History of Paris
Encyclopedia
The history of Paris
, France
, spans over 2,000 years, during which time the city grew from a small Gallic
settlement to the multicultural capital of a modern Europe
an state, and one of the world's major global cities
.
It is believed that a settlement on the site of modern-day Paris was founded about 250 BC by a Celtic tribe called the Parisii
, who established a fishing village near the river Seine
. The Île de la Cité
was traditionally assumed to be the location of the settlement, but this theory has been recently brought into question. Recent archeological finds indicate that the Paris region's largest pre-Roman settlement may have been in the present-day suburb of Nanterre
.
Paris's lands were prosperous, and occupied a strategic position for controlling river shipping and commerce. The area came under Roman
control after the revolt of 52 BC when Vercingetorix
led a Celtic uprising against the Romans under Caesar. The town sided with the rebels and was said to have contributed 8,000 men to Vercingetorix's army. It was garrisoned by Vercingetorix's lieutenant Camulogenus, whose army camped on the Mons Lutetius (where the Panthéon
is now situated). The Romans crushed the rebels at nearby Melun
and took control of the entire region. By the end of the same century, the Île de la Cité and Left Bank Sainte Geneviève Hill
became the centre of a new Roman settlement called Lutetia
.
Under Roman rule, the town was thoroughly Romanised and grew considerably. It was, however, not the capital of its province, Lugdunensis Senona—that role was played by Agedincum (modern Sens
, Yonne
). It was Christian
ised in the 3rd century when St Denis
became the city's first bishop. The process was not entirely peaceful—in about 250 St Denis and two companions were arrested and decapitated on the hill of Mons Mercurius, thereafter known as Mons Martis (Martyrs' Hill, now Montmartre
).
Lutetia was renamed Paris in 212, after the local tribe, but the rest of the 3rd and 4th century was wracked by war and civil unrest. The city came under attack from barbarian invaders, prompting the construction of a defensive city wall. In 357 the Emperor Constantine's nephew Julian arrived in Paris to become the city's new governor. Although his uncle had declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire, Julian "the Apostate" strove to roll back its advance. He became emperor in 361 but died in battle only two years later.
Roman rule in northern Gaul effectively collapsed in the 5th century. In 451, the region was invaded by Attila the Hun
, prompting fears that Paris would be attacked. According to legend, the city was saved by the piety of Sainte Geneviève
and her followers, whose prayers for relief were answered when Attila's march turned away from Paris to the south. St. Geneviève remains Paris's patron saint to this day.
The city's escape from Attila proved a short-lived reprieve, as it was attacked and overrun in 464 by Childeric I
(Childeric the Frank). His son Clovis I
made the city his capital in 508 and was buried there on his death in 511, alongside St. Geneviève.
By this time, Paris was a typically crowded early medieval city with timber buildings alongside surviving Roman remains. According to the chronicler Gregory of Tours
, it suffered a disastrous fire in 585. The city grew beyond the boundaries of the Île de la Cité, with suburbs being established on both banks of the river.
The Merovingian kings died out in 751, to be replaced by the Carolingian
s. Pépin was proclaimed king of the Franks in 751, to be succeeded by Charlemagne
, who moved the capital of his Holy Roman Empire
from Paris to Aachen
. Its inhabitants sought the assistance of Robert I of France
, and his brother Odo, Count of Paris
. Odo led the defence of the city in opposition to a ten-month Viking siege in 885 and became co-ruler of the Empire with Charles the Simple
. His grandnephew Hugh Capet was elected King of France
(or Francia—literally "the land of the Franks") in 987. He made Paris his capital and founded the Capetian dynasty
.
The French kings initially controlled little more than Paris and the surrounding region, the Île-de-France
, but over the centuries steadily expanded their territory and power. Paris itself developed an increasing degree of importance as a royal capital, an ecclesiastical and cultural centre.
As early as the 12th century, the distinctive character of the city's districts was emerging. The Île de la Cité, on which the Cathedral of Notre Dame
building began in 1163, was the centre of government and religious life; the Left Bank (south of the Seine) was the centre of learning, focusing on the various Church-run schools established there; and the Right Bank (north of the Seine) was the centre of commerce and finance. A league of merchants, the Hanse parisienne, was established and quickly became a powerful force in the city's affairs.
Under the rule of Philip II Augustus, who took the throne in 1180, a number of major building works were carried out in Paris. He built the wall of Philippe Auguste and began the construction of the Palais du Louvre
, as well as paving streets and establishing a covered market at Les Halles
(where it would remain until 1969).
His grandson Louis IX
, renowned for his extreme piety (and later canonised as St Louis) established the city as a major centre of pilgrimage in the 13th century with the construction of the Sainte-Chapelle
on the Île de la Cité, and the completion of the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Basilica of St Denis. The latter was one of the finest medieval Gothic religious buildings ever constructed and was built to house Louis's most precious possession—the (alleged) Crown of Thorns
, purchased from the bankrupt Byzantine Empire
at an extortionate price.
line died out in 1328, leaving no male heir. Edward III of England
claimed the French throne by virtue of his descent (via his mother) from Philip IV of France
. This was rejected by the French barons, who supported the rival claim of Philippe of Valois (Philip VI of France
). The Hundred Years' War
thus began, followed swiftly by the arrival of the Black Death
.
Paris's history in the 14th century was thus punctuated by outbreaks of plague, political violence and popular uprisings. In January 1357, Étienne Marcel
, the Provost
of Paris, led a merchants' revolt in a bid to curb the power of the monarchy and obtain privileges for the city and the Estates General
, which had met for the first time in Paris in 1347. After initial concessions by the Crown, the city was retaken by royalist forces in 1358 and Marcel and his followers were killed.
In the aftermath of the revolt, Charles V of France
took steps to guard against a recurrence; a new wall was constructed around the city to guard against exterior enemies while the grim fortress of the Bastille
was built to control the city's restless population. Another revolt, this time over excessive taxation, broke out in 1382 under Charles VI of France
but was quickly and violently suppressed. The city was subsequently punished by having its earlier privileges withdrawn.
Civil war broke out in France after the assassination of Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans
by the Burgundian
John the Fearless in 1407 (a plaque marks the spot on the rue des Francs Bourgeois in the Marais
quarter). John the Fearless' agents fled the scene of the crime to the Tower of John the Fearless (now on rue Etienne Marcel) Struggles ensued between the Burgundian and Armagnac parties for control of the capital and the person of the king. John the Fearless, whose power was initially in the ascendant, arranged for theologians of the University of Paris to present a defence of the murder of Louis of Orléans, which was presented as a tyrannicide
due to the duke's undue influence on Charles VI. John the Fearless's power in Paris came to an end in 1409 with the revolt of Simon Caboche
, although he was to retake the city in 1417 until his assassination in 1419.
In the ensuing chaos, the Plantagenets captured Paris in 1420. In 1422, Henry V of England
died at the Château de Vincennes
, just outside the city. Charles VII of France
tried but failed to retake the city in 1429, despite the assistance of Joan of Arc
(who was wounded in the attempt). Two years later, Henry VI of England
was crowned King of France at Notre-Dame. French persistence paid off in 1436 when Charles finally managed to retake the city in April after several failed sieges.
With the recapture of the city, the Valois monarchs and French nobility sought to impose their authority on the city through the construction of various grandiose ecclesiastical and secular monuments, including churches and mansions. These developments notwithstanding, the later Valois dynasty largely abandoned Paris as a place of residence, preferring instead various Renaissance châteaux in the Loire Valley
. Over the following century the city's population more than tripled. King Francis I
had probably the greatest impact of any Valois monarch, transforming the Louvre and establishing a glittering court including such notables as Leonardo da Vinci
and Benvenuto Cellini
.
Paris was, however, not spared from the religious violence affecting the rest of the country as Protestantism
gained ground in defiance of an increasingly harsh Catholic backlash. Paris was a predominantly Catholic city — so much so that Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus
there in 1534 — but it also had a growing Protestant population. The rival religious factions pursued an increasingly bloodthirsty feud, with religiously-inspired assassinations and burnings at the stake.
Matters came to a head on 23 August 1572 with the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, when Catholic mobs killed an estimated 3,000 Protestants on the instructions of King Charles IX
.
His successor, King Henry III
, attempted to find a peaceful solution but the city's population turned against him and forced him to flee on 12 May 1588, the so-called Day of the Barricades
(as this was the first time in Paris's history that a revolt had utilised barricades as opposed to simple chains in defence of the city). Paris was from this point ruled by a group known as the Seize (so called because each member represented one of the sixteen quartiers of the city). This group had formed in secret several years earlier, and was motivated to revolt primarily by frustration with the existing system of civic government which prevented the advancement of their careers, and by the desire to defend the traditional privileges of the city, which the Valois kings, and Henry III in particular) had eroded. Nevertheless, the nobility, and particularly the duke of Guise, played a crucial role in the revolt which drove out the king, as did the Parisian crowd manning the barricades.
On 23 December 1588, Henry III had the duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorraine
assassinated at the Estates of Blois, which further enraged his opponents in Paris. At this time, the printing presses of Paris produced huge numbers of libels against the king and his policies. The first of August 1589, Henry III was assassinated by a fanatical Dominican
monk, Jacques Clément
, bringing the Valois line to an end.
However, Paris, along with the other towns of the Holy Union (or Catholic League
) held out against Henry IV until 1594. After his victory over the Holy Union at the battle of Ivry
on 14 March 1590, Henry IV proceeded to lay siege to Paris
, greatly to the distress of the population. Immense poverty was experienced, prices rose dramatically as wages stagnated, huge numbers of religious processions were led by the clergy and confraternities to pray for Paris's salvation. These devotions might be said to form an early stage of the Catholic Reformation in Paris. The siege was eventually lifted on 30 August 1590, but economic conditions remained difficult in Paris throughout the 1590s. This situation led to popular protests such as that of the 'Pain ou Paix' where protesters demanded either cheap bread or that the civic government made peace with Henry IV.
Gradually, the power of the Seize was diminished as the nobility of the Holy Union, principally the duke of Mayenne
and the duke of Nemours
, governor of Paris, took power in the city. They called the Estates General
in 1593 to attempt to find an alternative solution to the succession and prevent Henry IV from becoming king (he had not yet proceeded to his coronation). However, the attempt stumbled over the lack of a viable heir, despite the attempts by Spanish ambassadors to have the Infanta crowned (arguing that the constitutional law that the monarch must be Catholic was more important than that declaring the monarch must be male). The year 1593 saw the decline of the League across France, and in Paris two important literary works were published - the Satire Ménippée
and the Dialogue d'entre le Maheustre et le Mananthttp://books.google.com/books?id=fu47AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Dialogue+d%27Entre+le+Maheustre+et+le+Manant&source=bl&ots=mtfJs9l9ku&sig=j4SMqJMCBcbeHbwEv55SC3-5NPQ&hl=fr&ei=kmliTb_SPIL58Aal8ejiCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false ("Dialog between the courtier and the labourer") - which satirised and analysed the events of the time.
On 14 March 1594 Henry IV entered Paris with the complicity of the civic government, and he was soon crowned King of France.
Unlike the later Valois kings, Henry IV made Paris his primary residence and he undertook a number of major public works in the city, including extensions to the Louvre
(whose projected expansion under Henry II
into a square courtyard, the "cour carrée", was far from completed) and construction of the Pont Neuf
, Place des Vosges
, Place Dauphine, and Saint-Louis Hospital. Henry IV faced constant danger from religious fanatics on both sides, particularly after granting religious tolerance to Protestants under the Edict of Nantes
. After surviving at least 18 assassination attempts, he fell victim to a Catholic fanatic on 14 May 1610.
Louis XIII
became king at the age of only eight, with political power exercised by his mother Marie de Médicis in the role of regent
. Although Louis took over when he reached the age of majority, at 15, the real power was exercised by the brilliant Cardinal Richelieu, who greatly expanded royal power. Louis's reign saw major changes to the face of Paris; his mother commissioned the Palais du Luxembourg, while Cardinal Richelieu built the Palais Royal
and rebuilt the Sorbonne
. He also commissioned a number of major Baroque
churches as a statement of the Catholic Counter-Reformation
.
Louis XIII died in 1643, leaving the throne to his five-year-old son Louis XIV
. The new king and his family were forced to flee the city in 1648 by a rebellion, known as the Fronde
. The Fronde arose from two sources of discontent: bourgeois protested against royal authoritarianism and excessive taxes; and the high nobility revolted in order to regain the political power that they had lost under Richelieu. Rebel rule proved considerably worse, however, and the king returned to a hero's welcome in 1653.
Royalist France achieved its greatest heights under Louis XIV, the "Sun King." His minister of finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert
undertook lavish building projects in Paris in an effort to make it a "new Rome" fit for the Sun King. The king himself, however, detested Paris, preferring instead to rule France from his vast château at Versailles. The city had by this time grown far beyond its medieval boundaries, with some 500,000 inhabitants and 25,000 houses by the mid-17th century. From the great influx of rural migrants, however, grew poor areas known by the term Cour des miracles
.
His great-grandson Louis XV
became king at the age of only five, with Philip d'Orléans serving as regent. The Court returned to Paris, with the new king installed in the Palais-Royal. Philip quickly gained a reputation for corruption and debauchery. His involvement in the financial scandal of the South Sea Bubble in 1720 greatly discredited him, freeing Louis XV to move the court back to Versailles.
During the latter half of the 18th century, Paris became the intellectual and cultural capital of the Western world. It became a centre of the Enlightenment
with its salons becoming the center of the new thinking of the "Age of Reason." This was positively encouraged by the state, with Louis's mistress Madame de Pompadour
supporting the city's intellectuals and prompting the king to construct striking new monuments.
Under Louis XVI
, Paris reached new heights of prestige as a center of the arts, sciences and philosophy. It was in Paris that the Montgolfier brothers made their historic balloon
ascents in 1783. However, the French state was by now virtually bankrupt, its finances drained by the Seven Years' War
and the French intervention in the American War of Independence. A new wall
was built around Paris between 1784 and 1791, this time to create a customs barrier for taxation purposes. Not surprisingly, this was a very unpopular innovation. The disastrous harvest of 1788 brought matters to a head, with widespread famine and hunger across France and food riots in Paris.
effectively began in Paris, which the king had garrisoned with foreign troops to quell any unrest. On 13 July 1789 a hitherto unknown lawyer named Camille Desmoulins
sparked the revolt when he jumped on a chair outside the Café de Foy at the Palais-Royal and denounced Louis XVI's dismissal of his minister, Jacques Necker
, who was widely seen as the only honest man in the government. Desmoulins ended his speech with the call "Aux armes!" ("To arms!").
The following day, 14 July, the mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides, acquiring thousands of guns, and stormed the Bastille
. A brief battle ensued in which 87 revolutionaries were killed before the fortress surrendered. This event marked the first real manifestation of the Revolution, and is still marked in France as Bastille Day
.
Paris became the scene of revolutionary ferment, with political clubs taking over buildings for their headquarters. The uprising had, however, badly disrupted food supplies and in October an angry crowd marched to Versailles to protest—whereupon legend holds that Marie Antoinette
, told the people had no bread, haughtily dismissed them with her famous remark, "Let them eat cake." (In fact, it is a near-certainty that she never said this—the remark had been part of urban legends for over a hundred years, and seems to have been tacked on to Marie Antoinette by a populace that had decided to blame her for the country's malaise.) The furious crowd began attacking the palace and were only placated when Louis himself appeared and agreed to return to Paris with his family. The royal family were reduced to virtual prisoners in the Tuileries. They tried to escape on 20 June 1791 but were caught and returned to Paris as captives.
With other European powers mobilising to crush the Revolution, which they saw as threatening their own monarchies, the political climate in Paris worsened as rumours of foreign plots and invasions took hold. Louis and those who supported an agreement with the monarchy were accused by the radical Jacobins
of being the stooges of foreign powers, and on 10 August 1792 a mob demanded that the National Assembly depose the king. When the demand was refused, the mob attacked the Tuileries and the royal family took refuge within the Assembly
. Power now passed to the radical Commune de Paris, led by Georges Danton
, Marat
and Robespierre
.
The following month, more than 2,000 people were massacred in Paris as revolutionary mobs hunted down and killed anyone seen as an opponent of the new order. The monarchy was formally abolished on 22 September 1792, "Day I of Year I of the French Republic." An invading Prussia
n army heading for Paris was defeated shortly afterwards, clearing the way for the bloodiest phase of the Revolution. A guillotine
was erected in what is now the Place de la Concorde
and was used on 21 January 1793 to execute Louis XVI. Marie Antoinette followed in October 1793.
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The revolutionaries became steadily more extreme, turning on the "enemy within." This included not just royalists but those accused of simply being not sufficiently revolutionary, including Danton and Camille Desmoulins. Over 1,300 people were executed in just six weeks in 1794. In the end, the extremists' bloodthirstiness destroyed their own moral standing; a group of moderates seized control in July 1794, sending Robespierre and his allies to the guillotine in a last spasm of bloodletting.
The new rulers organised themselves into a five-man Directoire but had only a shaky grip on power. In 1795 they were saved from a royalist revolt by a young army officer named Napoleon Bonaparte, who dispersed a hostile Parisian mob by the simple expedient of firing into it with cannons at point-blank range. The grateful Directoire sent Napoleon to Italy
to aid the defence against the various foreign armies threatening France. He was spectacularly successful and in 1798 was given command of an expedition to Egypt
, which he nearly conquered. He returned with great prestige, which he used to ruthless effect in November 1799 to seize power. The following year, Napoleon was declared first consul.
.
Napoleon's military campaigns against the British
, Austria
ns and Russia
ns initially met with great success but hubris, overconfidence and poor planning caused the annihilation of his army in 1813 in the depths of a Russian winter. Russian and Austrian armies invaded France in 1814 and on 31 March 1814, Paris fell to the Coalition.
Napoleon's brief return from exile
in 1815 saw him pass through Paris, en route to destiny at Waterloo
on 18 June. His replacements, the restored Bourbon monarchs Louis XVIII
(1814, 1815–1824) and Charles X
(1824–1830), managed between them to provoke yet another revolution in Paris, confirming the saying that the Bourbons could "learn nothing and forget everything."
The powers of the monarchy were in theory confined by a Charter of Liberties but in practice both Louis and Charles ran an authoritarian regime reliant on Church support. On 25 July 1830 Charles issued the repressive Ordinances of St-Cloud, abolishing the freedom of the press, dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and restricting voting rights to the landed gentry only. A general uprising in Paris followed with three days of fighting between loyalists and rebels, including whole regiments of the Paris garrison. The king was forced to abdicate, being replaced by the more acceptable Louis-Philippe.
The arrival in Paris of the Industrial Revolution
prompted the city's breakneck growth, with migrant workers arriving from the countryside on newly-constructed railway lines. By now its population was over 900,000 people, making it the second largest city in Europe after London
, the third largest city in the world and far surpassing any other city in France (the next largest, Lyon
and Marseille
, had only about 115,000 each). The city's status was reflected in the construction of grandiose new monuments, such as the Arc de Triomphe
and the Eglise du Dome in which Napoleon's body was interred. Much of the population, however, lived in appalling conditions in diseased slums; a cholera
outbreak in 1831 killed over 19,000 people.
The discontented Parisian population was ripe for an uprising, and on 22 February 1848 it duly came when troops fired on demonstrators. Louis Philippe abdicated and was replaced by a Second Republic
. Nationwide elections returned a conservative government which opposed any reforms. The Parisian workers rose again only to be massacred by General Cavaignac, with some 5,000 people being killed in the fighting and subsequent reprisals. Fresh elections were held at the end of 1848.
The victor was, to the surprise of many, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
—the nephew of the late Emperor. He won by an overwhelming majority (receiving 75% of the votes cast) but was not content with being a mere president. On 2 December 1851 he seized power in a coup, declared himself the Emperor Napoleon III and settled in the Tuileries Palace.
It was under Napoleon's rule that Paris in its modern form was created. In 1853 he appointed Baron Haussmann
as Prefect, charged with modernising the city. This Haussmann did to a drastic extent, demolishing much of the old city and replacing it with a network of wide, straight boulevard
s and radiating circus
es. The Bois de Boulogne
and the Bois de Vincennes
were both transformed into large public parks. Although Haussmann was forced to resign in 1869 after financial irregularities, his scheme is largely responsible for the present-day look and layout of Paris.
in 1870, only to be defeated in the Franco-Prussian War
and captured at Sedan
. He abdicated on 4 September, with a Third Republic
proclaimed that same day in Paris. On 19 September the Prussian army arrived at Paris and besieged the city. Major city landmarks were pressed into military service, with the Louvre being turned into an arms factory, the Gare d'Orléans (now the Gare d'Austerlitz
) into a balloon workshop and the Gare de Lyon
into a cannon foundry.
The city finally surrendered on 28 January 1871 with punitive terms being inflicted on the defeated French. They were, in fact, unacceptably punitive in the eyes of many Parisians, who saw the peace treaty signed by the government of Adolphe Thiers
as a betrayal. A revolt broke out on 18 March when government forces were driven out of Montmartre. The government regrouped at Versailles, while on 26 March the Commune of Paris—effectively a miniature socialist republic—was proclaimed in the city. Fierce fighting broke out a few days later as government troops retook the city district by district. It only ended on 28 May, by which time an estimated 4,000–5,000 people on both sides had been killed. In the aftermath, another 10,000 Communards were shot, 40,000 were arrested and 5,000 were deported.
Although the Third Republic was widely disliked for its political instability and corruption, it did manage to deliver a golden age—a belle époque
—for Paris. The city acquired many distinctive new monuments and public buildings, foremost among them the Eiffel Tower
, constructed for the World Exhibition of 1889. It was renowned as a center for the arts, with the Impressionists
taking their inspiration from its new vistas. At the same time, Paris acquired a less savoury reputation as the "sin capital of Europe", with hundreds of brothel
s, revues and risqué cabarets such as the famous Moulin Rouge
. The city also acquired its metro
system, opened in 1900.
In January 1910, the Seine flooded 20 feet above normal, drowning streets throughout the city of Paris and sending thousands of Parisians fleeing to emergency shelters. The 1910 Great Flood of Paris
was the worst the city had seen since 1658 when the water reached only a few centimeters higher.
on 2 August 1914. Like other French cities, Paris initially welcomed the war as an opportunity to gain revenge for the defeat of 1870. Within a month, however, the city was full of refugees and the Germans were just 15 miles from the city. The government was evacuated to Bordeaux
in the expectation that Paris would again fall to German forces.
The city was saved, however, by a desperate French effort to reinforce their lines and by a German failure to press home the attack. In the most famous incident of the "miracle on the Marne", as it became known, thousands of Parisian taxis were commandeered to carry soldiers to the front lines. The Germans were pushed back to the Oise
some 75 miles away from the city.
The lines stayed mostly static for the next four years, with Paris experiencing the occasional bombardment from enemy aircraft and the very long-ranged "Paris Gun
". The city's hedonistic life survived for a while before being subdued by the bloodshed on the front and the impact of rationing and a devastating flu epidemic in 1916. The war was finally ended by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, signed at Compiègne
to the northeast of Paris.
The city emerged into an energetic but restless interwar period, enlivened by the arrival of glamorous émigrés such as Joséphine Baker
. It was a troubled political period, however, especially when the Great Depression
hit Paris. Extreme right- and left-wing parties flourished, and on 5 February 1934 a mob of Fascist and other far-rightists attempted to storm the National Assembly in a botched coup attempt. In the ensuing violence, fifteen people were killed and another 1,500 wounded. In response, the Socialists and Communists united to form a Popular Front, which took power in 1936 but fell only a year later.
France's political divisions were a major factor in its ill-preparedness for the outbreak of the Second World War on 3 September 1939. Some of the Catholic Right were openly hostile to parliamentary democracy, Socialism
and Communism
, and welcomed the possibility of a fascist regime, even imposed by foreign forces. When Adolf Hitler
invaded France on 10 May 1940 it took Nazi Germany
's army only a month to reach Paris, invading through neutral Belgium
around the Maginot Line
, where the French defenses were massed.
Paris fell with virtually no resistance on 14 June. Much of the city's population fled, with 1.6 million of its 3.5 million people leaving between May and June 1940. The government agreed an armistice with the invaders and moved south to Vichy
, while Paris remained—along with two thirds of France—under German occupation.
The next four years saw an increasingly brutal occupation regime imposed on the city. An occupation force of 30,000 administrative and security troops moved into the city and took over 500 hotels and hung swastikas on public buildings and monuments. German officers reserved the best restaurants and set aside brothels and cinemas for their soldiers. The German administrators would outrage Parisians by marching a parade of troops and bands throughout the city everyday sending a grim reminder of German control.
The Gestapo
and SS enacted a 'divide and conquer' strategy to create an atmosphere of fear and suspicion among Parisians, and hired waiters, servants and concierges into a network of informers and offered cash for reports of hostile actions or attitudes. Some Parisians took advantage of this offer to settle scores with rival businesses or ex-lovers. A daily stream of anonymous denunciations flowed into Gestapo headquarters, leading to thousands of Parisians being dragged out of their homes. Some of those were tortured and let go with a warning, though many were deported to prison camps and never heard from again.
The majority of Parisians though repressed their feelings and hid their true opinions to avoid this reign of terror, instead keeping their heads down and avoiding German soldiers eyes. Germans came to nickname the city 'la ville sans regard' (French for "the city that never looks at you.") Still there were those that actively resisted, but faced the constant threat of torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo and the pro-Vichy Milice
(militia).
The German occupational force kept up a campaign of humiliation and intimidation to reduce the spirits of Parisians and to avoid a strong resistance. Displaying the French tricolour and singing the French national anthem 'Marseillaise' were forbidden. Anyone caught defacing a propaganda poster, insulting German soldiers or listening to the British Broadcasting Corporation were subject to arrest and imprisonment. Public gatherings and demonstrations were controlled from the Hotel Meurice
, the German military command in Paris, and a strict curfew was enforced that kept Parisians at home from midnight to 5:30 a.m.
German soldiers were ordered to behave correctly and courteously to the Paris population, and were usually careful enough to pay for everything they bought, though vendors routinely overcharged German soldiers. They even carried German-French phrase books to engage Parisians in friendly conversation. Such efforts proved futile and made no difference to Parisians who had had their friends and family taken by SS officers or lost loved ones on the field of battle. Visiting Germans usually wondered what happened to the once lively city, and a common response was adapted by the residents; "You should have come here when you were not here."
The persecution of Jews in Paris began within 48 hours of the city's fall, when they were required to register with police. On 14 May 1941 the Vichy police began deporting Parisian Jews, rounding them up at the Winter Velodrome. A concentration camp was established in the Parisian suburb of Drancy
to serve as a waystation en route to Auschwitz concentration camp. Some 70,000 people passed through the camp. The camp was run by the French authorities on behalf of the Nazis until July 1943, and the roundups were orchestrated by the Vichy French police.
The 160,000 Jewish population of Paris suffered heavily under the antisemitic German policies. Jewish business were confiscated and many forbidden from practicing their professions, their homes were looted of valuables and they were banned from restaurants, parks, markets and phone booths. Jews were required to wear a mandatory yellow star with the word 'Juif' (French for Jew) on it, though many non-Jewish Parisians mocked this regulation by wearing stars that labeled themselves as 'Zulu' or 'Buddhists'.
In June 1944, Allied forces (including 140 Free French commandos) invaded Normandy
. Two months later they broke through German lines and advanced rapidly across France. An uprising broke out in Paris
on 19 August, led by the Resistance and the city's Police
. As running battles were fought in the streets of Paris, Hitler ordered the city's commandant, von Choltitz
, to destroy the capital. Von Choltitz, however, stalled, for fear of being remembered as the man who destroyed Paris.
When General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division
arrived on the outskirts of the city, von Choltitz ordered his forces to retreat (Choltitz himself surrendered), leaving the city open and largely intact with only stragglers from the garrison and dead-end resisters from the Vichy regime left to offer resistance. De Gaulle and Leclerc entered the city to a jubilant reception, and De Gaulle established a temporary government that lasted until 1946.
and Algeria
in the 1950s and 1960s. During the Algerian War, independentists detonated bomb
s in Paris. Heightened tensions led to the largest abuse in the city's postwar history, when the Paris police, acting upon unsubstantiated reports of policemen having been murdered by independentists, massacred an estimated 300 pro-independence demonstrators on 17 October 1961. Remarkably, this event was largely ignored outside of most circles until the 1990s. (See Paris massacre of 1961
)
Algeria was granted independence in 1962 and over 700,000 French colonists and pro-French Algerians migrated to the mother country, many to Paris. In response to the immigrant influx, the government built huge new residential suburbs—the now-notorious banlieues of Paris—which rapidly gained a reputation for soulless architecture, deprivation, racial tension and crime.
The combination of growing social unrest and de Gaulle's somewhat authoritarian style of government ultimately proved explosive. In early May 1968, an uprising broke out, led by Parisian students and factory workers. Although the évènements (events) soon fizzled out amidst violence between police and demonstrators, they did contribute to the eventual retirement of de Gaulle and the implementation of socially liberal policies. Many of the leaders of the May 1968 demonstrations went on to play significant roles in local and national politics.
Under de Gaulle's successors, Georges Pompidou
and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
, Paris underwent major physical development. The radical Centre Pompidou was built along with the ultra-modern complex at La Villette
(originally an abattoir, now a science museum). Less positively and very controversially, the ancient market at Les Halles
was demolished and replaced with a notoriously ugly underground shopping mall, and the 209 m Tour Montparnasse
skyscraper was built leading to fears that Paris would become overrun with American-style skyscrapers (a move strongly resisted ever since).
The election of François Mitterrand
in 1981 saw further major changes to the city's appearance and politics. The socialist Mitterrand frequently clashed with the powerful and abrasive Jacques Chirac
, mayor of the city since 1977, and the first mayor since the Paris Commune. Mitterrand undertook a number of grandiose grands projets to stamp his mark on the city. The Louvre was redeveloped and acquired its spectacular glass pyramid, while a futuristic new district was constructed just outside the city limits at La Defense
. The Opéra Bastille
and Bibliothèque Nationale de France proved less successful, experiencing big cost overruns and a series of technical problems.
Chirac also suffered problems, although he was lucky that the worst of these did not emerge until after his election as President in May 1995. He was soon embroiled in a number of corruption scandals
, many dating from his period as mayor when—allegedly—corrupt "favours" for relatives and party supporters were granted. Influential members of Chirac's party, such as Alain Juppé
, were convicted of such felonies. Chirac successfully asserted presidential immunity from prosecution, but some sort of legal action seems inevitable when his shield of immunity evaporates on leaving office.
made history not only as the first left-wing mayor for 130 years, but for the fact that he is the first openly gay
man to hold such a high public position in France. His election was widely seen as a rejection by the electorate of the corruption of the Chirac era. His manifesto promised to tackle the city administration's corruption and inefficiency, as well as reducing crime and improving education—all while keeping taxation stable, but with no real change effected and a halt to progress on poverty and immigration, led to weeks of riots.
Another of Delanoë's undertakings is to continue the trend to reduce motor traffic in Paris and make it easier to use alternative modes of transportation (buses, bicycles, etc.); considerable length of bus lane
s have been established, extensive rental bicycle program called Vélib'
was introduced in 2007, and tram
on the southern "boulevard of the marshals" (inner beltway) was open in 2006 and is due to extend further.
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, spans over 2,000 years, during which time the city grew from a small Gallic
Gauls
The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....
settlement to the multicultural capital of a modern Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an state, and one of the world's major global cities
Global city
A global city is a city that is deemed to be an important node in the global economic system...
.
Ancient place
Parisii (Gaul)
The Parisii were a Celtic Iron Age people that lived on the banks of the river Seine in Gaul from the middle of the third century BC until the Roman era...
, who established a fishing village near the river Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
. The Île de la Cité
Île de la Cité
The Île de la Cité is one of two remaining natural islands in the Seine within the city of Paris . It is the centre of Paris and the location where the medieval city was refounded....
was traditionally assumed to be the location of the settlement, but this theory has been recently brought into question. Recent archeological finds indicate that the Paris region's largest pre-Roman settlement may have been in the present-day suburb of Nanterre
Nanterre
Nanterre is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located west of the center of Paris.Nanterre is the capital of the Hauts-de-Seine department as well as the seat of the Arrondissement of Nanterre....
.
Paris's lands were prosperous, and occupied a strategic position for controlling river shipping and commerce. The area came under Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
control after the revolt of 52 BC when Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix was the chieftain of the Arverni tribe, who united the Gauls in an ultimately unsuccessful revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars....
led a Celtic uprising against the Romans under Caesar. The town sided with the rebels and was said to have contributed 8,000 men to Vercingetorix's army. It was garrisoned by Vercingetorix's lieutenant Camulogenus, whose army camped on the Mons Lutetius (where the Panthéon
Pantheon
-Mythology:* Pantheon , the set of gods belonging to a particular mythology* Pantheon * Pantheon, Rome, now a Catholic church, once a temple to the gods of ancient Rome* Any temple dedicated to an entire pantheon-Other buildings:...
is now situated). The Romans crushed the rebels at nearby Melun
Melun
Melun is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. Located in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris, Melun is the capital of the department, as the seat of an arrondissement...
and took control of the entire region. By the end of the same century, the Île de la Cité and Left Bank Sainte Geneviève Hill
Montagne Sainte-Geneviève
The Montagne Sainte-Geneviève is a hill on the left Bank of the Seine in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.On the top of the Montagne, one can visit the Panthéon or the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, which is often full of students from La Sorbonne and other nearby universities...
became the centre of a new Roman settlement called Lutetia
Lutetia
Lutetia was a town in pre-Roman and Roman Gaul. The Gallo-Roman city was a forerunner of the re-established Merovingian town that is the ancestor of present-day Paris...
.
Under Roman rule, the town was thoroughly Romanised and grew considerably. It was, however, not the capital of its province, Lugdunensis Senona—that role was played by Agedincum (modern Sens
Sens
Sens is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France.Sens is a sub-prefecture of the department. It is crossed by the Yonne and the Vanne, which empties into the Yonne here.-History:...
, Yonne
Yonne
Yonne is a French department named after the Yonne River. It is one of the four constituent departments of Burgundy in eastern France and its prefecture is Auxerre. Its official number is 89....
). It was Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
ised in the 3rd century when St Denis
Denis
Saint Denis is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after A.D. 250...
became the city's first bishop. The process was not entirely peaceful—in about 250 St Denis and two companions were arrested and decapitated on the hill of Mons Mercurius, thereafter known as Mons Martis (Martyrs' Hill, now Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
).
Lutetia was renamed Paris in 212, after the local tribe, but the rest of the 3rd and 4th century was wracked by war and civil unrest. The city came under attack from barbarian invaders, prompting the construction of a defensive city wall. In 357 the Emperor Constantine's nephew Julian arrived in Paris to become the city's new governor. Although his uncle had declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire, Julian "the Apostate" strove to roll back its advance. He became emperor in 361 but died in battle only two years later.
Roman rule in northern Gaul effectively collapsed in the 5th century. In 451, the region was invaded by Attila the Hun
Attila the Hun
Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...
, prompting fears that Paris would be attacked. According to legend, the city was saved by the piety of Sainte Geneviève
Genevieve
St Genevieve , in Latin Sancta Genovefa, from Germanic keno and wefa , is the patron saint of Paris in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition...
and her followers, whose prayers for relief were answered when Attila's march turned away from Paris to the south. St. Geneviève remains Paris's patron saint to this day.
Early Middle Ages
Childeric I
Childeric I was a Merovingian king of the Salian Franks and the father of Clovis.He succeeded his father Merovech as king, traditionally in 457 or 458...
(Childeric the Frank). His son Clovis I
Clovis I
Clovis Leuthwig was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the leadership from a group of royal chieftains, to rule by kings, ensuring that the kingship was held by his heirs. He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul . He was the son...
made the city his capital in 508 and was buried there on his death in 511, alongside St. Geneviève.
By this time, Paris was a typically crowded early medieval city with timber buildings alongside surviving Roman remains. According to the chronicler Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours
Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
, it suffered a disastrous fire in 585. The city grew beyond the boundaries of the Île de la Cité, with suburbs being established on both banks of the river.
The Merovingian kings died out in 751, to be replaced by the Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...
s. Pépin was proclaimed king of the Franks in 751, to be succeeded by Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
, who moved the capital of his Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
from Paris to Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
. Its inhabitants sought the assistance of Robert I of France
Robert I of France
Robert I , King of Western Francia , was the younger son of Robert the Strong, count of Anjou, and the brother of Odo, who became king of the Western Franks in 888. West Francia evolved over time into France; under Odo, the capital was fixed on Paris, a large step in that direction...
, and his brother Odo, Count of Paris
Odo, Count of Paris
Odo was a King of Western Francia, reigning from 888 to 898. He was a son of Robert the Strong, count of Anjou, whose branch of the family is known as the Robertians....
. Odo led the defence of the city in opposition to a ten-month Viking siege in 885 and became co-ruler of the Empire with Charles the Simple
Charles the Simple
Charles III , called the Simple or the Straightforward , was the undisputed King of France from 898 until 922 and the King of Lotharingia from 911 until 919/23...
. His grandnephew Hugh Capet was elected King of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(or Francia—literally "the land of the Franks") in 987. He made Paris his capital and founded the Capetian dynasty
Capetian dynasty
The Capetian dynasty , also known as the House of France, is the largest and oldest European royal house, consisting of the descendants of King Hugh Capet of France in the male line. Hugh Capet himself was a cognatic descendant of the Carolingians and the Merovingians, earlier rulers of France...
.
The Capetians
Île-de-France (province)
The province of Île-de-France or Isle de France is an historical province of France, and the one at the centre of power during most of French history...
, but over the centuries steadily expanded their territory and power. Paris itself developed an increasing degree of importance as a royal capital, an ecclesiastical and cultural centre.
As early as the 12th century, the distinctive character of the city's districts was emerging. The Île de la Cité, on which the Cathedral of Notre Dame
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
building began in 1163, was the centre of government and religious life; the Left Bank (south of the Seine) was the centre of learning, focusing on the various Church-run schools established there; and the Right Bank (north of the Seine) was the centre of commerce and finance. A league of merchants, the Hanse parisienne, was established and quickly became a powerful force in the city's affairs.
Under the rule of Philip II Augustus, who took the throne in 1180, a number of major building works were carried out in Paris. He built the wall of Philippe Auguste and began the construction of the Palais du Louvre
Palais du Louvre
The Louvre Palace , on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, is a former royal palace situated between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois...
, as well as paving streets and establishing a covered market at Les Halles
Les Halles
Les Halles is an area of Paris, France, located in the 1er arrondissement, just south of the fashionable rue Montorgueil. It is named for the large central wholesale marketplace, which was demolished in 1971, to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des Halles...
(where it would remain until 1969).
His grandson Louis IX
Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
, renowned for his extreme piety (and later canonised as St Louis) established the city as a major centre of pilgrimage in the 13th century with the construction of the Sainte-Chapelle
Sainte-Chapelle
La Sainte-Chapelle is the only surviving building of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including the Crown of Thorns - one of the most important relics in medieval...
on the Île de la Cité, and the completion of the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Basilica of St Denis. The latter was one of the finest medieval Gothic religious buildings ever constructed and was built to house Louis's most precious possession—the (alleged) Crown of Thorns
Crown of Thorns
In Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ before his crucifixion...
, purchased from the bankrupt Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
at an extortionate price.
The Valois
The Direct CapetianHouse of Capet
The House of Capet, or The Direct Capetian Dynasty, , also called The House of France , or simply the Capets, which ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328, was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians. As rulers of France, the dynasty...
line died out in 1328, leaving no male heir. Edward III of England
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
claimed the French throne by virtue of his descent (via his mother) from Philip IV of France
Philip IV of France
Philip the Fair was, as Philip IV, King of France from 1285 until his death. He was the husband of Joan I of Navarre, by virtue of which he was, as Philip I, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1284 to 1305.-Youth:A member of the House of Capet, Philip was born at the Palace of...
. This was rejected by the French barons, who supported the rival claim of Philippe of Valois (Philip VI of France
Philip VI of France
Philip VI , known as the Fortunate and of Valois, was the King of France from 1328 to his death. He was also Count of Anjou, Maine, and Valois from 1325 to 1328...
). The Hundred Years' War
Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War was a series of separate wars waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou, for the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings...
thus began, followed swiftly by the arrival of the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
.
Paris's history in the 14th century was thus punctuated by outbreaks of plague, political violence and popular uprisings. In January 1357, Étienne Marcel
Étienne Marcel
Etienne Marcel was provost of the merchants of Paris under King John II, called John the Good .Etienne Marcel was born into the wealthy Parisian bourgeoisie, being the son of the clothier Simon Marcel and his wife Isabelle Barbou...
, the Provost
Provost (civil)
A provost is the ceremonial head of many Scottish local authorities, and under the name prévôt was a governmental position of varying importance in Ancien Regime France.-History:...
of Paris, led a merchants' revolt in a bid to curb the power of the monarchy and obtain privileges for the city and the Estates General
French States-General
In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...
, which had met for the first time in Paris in 1347. After initial concessions by the Crown, the city was retaken by royalist forces in 1358 and Marcel and his followers were killed.
In the aftermath of the revolt, Charles V of France
Charles V of France
Charles V , called the Wise, was King of France from 1364 to his death in 1380 and a member of the House of Valois...
took steps to guard against a recurrence; a new wall was constructed around the city to guard against exterior enemies while the grim fortress of the Bastille
Bastille
The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. The Bastille was built in response to the English threat to the city of...
was built to control the city's restless population. Another revolt, this time over excessive taxation, broke out in 1382 under Charles VI of France
Charles VI of France
Charles VI , called the Beloved and the Mad , was the King of France from 1380 to 1422, as a member of the House of Valois. His bouts with madness, which seem to have begun in 1392, led to quarrels among the French royal family, which were exploited by the neighbouring powers of England and Burgundy...
but was quickly and violently suppressed. The city was subsequently punished by having its earlier privileges withdrawn.
Civil war broke out in France after the assassination of Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans
Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans
Louis I was Duke of Orléans from 1392 to his death. He was also Count of Valois, Duke of Touraine , Count of Blois , Angoulême , Périgord, Dreux, and Soissons....
by the Burgundian
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
John the Fearless in 1407 (a plaque marks the spot on the rue des Francs Bourgeois in the Marais
Le Marais
Le Marais is a historic district in Paris, France. Long the aristocratic district of Paris, it hosts many outstanding buildings of historic and architectural importance...
quarter). John the Fearless' agents fled the scene of the crime to the Tower of John the Fearless (now on rue Etienne Marcel) Struggles ensued between the Burgundian and Armagnac parties for control of the capital and the person of the king. John the Fearless, whose power was initially in the ascendant, arranged for theologians of the University of Paris to present a defence of the murder of Louis of Orléans, which was presented as a tyrannicide
Tyrannicide
Tyrannicide literally means the killing of a tyrant, or one who has committed the act. Typically, the term is taken to mean the killing or assassination of tyrants for the common good. The term "tyrannicide" does not apply to tyrants killed in battle or killed by an enemy in an armed conflict...
due to the duke's undue influence on Charles VI. John the Fearless's power in Paris came to an end in 1409 with the revolt of Simon Caboche
Simon Caboche
Simon Lecoustellier, called Caboche, a skinner of the Paris Boucherie, played an important part in the Cabochien Revolt of 1413. He had relations with John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, since 1411, and was prominent in the seditious disturbances which broke out in April and May, following on the...
, although he was to retake the city in 1417 until his assassination in 1419.
In the ensuing chaos, the Plantagenets captured Paris in 1420. In 1422, Henry V of England
Henry V of England
Henry V was King of England from 1413 until his death at the age of 35 in 1422. He was the second monarch belonging to the House of Lancaster....
died at the Château de Vincennes
Château de Vincennes
The Château de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal castle in the town of Vincennes, to the east of Paris, now a suburb of the metropolis.-History:...
, just outside the city. Charles VII of France
Charles VII of France
Charles VII , called the Victorious or the Well-Served , was King of France from 1422 to his death, though he was initially opposed by Henry VI of England, whose Regent, the Duke of Bedford, ruled much of France including the capital, Paris...
tried but failed to retake the city in 1429, despite the assistance of Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
(who was wounded in the attempt). Two years later, Henry VI of England
Henry VI of England
Henry VI was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, his realm was governed by regents. Contemporaneous accounts described him as peaceful and pious, not suited for the violent dynastic civil wars, known as the Wars...
was crowned King of France at Notre-Dame. French persistence paid off in 1436 when Charles finally managed to retake the city in April after several failed sieges.
With the recapture of the city, the Valois monarchs and French nobility sought to impose their authority on the city through the construction of various grandiose ecclesiastical and secular monuments, including churches and mansions. These developments notwithstanding, the later Valois dynasty largely abandoned Paris as a place of residence, preferring instead various Renaissance châteaux in the Loire Valley
Loire Valley
The Loire Valley , spanning , is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France. Its area comprises approximately . It is referred to as the Cradle of the French Language, and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards, and artichoke, asparagus, and...
. Over the following century the city's population more than tripled. King Francis I
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
had probably the greatest impact of any Valois monarch, transforming the Louvre and establishing a glittering court including such notables as Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
and Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, painter, soldier and musician, who also wrote a famous autobiography. He was one of the most important artists of Mannerism.-Youth:...
.
Paris was, however, not spared from the religious violence affecting the rest of the country as Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
gained ground in defiance of an increasingly harsh Catholic backlash. Paris was a predominantly Catholic city — so much so that Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
there in 1534 — but it also had a growing Protestant population. The rival religious factions pursued an increasingly bloodthirsty feud, with religiously-inspired assassinations and burnings at the stake.
Matters came to a head on 23 August 1572 with the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, when Catholic mobs killed an estimated 3,000 Protestants on the instructions of King Charles IX
Charles IX of France
Charles IX was King of France, ruling from 1560 until his death. His reign was dominated by the Wars of Religion. He is best known as king at the time of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.-Childhood:...
.
His successor, King Henry III
Henry III of France
Henry III was King of France from 1574 to 1589. As Henry of Valois, he was the first elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the dual titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.-Childhood:Henry was born at the Royal Château de Fontainebleau,...
, attempted to find a peaceful solution but the city's population turned against him and forced him to flee on 12 May 1588, the so-called Day of the Barricades
Day of the Barricades
In the French Wars of Religion, the Day of the Barricades , 12 May 1588, was an apparently spontaneous public uprising in staunchly Catholic Paris against the moderate, hesitant, temporalizing policies of Henry III...
(as this was the first time in Paris's history that a revolt had utilised barricades as opposed to simple chains in defence of the city). Paris was from this point ruled by a group known as the Seize (so called because each member represented one of the sixteen quartiers of the city). This group had formed in secret several years earlier, and was motivated to revolt primarily by frustration with the existing system of civic government which prevented the advancement of their careers, and by the desire to defend the traditional privileges of the city, which the Valois kings, and Henry III in particular) had eroded. Nevertheless, the nobility, and particularly the duke of Guise, played a crucial role in the revolt which drove out the king, as did the Parisian crowd manning the barricades.
On 23 December 1588, Henry III had the duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorraine
Cardinal of Lorraine
Cardinal of Lorraine may refer to:*John, Cardinal of Lorraine *Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine *Nicolas, Cardinal of Lorraine...
assassinated at the Estates of Blois, which further enraged his opponents in Paris. At this time, the printing presses of Paris produced huge numbers of libels against the king and his policies. The first of August 1589, Henry III was assassinated by a fanatical Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
monk, Jacques Clément
Jacques Clément
Jacques Clément was the assassin of the French king Henry III.He was born at Serbonnes, in today's Yonne département, in Burgundy, and became a Dominican lay brother....
, bringing the Valois line to an end.
However, Paris, along with the other towns of the Holy Union (or Catholic League
Catholic League (French)
The Catholic League of France, sometimes referred to by contemporary Roman Catholics as the Holy League, a major player in the French Wars of Religion, was formed by Duke Henry of Guise in 1576...
) held out against Henry IV until 1594. After his victory over the Holy Union at the battle of Ivry
Battle of Ivry
The Battle of Ivry was fought on 14 March 1590, during the French Wars of Religion. The battle was a decisive victory for Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV of France, leading Huguenot forces against the Catholic League forces led by the Duc de Mayenne...
on 14 March 1590, Henry IV proceeded to lay siege to Paris
Siege of Paris (1590)
The Siege of Paris took place in 1590 during the French Wars of Religion when the French Royal Army under Henry of Navarre, and supported by the French Huguenots, failed to capture the city of Paris defended by the Catholic League, and finally successfully relieved by the Spanish-Catholic army...
, greatly to the distress of the population. Immense poverty was experienced, prices rose dramatically as wages stagnated, huge numbers of religious processions were led by the clergy and confraternities to pray for Paris's salvation. These devotions might be said to form an early stage of the Catholic Reformation in Paris. The siege was eventually lifted on 30 August 1590, but economic conditions remained difficult in Paris throughout the 1590s. This situation led to popular protests such as that of the 'Pain ou Paix' where protesters demanded either cheap bread or that the civic government made peace with Henry IV.
Gradually, the power of the Seize was diminished as the nobility of the Holy Union, principally the duke of Mayenne
Duke of Mayenne
Duke of Mayenne is a title created for a cadet branch of the House of Guise. It subsequently passed by marriage to the Gonzaga in 1621. They sold it to Cardinal Mazarin in 1654; he bestowed it on his niece, Hortense Mancini in 1661...
and the duke of Nemours
Duke of Nemours
In the 12th and 13th centuries the Lordship of Nemours, in the Gatinais, France, was in possession of the house of Villebeon, a member of which, Gautier, was marshal of France in the middle of the 13th century...
, governor of Paris, took power in the city. They called the Estates General
French States-General
In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...
in 1593 to attempt to find an alternative solution to the succession and prevent Henry IV from becoming king (he had not yet proceeded to his coronation). However, the attempt stumbled over the lack of a viable heir, despite the attempts by Spanish ambassadors to have the Infanta crowned (arguing that the constitutional law that the monarch must be Catholic was more important than that declaring the monarch must be male). The year 1593 saw the decline of the League across France, and in Paris two important literary works were published - the Satire Ménippée
Satire Ménippée
The Satire Ménippée or La Satyre Ménippée de la vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne was a political and satirical work in prose and verse which criticized the excesses of the Catholic League and Spanish pretensions during the Wars of Religion in France and defended the idea of an independent but...
and the Dialogue d'entre le Maheustre et le Mananthttp://books.google.com/books?id=fu47AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Dialogue+d%27Entre+le+Maheustre+et+le+Manant&source=bl&ots=mtfJs9l9ku&sig=j4SMqJMCBcbeHbwEv55SC3-5NPQ&hl=fr&ei=kmliTb_SPIL58Aal8ejiCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false ("Dialog between the courtier and the labourer") - which satirised and analysed the events of the time.
On 14 March 1594 Henry IV entered Paris with the complicity of the civic government, and he was soon crowned King of France.
The Bourbons
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
(whose projected expansion under Henry II
Henry II of France
Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559.-Early years:Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany .His father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by his sworn enemy,...
into a square courtyard, the "cour carrée", was far from completed) and construction of the Pont Neuf
Pont Neuf
The Pont Neuf is, despite its name, the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris, France. Its name, which was given to distinguish it from older bridges that were lined on both sides with houses, has remained....
, Place des Vosges
Place des Vosges
The Place des Vosges is the oldest planned square in Paris.It is located in the Marais district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris.- History :...
, Place Dauphine, and Saint-Louis Hospital. Henry IV faced constant danger from religious fanatics on both sides, particularly after granting religious tolerance to Protestants under the Edict of Nantes
Edict of Nantes
The Edict of Nantes, issued on 13 April 1598, by Henry IV of France, granted the Calvinist Protestants of France substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic. In the Edict, Henry aimed primarily to promote civil unity...
. After surviving at least 18 assassination attempts, he fell victim to a Catholic fanatic on 14 May 1610.
Louis XIII
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...
became king at the age of only eight, with political power exercised by his mother Marie de Médicis in the role of regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
. Although Louis took over when he reached the age of majority, at 15, the real power was exercised by the brilliant Cardinal Richelieu, who greatly expanded royal power. Louis's reign saw major changes to the face of Paris; his mother commissioned the Palais du Luxembourg, while Cardinal Richelieu built the Palais Royal
Palais Royal
The Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a palace and an associated garden located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris...
and rebuilt the Sorbonne
Collège de Sorbonne
The Collège de Sorbonne was a theological college of the University of Paris, founded in 1257 by Robert de Sorbon, after whom it is named. With the rest of the Paris colleges, it was suppressed during the French Revolution. It was restored in 1808 but finally closed in 1882. The name Sorbonne...
. He also commissioned a number of major Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
churches as a statement of the Catholic Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
.
Louis XIII died in 1643, leaving the throne to his five-year-old son Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
. The new king and his family were forced to flee the city in 1648 by a rebellion, known as the Fronde
Fronde
The Fronde was a civil war in France, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The word fronde means sling, which Parisian mobs used to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin....
. The Fronde arose from two sources of discontent: bourgeois protested against royal authoritarianism and excessive taxes; and the high nobility revolted in order to regain the political power that they had lost under Richelieu. Rebel rule proved considerably worse, however, and the king returned to a hero's welcome in 1653.
Royalist France achieved its greatest heights under Louis XIV, the "Sun King." His minister of finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
undertook lavish building projects in Paris in an effort to make it a "new Rome" fit for the Sun King. The king himself, however, detested Paris, preferring instead to rule France from his vast château at Versailles. The city had by this time grown far beyond its medieval boundaries, with some 500,000 inhabitants and 25,000 houses by the mid-17th century. From the great influx of rural migrants, however, grew poor areas known by the term Cour des miracles
Cour des miracles
Cour des miracles was a French term which referred to slum districts of Paris, France where the unemployed migrants from rural areas resided...
.
His great-grandson Louis XV
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
became king at the age of only five, with Philip d'Orléans serving as regent. The Court returned to Paris, with the new king installed in the Palais-Royal. Philip quickly gained a reputation for corruption and debauchery. His involvement in the financial scandal of the South Sea Bubble in 1720 greatly discredited him, freeing Louis XV to move the court back to Versailles.
During the latter half of the 18th century, Paris became the intellectual and cultural capital of the Western world. It became a centre of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
with its salons becoming the center of the new thinking of the "Age of Reason." This was positively encouraged by the state, with Louis's mistress Madame de Pompadour
Madame de Pompadour
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour was a member of the French court, and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to her death.-Biography:...
supporting the city's intellectuals and prompting the king to construct striking new monuments.
Under Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
, Paris reached new heights of prestige as a center of the arts, sciences and philosophy. It was in Paris that the Montgolfier brothers made their historic balloon
Balloon
A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
ascents in 1783. However, the French state was by now virtually bankrupt, its finances drained by the Seven Years' War
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...
and the French intervention in the American War of Independence. A new wall
Wall of the Farmers-General
The Wall of the Farmers-General was built between 1784 and 1791 by the Ferme générale, the corporation of tax farmers. It was one of the several city walls of Paris built between the early Middle Ages to the mid 19th century. It was 24 kilometers long and roughly followed the route now occupied by...
was built around Paris between 1784 and 1791, this time to create a customs barrier for taxation purposes. Not surprisingly, this was a very unpopular innovation. The disastrous harvest of 1788 brought matters to a head, with widespread famine and hunger across France and food riots in Paris.
The French Revolution
The French RevolutionFrench Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
effectively began in Paris, which the king had garrisoned with foreign troops to quell any unrest. On 13 July 1789 a hitherto unknown lawyer named Camille Desmoulins
Camille Desmoulins
Lucie Simplice Camille Benoît Desmoulins was a journalist and politician who played an important role in the French Revolution. He was a childhood friend of Maximilien Robespierre and a close friend and political ally of Georges Danton, who were influential figures in the French Revolution.-Early...
sparked the revolt when he jumped on a chair outside the Café de Foy at the Palais-Royal and denounced Louis XVI's dismissal of his minister, Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:...
, who was widely seen as the only honest man in the government. Desmoulins ended his speech with the call "Aux armes!" ("To arms!").
The following day, 14 July, the mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides, acquiring thousands of guns, and stormed the Bastille
Storming of the Bastille
The storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris on the morning of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. While the prison only contained seven inmates at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint...
. A brief battle ensued in which 87 revolutionaries were killed before the fortress surrendered. This event marked the first real manifestation of the Revolution, and is still marked in France as Bastille Day
Bastille Day
Bastille Day is the name given in English-speaking countries to the French National Day, which is celebrated on 14 July of each year. In France, it is formally called La Fête Nationale and commonly le quatorze juillet...
.
Paris became the scene of revolutionary ferment, with political clubs taking over buildings for their headquarters. The uprising had, however, badly disrupted food supplies and in October an angry crowd marched to Versailles to protest—whereupon legend holds that Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
, told the people had no bread, haughtily dismissed them with her famous remark, "Let them eat cake." (In fact, it is a near-certainty that she never said this—the remark had been part of urban legends for over a hundred years, and seems to have been tacked on to Marie Antoinette by a populace that had decided to blame her for the country's malaise.) The furious crowd began attacking the palace and were only placated when Louis himself appeared and agreed to return to Paris with his family. The royal family were reduced to virtual prisoners in the Tuileries. They tried to escape on 20 June 1791 but were caught and returned to Paris as captives.
With other European powers mobilising to crush the Revolution, which they saw as threatening their own monarchies, the political climate in Paris worsened as rumours of foreign plots and invasions took hold. Louis and those who supported an agreement with the monarchy were accused by the radical Jacobins
Jacobin (politics)
A Jacobin , in the context of the French Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary far-left political movement. The Jacobin Club was the most famous political club of the French Revolution. So called from the Dominican convent where they originally met, in the Rue St. Jacques ,...
of being the stooges of foreign powers, and on 10 August 1792 a mob demanded that the National Assembly depose the king. When the demand was refused, the mob attacked the Tuileries and the royal family took refuge within the Assembly
Legislative Assembly (France)
During the French Revolution, the Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from 1 October 1791 to September 1792. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention.The Legislative...
. Power now passed to the radical Commune de Paris, led by Georges Danton
Georges Danton
Georges Jacques Danton was leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in theoverthrow of the monarchy and the...
, Marat
Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...
and Robespierre
Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre is one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. He largely dominated the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended with his...
.
The following month, more than 2,000 people were massacred in Paris as revolutionary mobs hunted down and killed anyone seen as an opponent of the new order. The monarchy was formally abolished on 22 September 1792, "Day I of Year I of the French Republic." An invading Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n army heading for Paris was defeated shortly afterwards, clearing the way for the bloodiest phase of the Revolution. A guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
was erected in what is now the Place de la Concorde
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.- History :...
and was used on 21 January 1793 to execute Louis XVI. Marie Antoinette followed in October 1793.
The new rulers organised themselves into a five-man Directoire but had only a shaky grip on power. In 1795 they were saved from a royalist revolt by a young army officer named Napoleon Bonaparte, who dispersed a hostile Parisian mob by the simple expedient of firing into it with cannons at point-blank range. The grateful Directoire sent Napoleon to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
to aid the defence against the various foreign armies threatening France. He was spectacularly successful and in 1798 was given command of an expedition to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, which he nearly conquered. He returned with great prestige, which he used to ruthless effect in November 1799 to seize power. The following year, Napoleon was declared first consul.
Paris in the 19th century
Under Napoleon's rule, Paris became the capital of an empire and a great military power. He crowned himself Emperor in a ceremony held in Notre-Dame on 18 May 1804. Like his royal predecessors, he saw Paris as a "new Rome" and set about building public monuments befitting the capital of an empire. Some of these were conscious copies of great Roman buildings, such as the Église de la MadeleineÉglise de la Madeleine
L'église de la Madeleine is a Roman Catholic church occupying a commanding position in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It was designed in its present form as a temple to the glory of Napoleon's army...
.
Napoleon's military campaigns against the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
ns and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
ns initially met with great success but hubris, overconfidence and poor planning caused the annihilation of his army in 1813 in the depths of a Russian winter. Russian and Austrian armies invaded France in 1814 and on 31 March 1814, Paris fell to the Coalition.
19th century revolutions
Hundred Days
The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...
in 1815 saw him pass through Paris, en route to destiny at Waterloo
Waterloo, Belgium
Waterloo is a Walloon municipality located in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium. On December 31, 2009, Waterloo had a total population of 29,573. The total area is 21.03 km² which gives a population density of 1,407 inhabitants per km²...
on 18 June. His replacements, the restored Bourbon monarchs Louis XVIII
Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...
(1814, 1815–1824) and Charles X
Charles X of France
Charles X was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him...
(1824–1830), managed between them to provoke yet another revolution in Paris, confirming the saying that the Bourbons could "learn nothing and forget everything."
The powers of the monarchy were in theory confined by a Charter of Liberties but in practice both Louis and Charles ran an authoritarian regime reliant on Church support. On 25 July 1830 Charles issued the repressive Ordinances of St-Cloud, abolishing the freedom of the press, dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and restricting voting rights to the landed gentry only. A general uprising in Paris followed with three days of fighting between loyalists and rebels, including whole regiments of the Paris garrison. The king was forced to abdicate, being replaced by the more acceptable Louis-Philippe.
The arrival in Paris of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
prompted the city's breakneck growth, with migrant workers arriving from the countryside on newly-constructed railway lines. By now its population was over 900,000 people, making it the second largest city in Europe after London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the third largest city in the world and far surpassing any other city in France (the next largest, Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
and Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, had only about 115,000 each). The city's status was reflected in the construction of grandiose new monuments, such as the Arc de Triomphe
Arc de Triomphe
-The design:The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin , in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture . Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire...
and the Eglise du Dome in which Napoleon's body was interred. Much of the population, however, lived in appalling conditions in diseased slums; a cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
outbreak in 1831 killed over 19,000 people.
Haussmann's renovation of Paris
French Second Republic
The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité...
. Nationwide elections returned a conservative government which opposed any reforms. The Parisian workers rose again only to be massacred by General Cavaignac, with some 5,000 people being killed in the fighting and subsequent reprisals. Fresh elections were held at the end of 1848.
The victor was, to the surprise of many, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte
Louis Napoleon may refer to:* Louis Bonaparte or Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, , King Louis I of Holland, brother of Napoleon I* Napoléon Louis Bonaparte , King Louis II of Holland, second son of Louis Bonaparte...
—the nephew of the late Emperor. He won by an overwhelming majority (receiving 75% of the votes cast) but was not content with being a mere president. On 2 December 1851 he seized power in a coup, declared himself the Emperor Napoleon III and settled in the Tuileries Palace.
It was under Napoleon's rule that Paris in its modern form was created. In 1853 he appointed Baron Haussmann
Baron Haussmann
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann , was a French civic planner whose name is associated with the rebuilding of Paris...
as Prefect, charged with modernising the city. This Haussmann did to a drastic extent, demolishing much of the old city and replacing it with a network of wide, straight boulevard
Boulevard
A Boulevard is type of road, usually a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery...
s and radiating circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
es. The Bois de Boulogne
Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne is a park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine...
and the Bois de Vincennes
Bois de Vincennes
The Bois de Vincennes is a park in the English landscape manner to the east of Paris. The park is named after the nearby town of Vincennes....
were both transformed into large public parks. Although Haussmann was forced to resign in 1869 after financial irregularities, his scheme is largely responsible for the present-day look and layout of Paris.
The Siege of Paris and the Commune
Napoleon's rule came to an abrupt end when he declared war on PrussiaPrussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
in 1870, only to be defeated in the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
and captured at Sedan
Sedan, France
Sedan is a commune in France, a sub-prefecture of the Ardennes department in northern France.-Geography:The historic centre is built on a peninsula formed by an arc of the Meuse River. It is around from the Belgian border.-History:...
. He abdicated on 4 September, with a Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
proclaimed that same day in Paris. On 19 September the Prussian army arrived at Paris and besieged the city. Major city landmarks were pressed into military service, with the Louvre being turned into an arms factory, the Gare d'Orléans (now the Gare d'Austerlitz
Gare d'Austerlitz
Paris Austerlitz is one of the six large terminus railway stations in Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine in the southeastern part of the city, in the XIIIe arrondissement...
) into a balloon workshop and the Gare de Lyon
Gare de Lyon
Paris Lyon is one of the six large railway termini in Paris, France. It is the northern terminus of the Paris–Marseille railway. It is named after the city of Lyon, a stop for many long-distance trains departing here, most en route to the south of France. In general the station's SNCF services run...
into a cannon foundry.
The city finally surrendered on 28 January 1871 with punitive terms being inflicted on the defeated French. They were, in fact, unacceptably punitive in the eyes of many Parisians, who saw the peace treaty signed by the government of Adolphe Thiers
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...
as a betrayal. A revolt broke out on 18 March when government forces were driven out of Montmartre. The government regrouped at Versailles, while on 26 March the Commune of Paris—effectively a miniature socialist republic—was proclaimed in the city. Fierce fighting broke out a few days later as government troops retook the city district by district. It only ended on 28 May, by which time an estimated 4,000–5,000 people on both sides had been killed. In the aftermath, another 10,000 Communards were shot, 40,000 were arrested and 5,000 were deported.
The Belle Époque
Belle Époque
The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque was a period in European social history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the era of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, it was a period characterised by optimism and new technological and medical...
—for Paris. The city acquired many distinctive new monuments and public buildings, foremost among them the Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world...
, constructed for the World Exhibition of 1889. It was renowned as a center for the arts, with the Impressionists
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
taking their inspiration from its new vistas. At the same time, Paris acquired a less savoury reputation as the "sin capital of Europe", with hundreds of brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
s, revues and risqué cabarets such as the famous Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.The Moulin Rouge is...
. The city also acquired its metro
Paris Métro
The Paris Métro or Métropolitain is the rapid transit metro system in Paris, France. It has become a symbol of the city, noted for its density within the city limits and its uniform architecture influenced by Art Nouveau. The network's sixteen lines are mostly underground and run to 214 km ...
system, opened in 1900.
In January 1910, the Seine flooded 20 feet above normal, drowning streets throughout the city of Paris and sending thousands of Parisians fleeing to emergency shelters. The 1910 Great Flood of Paris
1910 Great Flood of Paris
The 1910 Great Flood of Paris was a catastrophe in which the Seine River, carrying winter rains from its tributaries, flooded Paris, France, and several nearby communities....
was the worst the city had seen since 1658 when the water reached only a few centimeters higher.
First World War
Paris's party continued virtually until the eve of the outbreak of the First World WarWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
on 2 August 1914. Like other French cities, Paris initially welcomed the war as an opportunity to gain revenge for the defeat of 1870. Within a month, however, the city was full of refugees and the Germans were just 15 miles from the city. The government was evacuated to Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
in the expectation that Paris would again fall to German forces.
The city was saved, however, by a desperate French effort to reinforce their lines and by a German failure to press home the attack. In the most famous incident of the "miracle on the Marne", as it became known, thousands of Parisian taxis were commandeered to carry soldiers to the front lines. The Germans were pushed back to the Oise
Oise
Oise is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise.-History:Oise is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
some 75 miles away from the city.
The lines stayed mostly static for the next four years, with Paris experiencing the occasional bombardment from enemy aircraft and the very long-ranged "Paris Gun
Paris Gun
The Paris Gun was a German long-range siege gun used to bombard Paris during World War I. It was in service from March-August 1918. When it was first employed, Parisians believed they'd been bombed by a new type of high-altitude zeppelin, as neither the sound of an airplane nor a gun could be heard...
". The city's hedonistic life survived for a while before being subdued by the bloodshed on the front and the impact of rationing and a devastating flu epidemic in 1916. The war was finally ended by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, signed at Compiègne
Compiègne
Compiègne is a city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.The city is located along the Oise River...
to the northeast of Paris.
The city emerged into an energetic but restless interwar period, enlivened by the arrival of glamorous émigrés such as Joséphine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
. It was a troubled political period, however, especially when the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
hit Paris. Extreme right- and left-wing parties flourished, and on 5 February 1934 a mob of Fascist and other far-rightists attempted to storm the National Assembly in a botched coup attempt. In the ensuing violence, fifteen people were killed and another 1,500 wounded. In response, the Socialists and Communists united to form a Popular Front, which took power in 1936 but fell only a year later.
Second World War
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, and welcomed the possibility of a fascist regime, even imposed by foreign forces. When Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
invaded France on 10 May 1940 it took Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
's army only a month to reach Paris, invading through neutral Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
around the Maginot Line
Maginot Line
The Maginot Line , named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defences, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy, in light of its experience in World War I,...
, where the French defenses were massed.
Paris fell with virtually no resistance on 14 June. Much of the city's population fled, with 1.6 million of its 3.5 million people leaving between May and June 1940. The government agreed an armistice with the invaders and moved south to Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
, while Paris remained—along with two thirds of France—under German occupation.
The next four years saw an increasingly brutal occupation regime imposed on the city. An occupation force of 30,000 administrative and security troops moved into the city and took over 500 hotels and hung swastikas on public buildings and monuments. German officers reserved the best restaurants and set aside brothels and cinemas for their soldiers. The German administrators would outrage Parisians by marching a parade of troops and bands throughout the city everyday sending a grim reminder of German control.
The Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
and SS enacted a 'divide and conquer' strategy to create an atmosphere of fear and suspicion among Parisians, and hired waiters, servants and concierges into a network of informers and offered cash for reports of hostile actions or attitudes. Some Parisians took advantage of this offer to settle scores with rival businesses or ex-lovers. A daily stream of anonymous denunciations flowed into Gestapo headquarters, leading to thousands of Parisians being dragged out of their homes. Some of those were tortured and let go with a warning, though many were deported to prison camps and never heard from again.
The majority of Parisians though repressed their feelings and hid their true opinions to avoid this reign of terror, instead keeping their heads down and avoiding German soldiers eyes. Germans came to nickname the city 'la ville sans regard' (French for "the city that never looks at you.") Still there were those that actively resisted, but faced the constant threat of torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo and the pro-Vichy Milice
Milice
The Milice française , generally called simply Milice, was a paramilitary force created on January 30, 1943 by the Vichy Regime, with German aid, to help fight the French Resistance. The Milice's formal leader was Prime Minister Pierre Laval, though its chief of operations, and actual leader, was...
(militia).
The German occupational force kept up a campaign of humiliation and intimidation to reduce the spirits of Parisians and to avoid a strong resistance. Displaying the French tricolour and singing the French national anthem 'Marseillaise' were forbidden. Anyone caught defacing a propaganda poster, insulting German soldiers or listening to the British Broadcasting Corporation were subject to arrest and imprisonment. Public gatherings and demonstrations were controlled from the Hotel Meurice
Hotel Meurice
Le Meurice is a 5-star hotel in Paris, located opposite the Tuileries Garden, between Place de la Concorde and the Musée du Louvre. This hotel is owned and managed by the Dorchester Collection...
, the German military command in Paris, and a strict curfew was enforced that kept Parisians at home from midnight to 5:30 a.m.
German soldiers were ordered to behave correctly and courteously to the Paris population, and were usually careful enough to pay for everything they bought, though vendors routinely overcharged German soldiers. They even carried German-French phrase books to engage Parisians in friendly conversation. Such efforts proved futile and made no difference to Parisians who had had their friends and family taken by SS officers or lost loved ones on the field of battle. Visiting Germans usually wondered what happened to the once lively city, and a common response was adapted by the residents; "You should have come here when you were not here."
The persecution of Jews in Paris began within 48 hours of the city's fall, when they were required to register with police. On 14 May 1941 the Vichy police began deporting Parisian Jews, rounding them up at the Winter Velodrome. A concentration camp was established in the Parisian suburb of Drancy
Drancy
Drancy is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 10.8 km from the center of Paris.- Toponomy :...
to serve as a waystation en route to Auschwitz concentration camp. Some 70,000 people passed through the camp. The camp was run by the French authorities on behalf of the Nazis until July 1943, and the roundups were orchestrated by the Vichy French police.
The 160,000 Jewish population of Paris suffered heavily under the antisemitic German policies. Jewish business were confiscated and many forbidden from practicing their professions, their homes were looted of valuables and they were banned from restaurants, parks, markets and phone booths. Jews were required to wear a mandatory yellow star with the word 'Juif' (French for Jew) on it, though many non-Jewish Parisians mocked this regulation by wearing stars that labeled themselves as 'Zulu' or 'Buddhists'.
In June 1944, Allied forces (including 140 Free French commandos) invaded Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
. Two months later they broke through German lines and advanced rapidly across France. An uprising broke out in Paris
Liberation of Paris
The Liberation of Paris took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on August 25th. It could be regarded by some as the last battle in the Battle for Normandy, though that really ended with the crushing of the Wehrmacht forces between the...
on 19 August, led by the Resistance and the city's Police
Prefecture of Police
The Prefecture of Police , headed by the Prefect of Police , is an agency of the Government of France which provides the police force for the city of Paris and the surrounding three suburban départements of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne...
. As running battles were fought in the streets of Paris, Hitler ordered the city's commandant, von Choltitz
Dietrich von Choltitz
General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz was the German military governor of Paris during the closing days of the German occupation of that city during World War II...
, to destroy the capital. Von Choltitz, however, stalled, for fear of being remembered as the man who destroyed Paris.
When General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division
U.S. 4th Infantry Division
The 4th Infantry Division is a modular division of the United States Army based at Fort Carson, Colorado, with four brigade combat teams. It is a very technically advanced combat division in the U.S. Army....
arrived on the outskirts of the city, von Choltitz ordered his forces to retreat (Choltitz himself surrendered), leaving the city open and largely intact with only stragglers from the garrison and dead-end resisters from the Vichy regime left to offer resistance. De Gaulle and Leclerc entered the city to a jubilant reception, and De Gaulle established a temporary government that lasted until 1946.
Post-war Paris
After the restoration of civilian rule and the proclamation of the Fourth Republic in 1946, Paris made a rapid recovery thanks to the relatively minimal amount of physical damage it had endured during the war. Like the rest of France, however, it was caught up in the bloody wars against nationalist guerrillas in French IndochinaFrench Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
and Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
in the 1950s and 1960s. During the Algerian War, independentists detonated bomb
Bomb
A bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...
s in Paris. Heightened tensions led to the largest abuse in the city's postwar history, when the Paris police, acting upon unsubstantiated reports of policemen having been murdered by independentists, massacred an estimated 300 pro-independence demonstrators on 17 October 1961. Remarkably, this event was largely ignored outside of most circles until the 1990s. (See Paris massacre of 1961
Paris massacre of 1961
The Paris massacre of 1961 was a massacre in Paris on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War . Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French police attacked a demonstration of some 30,000 pro-FLN Algerians...
)
Algeria was granted independence in 1962 and over 700,000 French colonists and pro-French Algerians migrated to the mother country, many to Paris. In response to the immigrant influx, the government built huge new residential suburbs—the now-notorious banlieues of Paris—which rapidly gained a reputation for soulless architecture, deprivation, racial tension and crime.
The combination of growing social unrest and de Gaulle's somewhat authoritarian style of government ultimately proved explosive. In early May 1968, an uprising broke out, led by Parisian students and factory workers. Although the évènements (events) soon fizzled out amidst violence between police and demonstrators, they did contribute to the eventual retirement of de Gaulle and the implementation of socially liberal policies. Many of the leaders of the May 1968 demonstrations went on to play significant roles in local and national politics.
Under de Gaulle's successors, Georges Pompidou
Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...
and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing is a French centre-right politician who was President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981...
, Paris underwent major physical development. The radical Centre Pompidou was built along with the ultra-modern complex at La Villette
Parc de la Villette
The Parc de la Villette is a park in Paris at the outer edge of the 19th arrondissement, bordering the Boulevard Périphérique, which is a ring road around Paris, and the suburban department of Seine-Saint-Denis.-History:...
(originally an abattoir, now a science museum). Less positively and very controversially, the ancient market at Les Halles
Les Halles
Les Halles is an area of Paris, France, located in the 1er arrondissement, just south of the fashionable rue Montorgueil. It is named for the large central wholesale marketplace, which was demolished in 1971, to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des Halles...
was demolished and replaced with a notoriously ugly underground shopping mall, and the 209 m Tour Montparnasse
Tour Montparnasse
Tour Maine-Montparnasse , also commonly named Tour Montparnasse, is a tall office skyscraper located in Paris, France, in the area of Montparnasse. Constructed from 1969 to 1972, it was the tallest skyscraper in France until 2011, when it was surpassed in height by the Tour First...
skyscraper was built leading to fears that Paris would become overrun with American-style skyscrapers (a move strongly resisted ever since).
The election of François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
in 1981 saw further major changes to the city's appearance and politics. The socialist Mitterrand frequently clashed with the powerful and abrasive Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
, mayor of the city since 1977, and the first mayor since the Paris Commune. Mitterrand undertook a number of grandiose grands projets to stamp his mark on the city. The Louvre was redeveloped and acquired its spectacular glass pyramid, while a futuristic new district was constructed just outside the city limits at La Defense
La Défense
La Défense is a major business district of the Paris aire urbaine. With a population of 20,000, it is centered in an orbital motorway straddling the Hauts-de-Seine département municipalities of Nanterre, Courbevoie and Puteaux...
. The Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
and Bibliothèque Nationale de France proved less successful, experiencing big cost overruns and a series of technical problems.
Corruption scandals in the Paris region
In the 1980s and 1990s there were, in the Paris region , multiple instances of alleged and proved political corruption cases, as well as cases of abuse of public money and resources...
, many dating from his period as mayor when—allegedly—corrupt "favours" for relatives and party supporters were granted. Influential members of Chirac's party, such as Alain Juppé
Alain Juppé
Alain Marie Juppé is a French politician currently serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also served as Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac and the Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs from 2010 to 2011...
, were convicted of such felonies. Chirac successfully asserted presidential immunity from prosecution, but some sort of legal action seems inevitable when his shield of immunity evaporates on leaving office.
21st century
In March 2001, Paris voted for a left-wing mayor for the first time since 1871. Bertrand DelanoëBertrand Delanoë
Bertrand Delanoë is a French politician, and has been the mayor of Paris since 2001. He is member of the Socialist Party . Delanoë was born in Tunis, Tunisia to a French-Tunisian father and a French mother...
made history not only as the first left-wing mayor for 130 years, but for the fact that he is the first openly gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
man to hold such a high public position in France. His election was widely seen as a rejection by the electorate of the corruption of the Chirac era. His manifesto promised to tackle the city administration's corruption and inefficiency, as well as reducing crime and improving education—all while keeping taxation stable, but with no real change effected and a halt to progress on poverty and immigration, led to weeks of riots.
Another of Delanoë's undertakings is to continue the trend to reduce motor traffic in Paris and make it easier to use alternative modes of transportation (buses, bicycles, etc.); considerable length of bus lane
Bus lane
A bus lane or bus only lane is a lane restricted to buses, and generally used to speed up public transport that would be otherwise held up by traffic congestion...
s have been established, extensive rental bicycle program called Vélib'
Vélib'
' is a large-scale public bicycle sharing system in Paris, France. Launched on 15 July 2007, the system has expanded to encompass over 20,000 bicycles and 1,202 bicycle stations, located across Paris and in some surrounding municipalities...
was introduced in 2007, and tram
Tramways in Paris
The French region of Île-de-France, encompassing the capital city of Paris, currently has four tram lines, and is planning an additional line. Of the existing lines, three are operated by its public transport authority, RATP, which also operates the Paris Métro and most bus services. The fourth...
on the southern "boulevard of the marshals" (inner beltway) was open in 2006 and is due to extend further.
See also
- History of FranceHistory of FranceThe history of France goes back to the arrival of the earliest human being in what is now France. Members of the genus Homo entered the area hundreds of thousands years ago, while the first modern Homo sapiens, the Cro-Magnons, arrived around 40,000 years ago...
- Paris chronologyParis chronology* 52 BC - Lutetia, later to become Paris, is built by the Gallo-Romans* 1113 - Pierre Abélard opens his school* 1163 - Building of Notre Dame begins* 1257 - The Sorbonne University is founded...
- Grand ParisGrand ParisGrand Paris is the name of an initiative launched by French President Nicolas Sarkozy for "a new global plan for the Paris metropolitan region" It has led to a new transportation master plan for the Paris region and to plans to develop several areas around Paris.-Development:The plan was first...
