolonged manifestation of the Terror (1793-94); and the series of coups d'état, from that of 9 Thermidor, year II (1794), to that of 18 Brumaire, year VIII (1799), which preceded the ascendancy of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Under the Thermidorians and the Directory the boulevard des Italiens became a resort of the fashionable and the frivolous, whereas the populace favoured the boulevard du Temple. After the inauguration of the First Empire, Napoleon in 1806 ordered the triumphal arches of the Carrousel and of the Étoile to be erected. While the Neoclassical style recalled imperial Rome, great works of public utility served to modernize Paris: the Bourse; new quays and bridges (the Arts, Jena, Austerlitz, and Saint-Louis bridges); the Ourcq and Saint-Martin canals; numerous fountains (such as the Palmier Fountain, on the site of the Châtelet); as well as slaughterhouses, marketplaces, the wine market, and the warehouses of Bercy.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. Through his military exploits and his ruthless efficiency, Napoleon rose from obscurity to become Napoleon I, Emperor of France. He is both a historical figure and a legend -- and it is sometimes difficult to separate the two. The events of his life fired the imaginations of great writers, film makers, and playwrights whose works have done much to create the Napoleonic legend. Napoleon was one of the greatest military commanders in history. He has also been portrayed as a power hungry conqueror. Napoleon denied being such a conqueror. He argued that, instead, he had attempted to build a federation of free peoples in a Europe united under a liberal government. But if this was his goal he intended to achieve it by concentrating power in his own hands. However, in the states he created, Napoleon granted constitutions, introduced law codes, abolished feudalism, created efficient governments and fostered education, science, literature and the arts. Emperor Napoleon proved to be a superb civil administrator. One of his greatest achievements was his supervision of the revision and collection of French law into codes. The new law codes -- seven in number -- incorporated some of the freedoms gained by the people of France during the French revolution, including religious toleration and the abolition of serfdom. The most famous of the codes, the Code Napoleon or Code Civil, still forms the basis of French civil law. Napoleon also centralized France's government by appointing prefects to administer regions called departments, into which France was divided.

Industrialization, in progress in the Napoleonic period, advanced rapidly under the Restoration (1814-30) and the July Monarchy (1830-48). Gas lighting was introduced; omnibus services began in 1828; and Paris got its first railway, which ran to Le Pecq, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in 1837. New districts grew up on the outskirts of Paris. Although the wall of the farmers-general remained the administrative boundary of Paris until 1859, it was decided in 1840 to refortify the capital with a longer military wall.

Arc de Triomphe The largest triumphal arch in the world, and one of the best-known commemorative monuments of Paris, France. The arch stands at the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (formerly the Place de l'Étoile), which is the western terminus of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. The arch is 164 feet (50 m) high and 148 feet (45 m) wide. It was initiated by Napoleon Bonaparte and was designed by J.-F.-T. Chalgrin. Construction of the arch began in 1806, though work was not completed until 1836. Decorative relief sculptures celebrating Napoleon's victorious military campaigns were executed on the arch by François Rude, Jean-Pierre Cortot, and Antoine Etex. Beneath the arch lies France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Napoleon III and Haussmann

Even by the mid-19th century, some areas of Paris had not been improved substantially for hundreds of years. Access from one centre to another and to the railway stations (which had become in effect the gateways of Paris) was difficult; moreover, overpopulation and rapid industrialization had brought squalor and misery, which account in part for the dominant role of Paris in the revolutions of both 1830 and 1848. Napoleon III, emperor from 1852 to 1870, enjoined his prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, to remedy these problems.

Haussmann was the creator of modern Paris. A planner on the grand scale, he advocated straight arterial thoroughfares, symmetry, and advantageous vistas. He slashed the boulevards through the tangles of slums, began the modern sewer and water systems, gutted the Île de la Cité, rebuilt the ancient market of the Halles, and added four new Seine bridges and rebuilt three old ones. The brilliance and prosperity of Paris under Napoleon III were exemplified in the exhibitions held there in 1855 and 1867.

The Third Republic and After

The Franco-German War (1870-71), which brought the fall of the Second Empire and the siege of Paris, was followed by the Commune (1871). Under the Third Republic, Haussmann's projects were continued. Further international exhibitions (1878, 1889, 1900, and 1937) were the occasions for the building of monuments such as the Trocadéro (1878), the Eiffel Tower (1889), and the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, with the Alexandre III Bridge (1900), and for the reconstruction of the Trocadéro as the Chaillot Palace (1937). The Métro was constructed, commerce and industry annexed formerly residential districts, and the ever-expanding population overflowed the old limits of Paris. Louis-Philippe's fortifications were abolished by a law of April 1919.

During the German occupation of Paris in World War II, the city was only slightly damaged. It was a centre for the activities of the Resistance movement, which culminated in the liberation of the city in August 1944.

The immediate postwar years were a time of eager intellectual activity but also of poverty and social tension. The housing shortage was grave, the psychological scars of the German occupation were slow to heal, and colonial wars and political instability lowered morale. Conditions gradually improved, especially after Charles de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. The city's economy improved, old buildings and neighbourhoods were cleaned up and renovated, and housing and commercial space were built.

Eiffel Tower When the French government was organizing the International Exposition of 1889 to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution, a competition was held for designs for a suitable monument. More than 100 plans were submitted, and the Centennial Committee accepted that of the noted bridge engineer Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel's concept of a 984-foot (300-metre) tower built almost entirely of open-lattice wrought iron aroused amazement, skepticism, and no little opposition on aesthetic grounds. When completed, the tower served as the entrance gateway to the exposition. The tower was erected in only about two years (1887-89), with a small labour force, at slight cost. Making use of his advanced knowledge of the behaviour of metal arch and metal truss forms under loading, Eiffel designed a light, airy, but strong structure that presaged a revolution in civil engineering and architectural design. And despite protests, it ultimately vindicated itself aesthetically.

In May 1968 Paris was rocked by a great student uprising, which swelled from scattered unrest among students in the Latin Quarter to a nationwide outbreak of labour strikes and protests. Attention was focused on Paris' economic and social problems, and the uprising was later seen as useful in hastening the modernization of French society. Paris, like many other Western cities, has come to terms with problems as diverse as high unemployment and politically motivated acts of terrorism. But these are among the few serious blemishes on a city of bright prosperity and dynamic self-confidence.

Parisian Metro Evidence of plans to build the métropolitain (or the Nécropolitain, as it was dubbed by one wit) existed as early as 1845, though the first line was not completed until July 19, 1900. (Line 1, as it is still called, runs from Porte de Vincennes to La Défense.) Following the construction of the Eiffel Tower by eleven years, this elegant transportation system stole the show, and remains to this day a model of efficient public transportation. While the engineer Fulgence Bienvenüe was in charge of construction, architect Hector Guimard is credited for the charming Art Nouveau entrances. The system boasts 199 km (124 miles) of track and 15 lines, shuttling 3500 cars on a precise schedule between 368 stations (not including RER stations), 87 of these offering connections between lines. It is said that every building in Paris is within 500 meters of a métro station. Roughly 6 million people per day patronize the métro, which employs 15000 (as of 1989 statistics). Some of the métro stations are worth a visit in their own right. For example, the stop for the Louvre (line 1) gives one the impression that the train has pulled into the Museum itself: the immaculate marble walls are lined with exhibits and replicas of art works, with glass cases containing various sculptures. On line 13, Varenne offers exhibits from the nearby Rodin Museum, while Liège is paneled with beautiful tiles. Abbesses (line 12) features murals alongside its spiral staircase leading to one of the more elaborate of Art Nouveau entrances.