Paris\u2019 beginnings and the importance of the river Seine<\/h2>\n
But we know from archaeological evidence \u2013 particularly dugout canoes discovered at Bercy, east of the city centre \u2013 that people were living in the area by at least 4000 BC.<\/p>\n
That discovery highlights a key point about Paris \u2013 the importance of the river in the city\u2019s early development and through the millennia.<\/p>\n
The Seine is navigable from deep in the heart of France, past Paris and all the way north to the English Channel, and from there you can reach the the Atlantic. It provides an excellent route for trade and transport.<\/p>\n
Perhaps unsurprisingly then, from the city\u2019s earliest days through the Roman<\/a> period into the Middle Ages<\/a>, the most important people here were the boatmen.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also crucial to observe that there was a road running north-south in prehistoric times, roughly following the line of today\u2019s Rue Saint-Denis north of the Seine, and the Rue Saint-Jacques on the southern bank.<\/p>\n Today, there are two islands in the middle of the Seine: the \u00cele de la Cit\u00e9 on which Notre-Dame Cathedral<\/a> stands and, just upstream, the \u00cele Saint-Louis.<\/p>\n In past times, there were quite a few islands in what was a marshy, boggy area. The Romans called the settlement Lutetia, using a word that was probably Gaulish as well as Latin: lutum<\/em>, meaning mud. But that muddiness and those islands meant that it could be traversed, and it became a crossroads.<\/p>\n The Roman city was laid out on the \u00cele de la Cit\u00e9 and in what\u2019s now the Latin Quarter, the fifth arrondissement on the Left Bank, plus the two islands.<\/p>\n This companion piece accompanies our podcast miniseries History\u2019s Greatest Cities<\/em>. Listen to the full episode on Florence with Colin Jones and Paul Bloomfield, then explore the entire series<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> For the first four or five centuries of its existence, it was a modest, provincial place within greater Gaul, the capital of which was Lyon. It was mainly a transport hub and, being set back a bit from the German frontier, something of a garrison town. At its peak, it may have been home to 8,000 or so people, but it was never a great Roman city.<\/p>\n After a period of decline following a series of attacks by Germanic peoples, including latterly the Franks, the Romans left in the late fifth century AD. Almost all Roman buildings were then lost; parts of the thermal baths remained, and became incorporated into the medieval monastery that now forms the core of the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n Others were rediscovered in the 19th century, notably the amphitheatre now known as the Ar\u00e8nes de Lut\u00e8ce. But for 1500 years of Paris\u2019s history, there were virtually no visible remains of the Roman city.<\/p>\n In AD 508, not long after the Romans finally departed, the Frankish King Clovis named Paris as his capital. He established the dominance of the Franks, who ruled France throughout the Middle Ages. Despite this, Paris remained a small city for several more centuries until the dawn of the Frankish Capetian dynasty, founded by Hugh Capet in AD 987.<\/p>\n As the Capetian dynasty grew in importance \u2013 subjugating the Angevin and Plantagenet dynasties in western France, absorbing the Normans, and expanding its kingdom across most of southern France \u2013 so did Paris.<\/p>\n From the 12th and 13th centuries, the city became the intellectual hub of western Europe owing to the growth of the University of Paris.<\/p>\n Initially, teachers lectured to groups of young men in the streets; gradually learning became institutionalised. The Sorbonne was founded first, in 1253, followed by the other colleges of the university. Most of those were destroyed or used for other purposes after the French Revolution, but Paris remained a collegiate city.<\/p>\n The area of the Left Bank around the Sorbonne later became known as the Latin Quarter, from the idea that only Latin \u2013 the language of instruction \u2013 was spoken by the students here.<\/p>\n This district also became the centre of book production. Manuscripts were illuminated here; once printing presses were introduced in the 15th century, it became a hotbed of publishing. Even today, if you walk around the Latin Quarter you\u2019ll see the headquarters of big publishing houses.<\/p>\n This added an extra dimension to the city: it was already a trading centre, a political centre, a religious centre \u2013 construction of the great cathedral of Notre-Dame had begun on the \u00cele de la Cit\u00e9 in 1163 \u2013 and now it was an intellectual centre.<\/p>\n The Capetians were a lucky dynasty. For generations they produced male heirs \u2013 but in 1328, their luck ran out. The resulting succession dispute<\/a> sparked a grim period in Parisian history and French history more generally.<\/p>\n On one side were supporters of a collateral line of the Capetians, the Valois; on the other side, the English who, through marriage, also had a claim to the French throne. Less than ten years after the death of the last Capetian king, Charles IV, tussles between competing claimants sparked the Hundred Years\u2019 War<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was during this conflict that the English crushed the French military machine at the battle of Agincourt<\/a> in 1415, leading to the Treaty of Troyes five years later \u2013 in which it was agreed Henry V of England (or his heirs) would inherit the French throne on the death of Charles VI of France. And so it came to pass when, in 1431, Henry VI<\/a> of England was crowned King of France. Paris was occupied by the English for 15 years from 1420, but they lost control of the city in 1435.<\/p>\n Paris had endured a tough time, with an economic depression and, in 1348, the Black Death<\/a>, which wiped out perhaps half of the population. The city only really started reviving at the end of the 15th century, with the cultural flourishing of the Renaissance.<\/p>\n The Renaissance saw Paris expand, with many great buildings raised during the 16th and 17th centuries.<\/p>\n The Louvre, originally built as a defensive fortress, was converted into a royal palace in 1546. The magnificent Renaissance H\u00f4tel de Ville (City Hall) was built in the 16th century (and though it was burned down during the Paris Commune, the brief revolutionary government of 1871, it was rebuilt in the same style).<\/p>\n The H\u00f4tel des Invalides was commissioned in 1670 to care for wounded soldiers. It wasn\u2019t just buildings, but the streets themselves: both the Champs-Elys\u00e9es and the great square now called the Place de la Concorde, originally the Place Louis XV, were both developed in the 18th century.<\/p>\n The Reformation<\/a> divided France, leading to a series of internal conflicts that would become known as the French Wars of Religion<\/a>. Paris \u2013 which was strongly Catholic \u2013 was particularly resistant to the accession of the Protestant King Henry IV in 1589 until his conversion to Catholicism in 1593. It was Henry IV who founded the French Bourbon dynasty, which lasted to the French Revolution<\/a> and even beyond.<\/p>\n Louis XIV<\/a>, who reigned from 1643 to 1715 and became known as the Sun King, put Paris at the heart of his plans.<\/p>\n Louis thought of himself as the greatest ruler in western Europe \u2013 he wanted his capital to reflect his glory, to be seen as the new Rome. He instructed his first minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to plough money into building projects.<\/p>\n It was in his reign that the east front was added to the Louvre, and of course Louis\u2019 opulent palace was built at Versailles<\/a>, where he spent most of his time.<\/p>\n Paris also became one of the great consumerist centres \u2013 a place where fashion and luxury items were created and sold, attracting the elite of western Europe. Fashion houses sprang up along the Rue Saint-Honor\u00e9, producing new designs for each of two annual seasons, much as they do today.<\/p>\n Already a major intellectual centre, Paris became a focal point of the Enlightenment. New ideas were discussed in academies, in printing houses, at salons in private houses, and in coffee-houses.<\/p>\n You can still get an idea of this mental ferment at caf\u00e9s such as the Procope, where Voltaire and many of the big names of the 18th-century intellectual world went to drink coffee and talk.<\/p>\n Many in Paris did not share a life of indulgence or intellect, and in 1789, ordinary people\u2019s dissatisfaction at the ancien r\u00e9gime<\/em>, the political system that had controlled France since the Middle Ages, boiled over into revolution.<\/p>\n On 14 July, insurgents stormed the Bastille, where political prisoners were held. Less than a month later, on 10 August, Louis XVI and his family were seized in the Tuileries Palace; he was executed by guillotine in 1793. The monarchy was ousted; the First Republic was founded.<\/p>\n The popular classes of Paris were fundamental to the uprising \u2013 the yeast of revolution, if you like. And this urge to rebel resurfaced again and again in the first half of the 19th century, with two more revolutions in 1830 and 1848.<\/p>\n So when Napoleon III\u2019s prefect, Georges-Eug\u00e8ne Haussmann, launched his sweeping redevelopment of Paris in 1854, driving his great boulevards through the old city, it was no accident that he demolished hundreds of tenements and other homes of poorer citizens, driving them out to the suburbs. The centre was reclaimed by the bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n The aggrandisement of Paris continued through the golden years of the Belle \u00c9poque, through the end of the 19th and into the early 20th century. The city witnessed a blossoming of art, fashion, theatre, music; the Folies Berg\u00e8re opened, then the Moulin Rouge. It was a wonderful time \u2013 for the wealthy.<\/p>\n In 1914, the money ran out \u2013 and the luck. Paris was nearly invaded during the First World War<\/a>, and even after the armistice of 1918, the city remained poor, with little in the way of public building works.<\/p>\n In 1940, during the Second World War<\/a>, France fell; the Third Republic was overthrown, the puppet Vichy<\/a> regime was installed, and Paris was essentially occupied by the Nazis.<\/p>\n France came out of the Second World War possibly even poorer than it did after the First World War, and though intellectually it remained strong \u2013 think of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their fellow existentialists working on the Left Bank in the late 1940s \u2013 it wasn\u2019t till the 1950s and sixties that Paris really got its mojo back.<\/p>\n Today, Paris is again one of the most desirable destinations in the world. Over more than 20 centuries, and despite plenty of bumps in the road, the \u201ccity of mud\u201d has comprehensively transformed into the \u201ccity of light\u201d.<\/p>\n For more than 2,000 years, Paris has attracted royals, revolutionaries and artists. Colin Jones picks out five sites that highlight the city\u2019s rich heritage<\/strong><\/p>\n Most visitors to Paris make a beeline for the Louvre, and rightly so: the palace houses one of the world\u2019s great art collections. But while you\u2019re there, consider a stop at a site that came to light far more recently.<\/p>\n During the major renovation project at the Louvre in the 1980s and 90s, when the glass pyramid was installed, a shopping mall was built beneath it \u2013 the Carrousel du Louvre. And it was during these excavations that workers discovered the foundations of the walls built by King Charles V in the 14th century, during the Hundred Years\u2019 War with England, to bolster the existing fortifications.<\/p>\n The remnants, incorporated into the shopping centre, are massive, reminding us of the military aspect of this city, which needed to be defended from attack over many centuries. They also demonstrate just how small medieval Paris was \u2013 this bulwark marked the western boundary of the walled city.<\/p>\n In 1794, towards the end of the bloody period of the French Revolution known as \u2018the Terror\u2019, a plot of land seized from a convent was put to use as a cemetery. In early summer that year, the guillotine had been set up in the nearby Place de la Nation; dozens of people were being executed daily, and the bodies were piling up.<\/p>\n So the revolutionaries dug big pits at Picpus, into which they threw the bodies \u2013 and severed heads \u2013 of 1,306 victims of the guillotine executed between 14 June and 27 July.<\/p>\n The corpses were covered with lime and, at the end of that frantic period of guillotining, the pits were filled in. Then, from the late 19th century, aristocrats acquired the land, which became a private cemetery in which only descendants of those guillotined could be interred, including many elite French families.<\/p>\n A visit to Picpus provides an extraordinary snapshot not just of the revolution, but also of French political life over the centuries that followed. You might find a memorial to an aristocrat executed in June 1794, then one to his descendant killed in the First World War, or one who was deported and died in a Nazi concentration camp.<\/p>\n Paris\u2019s sizeable Roman arena, the Ar\u00e8nes de Lut\u00e8ce, was lost for centuries, rediscovered during construction of a tram depot in the 1860s, then excavated and restored in the 1880s and 90s.<\/p>\n Only fragments of the actual structure remained, but the shape and extent was clear: a huge amphitheatre, more than 130 metres across, that could hold some 15,000 spectators for shows including animal fights and gladiatorial contests.<\/p>\n It was built from the late first century AD, about 150 years after the Romans completed their conquest of Gaul and began to recon- struct the city they named Lutetia, on and around the \u00cele de la Cit\u00e9 in the river Seine.<\/p>\n Today, the arena and the thermal baths that are now part of the nearby Cluny Museum are the only major monuments surviving from the Roman era. Stroll through a little covered passageway between shops on the Rue Monge, and you\u2019ll discover an oasis of calm.<\/p>\n This street, running parallel to the Seine north of the Louvre, was the birthplace of consumerist culture \u2013 the place where the idea of \u2018fashion\u2019 and haute couture was created.<\/p>\n It\u2019s where Rose Bertin, dressmaker to Marie-Antoinette, opened her shop in 1773, and many of the big fashion houses are still found here. But it\u2019s an ancient street, so you\u2019ll also come across several monuments to older times.<\/p>\n For example, you\u2019ll see a plaque commemorating Joan of Arc\u2019s attempt to capture Paris during the siege of the city in September 1429, when she was wounded by a crossbow bolt.<\/p>\n A little farther down the road, just north of the Place de la Concorde, you\u2019ll find a plaque recording where the revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre lived between 1791 and 1794. So a stroll down the Rue Saint-Honor\u00e9 reveals an interesting and reflective slice of Parisian life over the centuries.<\/p>\n In 1974, author Georges Perec wrote a short book \u2013 a pamphlet, really \u2013 titled Tentative d\u2019\u00e9puisement d\u2019un lieu parisien<\/em> (An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris<\/em>). It was an account of what he saw while sitting in a cafe on the Place Saint-Sulpice, a large square on the Left Bank near the Jardin du Luxembourg.<\/p>\n In many ways it\u2019s very basic: people board a bus, a man walks past with a plastic bag, pigeons take off, there\u2019s a bit of rain, and so on. But it reveals a sort of Paris without Paris \u2013 without the history, without the great sights and monuments, just letting the bustle be the spectacle.<\/p>\n Paris can feel very planned, thanks to Baron Haussmann\u2019s ambitious rebuilding project of the mid-19th century that created so many wide, straight boulevards. But when you visit, you feel as if you\u2019re making your own city.<\/p>\n Sitting in the Caf\u00e9 de la Mairie on the Place Saint-Sulpice, imagining yourself as Georges Perec watching the city go by, is a wonderfully satisfying way to experience Paris. While there, admire the impressive church of Saint-Sulpice, the capital\u2019s second-largest (after Notre-Dame), built over the course of more than a century from 1646. Its strikingly lofty interior features fonts made from the shells of a giant clam, and wonderful murals by Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix.<\/p>\n Colin Jones is emeritus professor of history at Queen Mary University of London, and visiting professor at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Paris: Biography of a City<\/em> (Allen Lane, 2004). He was talking to the journalist Paul Bloomfield, host of our podcast series History\u2019s Greatest Cities<\/em>. Listen to the companion podcast on Paris<\/a>\u00a0or explore the entire series<\/a><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n The City of Light wasn\u2019t always so dazzling: its origins were muddy, and its development was punctuated by conflict in between periods of eminence. Historian and author Colin Jones guides us on a speedy canter through two millennia of Parisian history <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":29099,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"15"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/09\/the-history-of-paris-romans-renaissance-and-revolution.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/09\/the-history-of-paris-romans-renaissance-and-revolution-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/09\/the-history-of-paris-romans-renaissance-and-revolution-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/09\/the-history-of-paris-romans-renaissance-and-revolution.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/09\/the-history-of-paris-romans-renaissance-and-revolution.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/09\/the-history-of-paris-romans-renaissance-and-revolution.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/09\/the-history-of-paris-romans-renaissance-and-revolution.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The City of Light wasn\u2019t always so dazzling: its origins were muddy, and its development was punctuated by conflict in between periods of eminence. Historian and author Colin Jones guides us on a speedy canter through two millennia of Parisian history","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/29098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Paris and the Romans<\/h2>\n
History\u2019s Greatest Cities: A HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast series<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"Cities](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/02\/Cities-new-Sq-c8695f6.jpg?quality=45&resize=556,556\" "\\"Cities")
<\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/section> Paris becomes a capital city<\/h2>\n
![\"Notre](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/03\/NotreDameGettyImages-992816562-9e9ec58.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Notre")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Paris and the Hundred Years\u2019 War<\/h2>\n
The Renaissance, the reformation and Paris<\/h2>\n
![\"Aerial](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/03\/HotelDesInvalidesGettyImages-1318968050-e0c022b.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Hotel")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Paris and the Sun King<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/03\/CafeProcopeGettyImages-952402490-314101d.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Cafe")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Paris in the age of revolutions<\/h2>\n
The World Wars come to Paris<\/h2>\n
What to see: Paris in five places<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/09\/Paris-Map-with-numbers-C-Battlefied-Design-f543336.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Paris")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n1. Carrousel du Louvre<\/h3>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/09\/01-Carrousel-du-LouvreAlamy-C3A9B8-2-9e38198.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"01")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n2. Picpus Cemetery<\/h3>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/09\/02-Picpus-CemeteryAlamy-DC0JCK-42799a1.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"02")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n3. Ar\u00e8nes de Lut\u00e8ce<\/h3>\n
![\"03](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/09\/03-Arenes-de-LuteceAlamy-2A3GY8Y-b73d979.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"03")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n4. Rue Saint-Honor\u00e9<\/h3>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/09\/04-Rue-Saint-HonoreGettyImages-1133992923-b6b650b.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"04")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n5. Place Saint-Sulpice<\/h3>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/09\/05-Place-Saint-Sulpicedreamstimexxl147939409-48efe38.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"05")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"