History of Paris

THE HISTORY OF PARIS

The Paris conquered by the Romans in 55 BC was a small flood-prone fishing village on the Ile de la Cité, inhabited by the Paris tribe. A Roman settlement soon flourished and spread onto the Left Bank of the Seine. The Franks succeeded the Romans, named the city Paris and made it the centre of their kingdom.

During the middle Ages the city flourished as a religious centre and architectural masterpieces

Such as Sainte-Chapelle were erected. It also thrived as a centre of learning, enticing European scholars to its great university, the Sorbonne.

Paris emerged during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment as a great centre of culture and ideas, and under the rule of Louis XIV it also became a city of immense wealth and power. But rule by the monarch gave way to rule by the people in the bloody Revolution of 1789. By the early years of the new century, revolutionary fervour had faded and the brilliant militarist Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of France and pursued his ambition to make Paris the centre of the world.

Soon after the Revolution of 1848 a radical transformation of the city began. Baron Haussmann’s grand urban scheme replaced Paris’s medieval slums with elegant avenues and boulevards. By the end of the century, the city was the driving force of Western culture. This continued well into the 20th century, interrupted only by the German military occupation of 1940 – 44. Since the war, the city has revived and expanded dramatically, as it strives to be at the heart of a unified Europe.

The following pages illustrate Paris’s history by providing snap-shots of the significant periods in the city’s evolution.

PARIS AT A GLANCE

There are nearly 300 places of interest described in the Area by Area section of this book. A broad range of sights is covered: from the ancient Conciergerie and its grisly associations with the guillotine, to the modern Opera National de Paris Bastille; from the oldest house in Paris, No. 51 Rue de Montmorency to the exotic Musée du Quai Branly. To help make the most of your stay, the following 20 pages are a time-saving guide to the best Paris has to offer. Museums and galleries, historic churches, spacious parks, gardens and squares all have a section. There are also guides to Paris’s famous personalities. Each sight has a cross-reference to its own full entry. Below are the top tourist attractions to start you off.

By virtue of its strategic position on the Seine, Paris has always been the economic, political and artistic hub of France. Over the centuries, many prominent and influential figures from other parts of the country and abroad have come to the city to absorb its unique spirit. In return they have left their mark: artists have brought new movements, politicians new schools of thought, musicians and film makers new trends, and architects a new environment.

Remarkable Parisians In the early 18th-century, Jean-Antoine Watteautook the inspiration for his

Paintings from the Paris theatre. Half a century later, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, popular painter of the Rococo, lived and died here, financially ruined by the Revolution. Later, Paris became the cradle of Impressionism.

Its founders Claude Monet (1840–1926), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) and Alfred

Sisley (1839–99) met in a Paris studio. In 1907, Pablo Picasso Hugh Capet, count of Paris, became king of France in 987.

His palace was on the Ile de la Cité. Louis XIV, XV and XVI lived at Versailles but Napoleon preferred the Tuileries. Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), the power

behind Louis XIII, created the Académie Française and the Palais-Royal. Today the president lives in the Palais de l’Elysée. (1881–1973) painted the seminal work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon at the Bateau-Lavoir, where Georges Braque (1882–1963), Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) and Marc Chagall (1887–1985) also lived. Henri de Toulouse-

Lautrec (1864–1901) drank and painted in Montmartre. So did Salvador Dalí (1904–89) who frequented the Café Cyrano, center of the Surrealists. The Paris School eventually moved to Montparnasse, home to sculptors Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957) and

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967).

POLITICAL LEADERS

Paris has always been at the heart of French film. The prewar and immediate post-war classics were usually made on the sets of the Boulogne and Joinville studios, where whole areas of the city were reconstructed, such as the Canal St-Martin for Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord. Jean-Luc Godard and other New Wave directors preferred to shoot outdoors. Godard’s A Bout de Souffle (1960) with

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg was filmed in and around the Champs-Elysées.

Simone Signoret (1921– 1985) and Yves Montand (1921–1991), the most celebrated couple of French film, were long associated with the Ile de la Cité. Actresses such as Catherine Deneuve (b.1943) and Isabelle Adjani (b.1955) live in the city to be near their couturiers.

FILMS AND FILMMAKERS

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764), organist and pioneer of harmony, is associated with St-Eustache. Hector Berlioz (1803– 69) had his Te Deum first performed there in 1855, and Franz Liszt (1811–86) his Messe Solemnelle in 1866. A great dynasty of organists, the Couperins, gave recitals in St-Gervais– St-Protais.

The stage of the Opéra has seen many talents, but audiences have not always been appreciative. Richard Wagner (1813– 83) had his Tannhäuser booed down. George Bizet’s Carmen

MUSICIANS

(1838–75) was booed, as was Peléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy (1862–1918). Soprano Maria Callas (1923–77) gave triumphal performances here. The composer and conductor Pierre Boulez

(b.1925) has devoted his talent to experimental music at IRCAM near the Pompidou Centre, which he helped to found.

The diminutive chanteuse Edith Piaf (1915– 63), known for her nostalgic love-songs, began singing in the streets of Paris and then went on to tour the world. The acclaimed film about her life, La Vie en

Rose, was released in 2007.

Gothic, Classical, Baroque and

Modernist – all coexist in Paris. The most brilliant medieval architect was Pierre de Mon-treuil, who built Notre-Dame and

ARCHITECTS

French has been dubbed “the language of Molière”, after playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, alias Molière, (1622–73), who helped create the Comédie-Française, now situated near his home in Rue

Richelieu. On the Left Bank, the Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe was home to playwright Jean Racine (1639– 99). It is near the statue of Denis Diderot (1713–84), who published his Sainte-Chapelle. Louis Le Vau (1612–70) and Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646–1708) designed Versailles. Jacques-

Ange Gabriel (1698–1782) built the Petit Trianon and Place de la Concorde.

Haussmann (1809–91) gave the city its boulevards.

Gustave Eiffel (1832–1923) built his tower in 1889. A century later, I M Pei added the Louvre’s glass

pyramid, Jean Nouvel created the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Musée

du Quai Branly, while Dominique Perrault is behind the new Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

WRITERS

L’Encyclopédie between 1751 and 1776. Marcel Proust (1871–1922), author of the  13-volume Remembrance of Things Past, lived on the Boulevard Haussmann. To the existentialists, the district of St-Germain was the only place to be. Here Sylvia Beach welcomed James Joyce (1882–1941) to her bookshop on the Rue de l’Odéon. Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) and  F Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) wrote novels in Montparnasse. Paris has a Quartier Pasteur, a Boulevard Pasteur, a Pasteur

metro and the world-famous Institut Pasteur, all in honor of Louis Pasteur (1822–95), the great French chemist and biologist. His apartment and laboratory are faithfully preserved. The

Institut Pasteur is today home to Professor Luc Montagnier, who first isolated the AIDS virus in 1983. Discoverers of radium, Pierre (1859–1906) and Marie Curie (1867–1934), also worked in Paris. The Curies have been the subject of a long-running play in Paris, Les Palmes de M. Schutz.