History of Paris

In the 21st century, Paris added new museums and a new concert hall, but in 2005 it also experienced violent unrest in the housing projects in the surrounding banlieues (suburbs), inhabited largely by first and second generation immigrants from France's former colonies in the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2008, archaeologists of the Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (INRAP) (administered by France's Ministry of Higher Education and Research) digging at n° 62 Rue Henri-Farman in the 15th arrondissement, not far from the Left Bank of the Seine, discovered the oldest human remains and traces of a hunter-gatherer settlement in Paris, dating to about 8000 BC, during the Mesolithic period.

[33] Clovis I and his successors of the Merovingian dynasty built a host of religious edifices in Paris: a basilica on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, near the site of the ancient Roman Forum; the cathedral of Saint-Étienne, where Notre Dame now stands; and several important monasteries, including one in the fields of the Left Bank that later became the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

He also built a more sinister structure, the Gibbet of Montfaucon, near the modern Place du Colonel Fabien and the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, where the corpses of executed criminals were displayed.

The targeted killings quickly turned into a general slaughter of Protestants by Catholic mobs, known as St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, and it continued through August and September, spreading from Paris to the rest of the country.

[57][59][62][61] King Henry III attempted to find a peaceful solution to the religious conflicts, but the Duke of Guise and his followers in the capital forced him to flee on 12 May 1588, the so-called Day of the Barricades.

Paris suffered greatly during the wars of religion of the 16th century; a third of the Parisians fled, many houses were destroyed, and the grand projects of the Louvre, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Tuileries Palace were unfinished.

[64] To the south of the vacant site of the former royal residence of Henry II, the Hôtel des Tournelles, he built an elegant new residential square surrounded by brick houses and an arcade.

In 1607, Henry began work on a new residential triangle, the Place Dauphine, lined by thirty-two brick and stone houses, at the western end of the Île de la Cité.

To make his intention clear, Louis XIV organised a festival in the carrousel of the Tuileries in January 1661, in which he appeared, on horseback, in the costume of a Roman Emperor, followed by the nobility of Paris.

A new boulevard, the Champs-Élysées, was laid out from the Tuileries Garden to the Rond-Point on the Butte (now the Place de l'Étoile) and then to the Seine to create a straight line of avenues and monuments known as Paris historical axis.

It was no longer the largest city in Europe; London passed it in population in about 1700, but it was still growing at a rapid rate, due largely to migration from the Paris basin and from the north and east of France.

[87] On 11 July 1789, soldiers of the Royal-Allemand regiment attacked a large but peaceful demonstration on the Place Louis XV organized to protest the dismissal by the king of his reformist finance minister Jacques Necker.

The Left Bank, near the Odéon Theater, was the home of the club of Cordeliers, of which the principal members were Jean-Paul Marat, Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and of the printers who published the newspapers and pamphlets that inflamed public opinion.

[97] A succession of revolutionary factions ruled Paris: on 1 June 1793, the Montagnards seized power from the Girondins, then were replaced by Georges Danton and his followers; in 1794, they were overthrown and guillotined by a new government led by Maximillien Robespierre.

Other landmarks were converted to new purposes: the Panthéon was transformed from a church into a mausoleum for notable Frenchmen, the Louvre became a museum, and the Palais-Bourbon, a former residence of the royal family, became the home of the National Assembly.

[111] Following the downfall of Napoleon after the defeat of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, 300,000 soldiers of the Seventh Coalition armies from England, Austria, Russia and Prussia occupied Paris and remained until December 1815.

[118] The heart the city, around the Île de la Cité, was a maze of narrow, winding streets and crumbling buildings from earlier centuries; it was picturesque, but dark, crowded, unhealthy and dangerous.

His chief contribution to the monuments of Paris was the completion of the Place de la Concorde in 1836: the huge square was decorated with two fountains, one representing fluvial commerce, Fontaine des Fleuves, and the other maritime commerce, Fontaine des Mers, and eight statues of women representing eight great cities of France: Brest and Rouen (by Jean-Pierre Cortot), Lyon and Marseille (by Pierre Petitot), Bordeaux and Nantes (by Louis-Denis Caillouette), Lille and Strasbourg (by James Pradier).

The Place de la Concorde was further embellished on 25 October 1836 by the placement of the Luxor Obelisk, weighing two hundred fifty tons, which was carried to France from Egypt on a specially-built ship.

Auguste Renoir rented space at 12 Rue Cartot in 1876 to paint his Bal du moulin de la Galette, which depicts a dance at Montmartre on a Sunday afternoon.

[147] At the outset of the 20th century, Henri Matisse and several other artists, including the pre-cubists Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Jean Metzinger and Maurice de Vlaminck, revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-coloured, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that critics referred to as Fauvism.

He became owner in 1852 and transformed it into the first modern department store in Paris with high-volume buying, low profit margins, seasonal sales, discounts, advertising, a mail-order catalog, and entertainment and prizes for customers, spouses and children.

It educated workers to approach shopping as an exciting social activity, not just a routine exercise in obtaining necessities, in the same way as the bourgeoisie did at the famous department stores in the central city.

In addition to the Eiffel Tower, the Exposition featured the world's largest ferris wheel, the Grande Roue de Paris, one hundred metres high, carrying 1,600 passengers in 40 cars.

Unmarried persons and couples without children were taken to Drancy, north of Paris, while seven thousand members of families went to the Vélodrome d’Hiver ("Vel' d'Hiv'"), on Rue Nélaton in the 15th arrondissement, where they were crowded together in the stadium for five days before being sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where many of them were murdered.

"[191] The wear and tear of decades of neglect were painfully obvious in smoke-blackened stone facades, cracked and untended stucco, and peeling paintwork in post-World War II Paris.

In 1950, the government began a new large-scale project to construct apartment blocks for low-income Parisians, called HLMs (habitations à loyers modérés), usually on the edges of the city or in the suburbs.

The hall opened with a performance by the Orchestre de Paris of the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré, played to honour the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting that took place in the city a week earlier.

They sprayed several sidewalk cafes with machine-gun fire, set off bombs near the Stade de France, and killed 89 persons at the Bataclan theater, where a concert by the Eagles of Death Metal rock band had begun.

The Palais de la Cité and Sainte-Chapelle as viewed from the Left Bank , from the Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (1410), month of June
Paris in 1763, by Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet , A View of Paris from the Pont Neuf , Getty Museum
Paris in 1897 - Boulevard Montmartre , by Camille Pissarro , Hermitage Museum , Saint Petersburg, Russia
Site of the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives (INRAP) digging at the Rue Henri-Farman (15th arrondissement) in June 2008
Gold coins minted by the Parisii (1st century BC)
A Gallo-Roman stele of Mercury, from Lutetia. The people of Lutetia worshipped both Roman and Celtic gods. (Carnavalet Museum)
Julian the Apostate was crowned Roman Emperor in the Thermes de Cluny in 360 AD. He tried unsuccessfully to roll back the Germanic invasions and the spread of Christianity.
The Church of the Abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Late 11th century) was the burial place of the first Kings of France.
Joan of Arc tries unsuccessfully to liberate Paris (1429).
The fortress of the Louvre as it appeared in this 15th-century manuscript illumination Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry , month of October
A page of the first book printed in France (1470): the Epistolae ("Letters") by Gasparinus de Bergamo (Gasparino da Barzizza).
The Sainte-Chapelle , the chapel of the former royal palace on the Île de la Cité, flooded by light through the stained glass windows, is a masterpiece of the Gothic style. (13th century)
The Hôtel de Cluny (1485–1510), the former residence of the abbots of the Cluny monastery, is now the Museum of the Middle Ages .
A recreated map of Paris in 1380
The centre of Paris in 1550, by Olivier Truschet and Germain Hoyau
The Fontaine des Innocents (1549), by Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon, next to the city market, celebrated the official entrance of King Henry II into Paris.
The Pont Notre-Dame (1512), the first Renaissance bridge in Paris, held a street and sixty-eight houses.
The Medici Fountain (1633) in the Luxembourg Garden was built by Marie de' Medici to recall her home in Florence.
The Place des Vosges , originally the "Place Royale", was begun in 1605 by Henry IV and inaugurated in 1612 by his son Louis XIII ; it was the first prestigious residential square in Paris.
The façade of the church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis in Le Marais , a French adaptation of the sober Jesuit style (1627–1647)
The church of Les Invalides (1671–1678) was built by Louis XIV as the chapel of a hospital for war-wounded and retired soldiers.
Louis XV , the new king of France at the age of five, making a grand exit from the Royal Palace on the Île de la Cité (1715), by Pierre-Denis Martin , Carnavalet Museum
The Panthéon (1758–1790) was originally built as the church of Sainte-Geneviève, but during the Revolution became a mausoleum for French statesmen, scientists and writers.
Between 1784 and 1791, the Rotunda in the Parc Monceau served as one of the gates of the Wall of the Farmers-General built by Louis XVI to tax merchandise coming into the city. The wall and tax were highly unpopular and fuelled the unrest that led to the French Revolution.
The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, by Jean-Baptiste Lallemand , Musée de la Révolution française ; this event marked the beginning of the French Revolution .
The execution of King Louis XVI on the Place de la Révolution; the rolling of drums covered his final words, which could not be heard by the crowd.
The Festival of the Supreme Being by Pierre-Antoine Demachy ; this event was held on 8 June 1794 on the Champs de Mars as an official celebration of the Cult of Reason presided over by Robespierre ; on 27 July, he was arrested and sent to the guillotine, the end of the Reign of Terror .
The Demolition of the Church of Saint-Barthélemy by Pierre-Antoine Demachy ; many Paris churches were sold, demolished or turned into other uses during the Revolution; the church of Saint-Barthélemy church on the Île de la Cité was sold and demolished for building materials in 1791.
Despite the Revolution, private building continued in Paris; the Passage des Panoramas , one of the first covered shopping streets in Europe, opened in 1799.
The Pont des Arts , built by Napoleon I in 1802, was the first iron bridge in Paris. The Institut de France is in the background.
The Elephant of the Bastille , a fountain with a giant bronze elephant begun by Napoleon I in 1810, but never completed.
The Chapelle expiatoire was built by Louis XVIII on the site of the Madeleine cemetery, where the remains of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were buried after their execution.
The capture of the Hôtel de Ville during the July Revolution of 1830, which brought down the regime of Charles X
Giuseppe Canella , The Pont Neuf in 1832, Carnavalet Museum
A crowd of 200,000 people watched as the Luxor Obelisk was hoisted in the center of the Place de la Concorde on 25 October 1836 (as depicted by François Dubois in a painting of 1836 housed in the Carnavalet Museum).
Camille Pissarro , Avenue de l'Opéra , 1898, Museum of Fine Arts, Rheims . The Avenue de l'Opéra was built on the orders of Napoleon III . His Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann , required that the buildings on the new boulevards be the same height, same style, and be faced with cream-colored stone, as these are.
The Paris Opera was the centerpiece of Napoleon III's new Paris. Its architect Charles Garnier described the style simply as "Napoleon the Third".
The Paris chocolate factory of the Compagnie Coloniale in 1855
Crowd outside a butcher shop during the siege of Paris (1871)
In the last days of the Paris Commune , the Tuileries Palace was set afire by the Communards and completely destroyed.
The Basilica of Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre , built in neo-Byzantine style , was begun in 1873, but not finished until 1919. It was intended to atone for abuses committed during the period of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune .
Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Bal du moulin de la Galette , 1876, Musée d'Orsay , depicts a Sunday afternoon dance in Montmartre. Paris became the birthplace of modern art during the Belle Époque .
Au Bon Marché department store
Inside the Gallery of Machines at the Universal Exposition of 1889
The Pont Alexandre III with the Grand Palais in the background. The latter was built for the Universal Exposition of 1900 .
The Universal Exposition of 1900
Eiffel Tower in Paris photographed in 1914 using the Autochrome Lumière process.
Paris Renault taxis carried 6000 soldiers to the front lines during the First Battle of the Marne (1914).
Parisians welcome President Woodrow Wilson on the Place de la Concorde (December 16, 1918).
Women workers, known as munitionnettes , making artillery shells (1917)
Josephine Baker dances the Charleston at the Folies Bergère (1926).
The Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris photographed in 1937 using the Agfacolor process.
Arc de Triomphe (1939)
German soldiers parade on the Champs Élysées in June 1940.
A German sign outside a Paris restaurant announcing that Jews would not be admitted
On 26 August 1944, General Charles de Gaulle leads a parade to celebrate the liberation of Paris the previous day.
The American 28th Infantry Division on the Champs Élysées in the "Victory Day" parade on 29 August 1944
Soon after the War designers such as Christian Dior brought Paris back to the lead of high fashion. This is an example of Dior's New Look (1947).
The Pompidou Centre , the city's major museum of modern art (1977), surprised Parisians by putting all its internal plumbing and infrastructure on the outside.
An anti-terrorism demonstration on the Place de la Republique after the Charlie Hebdo shooting (11 January 2015)
Visitors to the Louvre. Paris was one of the world's top tourist destinations in 2013.