History

The Origins of Paris

Early humans were roaming the plains of Paris and hunting deer, boar, and bears as early as 700,000 years ago. Several dugout canoes that were found in Bercy in the early 1990s and date from around 4500 B.C. revealed the importance of the river in the lives of these early societies. You can see some of these boats in the Musée Carnavelet in the Marais.

By 250 B.C., a tribe of Celts known as the Parisii had settled on the present-day Ile de la Cité. The Parisii were first and foremost river people and the Seine was a place of trade and exchange. The strategic location of the Parisii's fortified town, and the relative wealth of the community, soon attracted the attention of the Romans.

Roman Paris and Early Christianity (52 B.C.-A.D. 400)

By the time the Romans, led by Julius Caesar, conquered the Parisii in 54 B.C., much of southern Gaul had already fallen into Roman hands. The Roman occupation of Gaul was immortalized in the enormously popular Asterix comic books, written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. First published in 1959, the series follows a group of Gauls -- led by Asterix and his friend Obelix -- as they resist the Roman occupier.

Under the Romans, this thriving community became known as Lutetia (Lutèce in French). Most of the 8,000 inhabitants lived on the Left Bank, around today's Rue St-Jacques and Boulevard St-Michel. You can still see traces of Lutetia today: the site of the 15,000-seat amphitheater on Rue Monge, the Arènes de Lutèce, has been preserved, and the remains of the Roman baths are in the Thermes de Cluny.

Christianity first came to Paris in the form of Saint Denis. In around A.D. 250 Denis was sent from Athens to Lutetia to convert the Gallo-Roman Parisians, who were notorious for the pagan ways. Denis founded the Parisian church and became the first Bishop of Paris. Beheaded near the Gallo-Roman temple of Mercury in Montmartre, legend has it that Denis picked up his head and carried it to the present-day suburb of St-Denis where he died. Denis's headless antics led to him becoming one of the Paris's patron saints.

Saint Geneviève, a pious virgin who is said to have defended Paris from Attila the Hun, is another important figure in Paris's history. From A.D. 275 onward, Lutetia was raided by wave after wave of barbarian invaders from across the Rhine river. Although the Romans managed to hold onto the town for two more centuries, Roman rule in Gaul began to disintegrate as a result of these Germanic invasions. In A.D. 451, Attila the Hun was threatening the city and its inhabitants were preparing to flee. Thanks to the intervention of young Geneviève, who prayed for Paris and encouraged the people to stay and defend the city, Attila backed off and Paris was spared. She was less fortunate in 486, when, after a ten-year blockade, Geneviève had to surrender the city to Clovis, King of the Francs. There is a shrine dedicated to St-Geneviève in the church of St-Etienne-du-Mont in the 5e, and a statue of St-Geneviève on the Pont de la Tournelle, which was created by Paul Landowski in 1928. Ever wary of invaders, you'll notice St-Geneviève is facing the east.

From Clovis to the Capetians (5th c.-10th c.)

Clovis, the first king of the Franks (a west Germanic tribe) ruled in the 5th century, choosing Paris as the capital of his kingdom. Clovis founded the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled from 486 to 752 -- all of its rulers were known for their violence and ferocity. Clovis's wife, Clotilde, persuaded him to convert to Christianity and a spate of church building began the Christianization of the city. In 511 Clovis's son, Childebert, commissioned the cathedral of St-Etienne, the forerunner of Notre Dame -- its remains can be seen in the archaeological crypt under the Place du Parvis Notre Dame. Childebert was also responsible for bringing back the relics of Saint Vincent to Paris and placing them in a chapel on the Left Bank. He decided to build a basilica to house the relics, which eventually became known as St-Germain-des-Prés; over the following centuries it became the Left Bank's most powerful abbey.

The Merovingians were succeeded by the militaristic Carolingian dynasty, which ruled from 752 to 987. The most famous of the Carolingians was Charlemagne, who conquered half of Europe but chose Aix-la-Chapelle (in present-day Germany), rather than Paris, as his capital. Exposed and badly defended, Paris was vulnerable to invasion and was repeatedly sacked and pillaged by the Normans in the 9th century. Many of the churches that had been built in the 6th century were destroyed. In the absence of the Carolingian kings, Paris was ruled by the counts, and in 987 they elected a new king, Hughes Capet. This was the beginning of a new dynasty and a new era of great prosperity for Paris. Under the Capetian dynasty, which ruled France from 987 to 1328, Paris was once again the royal capital and the kings lived in a palace on the Ile de la Cité (on the site of the present-day Palais de Justice).

The Middle Ages (11th c.-15th c.)

During the Middle Ages, Paris flourished and became a center of politics, commerce, trade, religion, education, and culture. The "Queen of Cities" was divided into three parts: The Ile de la Cité remained the administrative heart of Paris and it was here that you could find the symbols of state power such as the royal palace and the cathedral; the Left Bank, thanks to the creation of the University of Paris, became associated with education and learning; and the Right Bank saw a boom in commercial activity and became associated with trade and commerce. These associations have continued throughout the history of Paris and, to a certain degree, remain true today.

The 12th and 13th centuries were a time of intense building activity, and it was in this period that Gothic architecture was born. Engineering developments had freed church architecture from the heavy, thick walls of Romanesque structures and allowed ceilings to soar, walls to thin, and windows to proliferate. Gothic interiors enticed churchgoers' gazes upward to high ceilings filled with light. Graceful buttresses and spires soared above town centers. The Gothic phase is believed to have begun with Abbot Sugar's rebuilding of the Abbey of St-Denis in the 1140s. However, it was the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame that made the style so influential. Work began on Notre Dame in 1163, and it took 2 centuries to be built; the Gothic style was preserved until the 17th century when, in the name of restoration, the church suffered a number of mutilations. Higher than any other building in the city, Notre Dame dramatically altered the skyline of medieval Paris and could be seen from miles around. The success of Victor Hugo's epic novel Notre Dame de Paris, published in 1831, led to a revival of interest in Gothic architecture and, more importantly, to the restoration of Notre Dame. This was carried out by renowned 19th-century architect Eugéne Viollet-le-Duc.

The monarch who did the most to consolidate Paris's reputation as a great city during the Middle Ages was Philippe Auguste, who ruled France from 1180 to 1223. He built the Louvre, a 33m-high (108-ft.) tower that was used to defend the city from attack and survey the surrounding area (the word Louvre is thought to have come from the old French word louver, which meant stronghold). He was also responsible for the first covered market at Les Halles, which strengthened the reputation of the Right Bank as a center of commerce and trade. His greatest achievement, however, was the military fortifications he constructed around the city from 1190 to 1213. Running from the Louvre to the lower Marais on the Right Bank and encompassing the site of the present-day Panthéon and the area around Odéon on the Left Bank, the Philippe Auguste Wall had the effect of consolidating and defining the space of the city. There are several places in Paris where you can see remains of this 12th-century wall, including Rue Clovis in the 5th arrondissement and Rue des Jardins St-Paul in the Marais.

By the time Philippe Auguste died in 1223, Paris was the undisputed cultural capital of Europe. This was largely due to its intellectual activity and the reputation of the University of Paris. In the 12th century, students from across Europe flocked to the city to study medicine, law, theology, and liberal arts. In 1253, Robert de Sorbon, a royal chaplain, established a new theology college that became known as the Sorbonne. It quickly became one of Paris's most prestigious colleges and a byword for the University of Paris. By 1300 there were 3,000 students living on the Left Bank, most of whom spoke Latin. This is how the Latin Quarter got its name.

Pierre Abélard -- One of Paris's most famous medieval scholars was Pierre Abélard. After arriving in the city in 1108, Abélard quickly became one of most popular teachers and philosophers in Paris. He was employed by the canon of Notre Dame to tutor his niece, Héloïse, in theology and philosophy. Abélard and Héloïse fell in love and eloped to Brittany where they got married and had a son. However, Abélard was not ready to swap academic life for domestic life and on his way back to Paris he sent Héloïse to a convent. Believing Abélard had abandoned his niece, Fulbert and a group of his cronies went to Abélard's house during the night and castrated him. Despite his scholarly brilliance, Abélard's reputation never quite recovered.

The Hundred Years' War (1337-1453)

In 1328, Charles IV died without an heir, bringing an end to the Capetian dynasty -- this marked the end of the medieval golden age and the beginning of a troubled period in the history of Paris. The late king's cousin, Philippe de Valois became king, marking the beginning of the Valois dynasty, but his claim was contested by Edward III of England -- this instigated the Hundred Years' War between France and England. Although the Valois kings ultimately won the war, it nevertheless brought financial ruin to the city of Paris. To make matters worse, the Black Death (bubonic plague) arrived in Paris in 1348, killing several hundred Parisians a day. For the next century Paris was full of tension, violence, plots, and intrigue.

When Charles V came to the throne in 1364, he was determined to crush the unruly forces at work within the city, and decided to both strengthen and expand the Philippe Auguste Wall. On the Right Bank, the wall encompassed a new fortress, the Bastille. Charles V was the first monarch to make the Louvre a royal residence. He moved there in the 1ate 1360s and transformed it into a luxurious and official residence.

The Renaissance and the Wars of Religion (16th c.)

Military escapades in Italy in the early 16th century brought the Renaissance style to France. Italian Renaissance architecture was characterized by its use of symmetry, decorative facades, columns and pilasters, and domes. In France, the continuing prevalence of the Gothic style, combined with the need for steep roofs and tall chimneys, created a Renaissance style with a particular French emphasis; this later evolved into a style known as French Classicism. The Renaissance style was instigated by François I, whose greatest achievement in Paris was the Louvre; a Renaissance-style palace was a very public affirmation of glory. In 1546, the medieval palace and fortress that were the existing Louvre were destroyed and the first stones of the present-day Louvre were laid by the architect Pierre Lescot in the Cour Carrée. For the next 3 centuries, François I's Renaissance palace served as the model for all subsequent extensions and additions to the Louvre.

The Reformation, the religious movement that established Protestantism and was begun by Martin Luther in Germany in 1517, had caused bitter conflict between Catholics and Protestants, known as Huguenots, in France. By the 1560s, this conflict had turned into civil war and the Wars of Religion lasted from 1562 to 1598. The bloodiest atrocity of the Wars of Religion, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, took place in Paris on August 24, 1572. The scheming powerhouse at the heart of the French court, Catherine de Medici, had arranged for her daughter Marguerite de Valois to marry Henri de Navarre, a Protestant aristocrat from the Bourbon family. While the official reason for the marriage was to join the two opposing religious forces in a union that would support the monarchy, Catherine had a number of hidden motives: there were a large number of Huguenots in Paris for the wedding, and on the morning of August 24, the tolling of the bell in St-Germain l'Auxerriois acted as a signal for the Catholics to start massacring Huguenots. Between 1,500 and 2,000 Huguenots were killed, but Henri de Navarre was spared, thanks to his wife. Marguerite de Valois's turbulent life and the massacre were the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas's 1845 novel, La Reine Margot, which in turn inspired the 1994 film adaptation of the same name.

Henri IV (1589-1610)

After a dark and turbulent century, Paris entered a dynamic period of growth in the late 16th century, under the guidance of Henri IV, and later, his son and successor Louis XIII. Henri IV became king in 1589, but it was 5 years before he entered Paris. Determined to win the Parisians over, the Huguenot king converted to Catholicism, announcing "Paris vaut bien une messe" ("Paris deserves a mass"). In 1599 he signed the Edict of Nantes, which ended the Wars of Religion and led to long-lasting religious toleration and diversity in France.

Henri IV, known as Le Vert Galant (which roughly translates as "the old charmer") due to his fondness for the ladies, was very committed to Paris and was determined to restore the city to its earlier eminence. Like François I before him, he wanted the Louvre to be a testament to his power so he decided to link the Louvre with the Palais de Tuileries by building what is now known as the Grande Galerie. (In 1559 Catherine de Medici had ordered the construction of the Palais de Tuileries, which would have stood in between the current Jardin des Tuileries and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.) This palace became the home of the reigning monarch while the Louvre was the symbol of state power.

Henri IV was also responsible for the building of the place des Vosges (then known as the Place Royale), which transformed the Marais from a marshy wasteland to one of Paris's most fashionable areas. A number of the Marais's finest hôtel particuliers (private mansions) were built during this period.

Arguably, Henri IV's most important contribution to Paris was the Pont Neuf. It was the first stone bridge to cross the Seine, and the first bridge that did not have houses or shops on it. Its unprecedented length and width (232m x 22m/761 ft. x 72 ft.) made it the longest bridge in Paris. At the time, its name, which means New Bridge, was deserved. Today, as the other bridges across the Seine have all been replaced, it stands as the oldest bridge in Paris. Once completed, it became a hub of activity and in his Tableau de Paris in 1788, Louis-Sébastien Mercier declared the Pont Neuf to be "to the city what the heart is to the body: the center of movement and of circulation." Henri IV was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic called François Ravaillac while his carriage was stuck in traffic on the Rue de la Ferronerie (near Les Halles). However, the city continued to expand and the population continued to increase after his death.

The Sun King and Versailles (1638-1789)

Louis XIV, known as le Roi Soleil (the Sun King), became king in 1638 at the age of 4. He ruled until his death in 1715 at the age of 76, making him the longest ruling monarch in the history of Europe. His reign marked the peak of absolute monarchy in France, and he is famous for asserting "I am the State." Early in his reign, he was attracted to the idea that the glorification of the capital city would both add to prestige of his own dynasty and create a dominant royal presence. He built the two triumphal arches at Porte St-Denis and Porte St-Martin, and was responsible for the Baroque-style Hôtel des Invalides, a complex of buildings designed to house injured and elderly soldiers from the king's army. The hospital of Salpêtrière in the 13e was built to shelter fallen women.

However, Louis XIV soon abandoned Paris for Versailles. He spent colossal sums of money enlarging the former hunting lodge of his father, Louis XIII. Built in the excessive Baroque style, Versailles is the embodiment of grandeur and indulgence. The French court officially moved there in 1683, and from then on Paris was eclipsed by the courtly goings on in Versailles. After the death of Louis XIV, the infant Louis XV lived in Paris for several years but soon scuttled back to Versailles. His successor, Louis XVI had no intention of living in Paris. Over the years various additions were made to the palace, including the Hall of Mirrors, the Petit Trianon (which was built in the 1760s for Louis XV's mistress, Mme de Pompadour), and La Petite Ferme, where Louis XVI's wife, Marie Antoinette, played at being a milkmaid. Sofia Coppola's 2006 film, Marie Antoinette, despite its anachronisms and rock soundtrack, superbly captures the decadence and frivolity of Versailles and the last years of the Ancien Régime.

The Enlightenment (18th c.)

Despite the absence of the king, the 18th century was one of the most prestigious and dynamic periods in Paris's history. Paris became the unofficial capital of the Enlightenment, the age of rational humanism. Philosophers and intellectuals, such as Rousseau and Voltaire, gathered in coffeehouses and bars to criticize the monarchy and discuss alternative forms of government. The population soared from half a million in 1715 to more than 650,000 in 1789. Literacy rates were increasing and the number of books published increased threefold. This was also the heyday of the Palais Royal; in the early 1780s, Philippe II, the duc d'Orléans, transformed his Parisian residence into a semipublic space that became the meeting place of intellectuals, prostitutes, and sexual adventurers.

However, the increasing wealth of the city only served to highlight the vast gap between rich and poor. The ruling elite feared the sans-culottes (which means "without breaches"), members of the lower working classes who lived and worked in the warrenlike alleys around Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine (off the present-day Place de la Bastille). Rumors of the excess and decadence of Versailles led people to perceive the court as increasingly corrupt and immoral. From 1784 to 1787, Louis VXI aroused the hostility of the Parisian working classes by building the Farmers General Wall, a customs barrier. Anyone bringing products into the city from outside Paris had to pay a tax. When a riot started on July 14, 1789, the mob attacked the Bastille and various outposts of the Farmers General Wall, thus starting the French Revolution.

The French Revolution (1789-1799)

The storming of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, was the beginning of the French Revolution. Although the events that took place in Paris during the revolution would change France forever, the face of the city itself changed very little. Instead, the city was "reclaimed" by the people. They were more interested in destroying the symbols of the Ancien Régime than building anything new. This was exemplified by the destruction of a number of churches and abbeys, the desecration of the royal tombs at the Saint-Denis basilica, and the symbolic decapitation of the statues of the kings on the facade of Notre-Dame (the revolutionaries mistook them for the kings of France but actually they represent the kings of Judah). Church bells were melted down to make cannonballs, churches were renamed or given a new function -- Notre Dame became the Temple of Reason and the Eglise St-Germain was used to store gunpowder -- and many streets across the city were given more revolutionary names. Place Louis XV became place de la Révolution -- it was only given its current name, place de la Concorde, after the revolution.

In 1792 the revolution took a much more radical turn. The extremist Jacobins, led by Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Jacques Danton, and Jean-Paul Marat, instigated the period of the revolution known as The Reign of Terror. On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was guillotined in the place de la Révolution. Marie Antoinette was kept prisoner in the Conciergerie, where the Revolutionary Tribunal presided over the revolution and decided who should be sent to the guillotine. Located next to Sainte-Chapelle on the Ile de la Cité, you can visit Marie Antoinette's cell in the Conciergerie. She was executed in October 1793. By mid-1794, around 2,500 people had been beheaded in Paris.

Napoleon (1804-1814)

Taking advantage of the postrevolutionary chaos, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor of the French in 1804. He famously declared that "Paris is short of monuments" and so "It must be given them." His desire to remake Paris into a city fit for an emperor led to an ambitious public building program. From 1802 onward, canals -- including Canal St-Martin -- were built to ensure that the city had a clean water supply. In 1806, Napoleon decided to build the Arc de Triomphe, which was intended to celebrate his victory at Austerlitz but was only completed two decades after his downfall, and a neo-classical "Temple to the Glory of the Great Army," which was never fully completed and later became La Madeleine.

Although the emperor failed to reshape Paris in the way that he had hoped, his military prowess -- and the fact that he preserved the changes brought about by the revolution -- mean that even today the French still consider him to be a great national hero. His reign provides the backdrop for Victor Hugo's classic tale of social oppression and human courage, Les Misérables.

Food-wise, the 18th century was very important. It was during this period that the restaurant, as we know it today, first appeared. Thanks to the revolution, in the 1790s, chefs from aristocratic houses found themselves jobless and were forced to look for work. Many of them opened restaurants. Many restaurant conventions that we take for granted -- such as flexible mealtimes, printed menus, and individualized meals -- date from this period.

Napoleon III and Haussmann (1848-1870)

For several decades France gave the monarchy a second chance, but after the last French king, Louis-Philippe, abdicated in 1848, power fell into the hands of Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon's nephew. In December 1848, he was elected president, and by 1852, he had moved into the Palais des Tuileries and declared himself Emperor Napoleon III. In 1853, he appointed Georges-Eugène Haussmann as prefect of Paris, placing under his control a city that, monuments aside, had changed little since the Middle Ages. Inadequate housing meant there was huge overcrowding in the poorer parts of the city. There was no efficient sanitation system; the Seine was still being used as a sewer, and only one in five houses had access to running water. There were no straight roads through Paris and congestion increasingly disrupted the social and economic life of the city. Haussmann had a very prestigious position; he had no superior other than the emperor and the two men met every day. Napoleon III wanted to create a city that was modern, aesthetically beautiful, and a magnificent monument to his power. Ultimately though, Haussmann oversaw this transformation, and it was his name that has come to be associated with the Paris that emerged from it.

Haussmann improved circulation in the city by widening the streets and building the boulevards -- a prime example of his work is the boulevard that was named after him, the Boulevard Haussmann in the 9e. He was responsible for the standardization of the Parisian facade: all the buildings in a block were linked by symmetrical wrought-iron balconies, creating a long, horizontal perspective -- examples of this architecture can be seen on Boulevard St-Michel. He oversaw the renovation of the markets at Les Halles and the design of the eight iron- and glass-pavilions that were at the center of the project. He built 560km (348 miles) of sewers and vastly increased the amount of green space available to the public. Architecturally, Haussmann was inspired by French Classic architecture, but what distinguished Haussmann from those who had tried to reshape Paris in the past was the unprecedented scale of his transformation of the city.

However, not everybody was impressed by Haussmann, who described himself as a "demolition artist." He destroyed about 27,000 houses -- including the house where he had grown up -- and most of Medieval Paris was wiped off the map. The destruction of inner-city slums and the subsequent rise in property prices forced the working classes to move from the city center to the northeastern districts of the city. The poet Charles Baudelaire lamented the loss of le vieux Paris (old Paris) in his poem Le Cygne (The Swan), when he wrote "The old Paris is gone (the form a city takes more quickly shifts, alas than does the mortal heart)."

Haussmann, and his transformation of Paris, inspired many artists and writers. During the 19th century, Paris saw an extraordinary flourishing of art and literature, including the emergence of new forms of art. Impressionism was born during this time (you can see works by Impressionist artists such as Édouard Manet at the Musée d'Orsay), as was Literary Naturalism, with writers like Émile Zola, one of the first pioneers of the French realist novel, paving the way. Both Zola and the Impressionists frequently took Haussmann's transformation of Paris as their subjects, and their work reveals much about Parisian modernity.

The Paris Commune (1871)

Perhaps what is most incredible about Napoleon III's and Haussmann's transformation of the city is how much was achieved in such a short period of time. The Franco Prussian War (1870-1871), in which Paris was occupied, led to the fall of Napoleon III. After 17 years as prefect, Haussmann was out on his ear. What followed remains one of the bloodiest periods of Paris's history. The new, moderate republican government signed a peace treaty with the Germans, which angered many Parisians. When the new president, Adolphe Thiers, ordered his soldiers to enter the city and take away its cannons, the working classes rose up in protest and the government was forced to flee to Versailles. The Parisians elected their own governing body, the Commune, and from March to May 1871, the working classes occupied the city. When the government troops were finally able to enter the city, they showed no mercy; 200,000 people were killed in a single week, which became known as la semaine sanglante (the bloody week). The fighting finished in Père Lachaise, where 147 Communards were shot against the Mur des Fédérés.

Despite its short life, the Commune succeeded in leaving its mark on the city. Napoleon's column in place Vedôme was pulled down, the Hôtel de Ville was set on fire, which destroyed all the state registers and archives, and the Palais des Tuileries was looted and burned to the ground. While the Hôtel de Ville was quickly rebuilt, the ruins of the Palais des Tuileries were swept away, making room for the gardens that we have today.

La Belle Époque (1880-1914)

Memories of the Commune were soon swept away as Paris entered the period known as la belle époque (the beautiful age). Lasting from roughly 1880 to World War I, it was only after the horrors of the war that journalists started referring to it as la belle époque. This was the era of the Expositions Universelles (the Great Exhibitions), during which Paris was visited by millions of people from across the globe. The highlight of the 1889 Exposition Universelle was the Eiffel Tower. At a height of 320m (1,066 ft.), it was the tallest structure in the world when it was completed in 1899, and it remains the tallest structure in Paris. Many people hated the tower when it was first unveiled -- it was supposed to be dismantled in 1909 -- but the tower remained, forever changing the Paris skyline. The stars of the 1900 Exposition Universelle were the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, which were built just off the Champs-Élysées. The huge iron- and glass-structure of the Grand Palais was typical of the architecture of the Industrial Age, and testified to the importance of these materials in 19th -century architecture.

In July 1900, the first Métro line was opened -- Line 1 -- running from Vincennes to Porte Maillot. The station entrances were designed by Art Nouveau architect Hector Guimard. Art Nouveau, with its asymmetrical, curvaceous designs based on organic forms, was a reaction against the Industrial Age. Only a few of Guimard's original Métro entrances survive, at Porte Dauphine and Abbesses.

Although Paris had been overtaken by London in terms of size, Paris remained Europe's cultural capital during la belle époque. This was the heyday of the Impressionists Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and Paul Cézanne. They were given the name Impressionists by critics who felt that their paintings were an impression rather than a finished scene. Interested in the effects of light, the Impressionists often painted outside, capturing subjects in the countryside and Haussmann's Paris.

With its cheap rents, booze, and cabarets, Montmartre had become the home of the literary and artistic avant-garde. All the big artists of the day -- including Picasso and van Gogh -- lived, drank, and painted in Montmartre. From 1904 to 1912, Picasso lived at the Bateau-Lavoir, a former piano factory, and it was here that he painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting that marked the beginning of cubism. This was the era of absinthe (also known as "the green fairy") and the Moulin Rouge. Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings of cabarets, circus freaks, and prostitutes perfectly capture the wild, heady spirit of the time.

In December 1895, the Lumière brothers showed the first moving images of Paris to the customers of the Grand Café on Boulevard des Capucines. This was the birth of a new art form, and the beginning of the Parisian passion for cinema.

WWI and the Années Folles (1914-1938)

When the Germans broke through Belgium and entered France in September 1914, they very nearly made it to Paris. They were met by the French army at the Battle of the Marne, just 15km (9 miles) east of Paris. The Parisian taxi fleet came to the nation's rescue by taking 4,000 soldiers to the front. Paris was safe and by the end of that year, the fighting had turned into the trench warfare that came to characterize World War I. Although Paris itself suffered very little from 1914 to 1918, victory came at an high cost: Of the eight million French soldiers who fought in WWI, 1.3 million were killed, and another 1 million were crippled. In June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, officially bringing an end to the war.

In the interwar years, Paris became the avant-garde capital of the world. All the great writers, artists, and thinkers of the day gathered in Paris during the années folles (mad years), and the city was a whirlwind of decadence and creativity. Montparnasse had become the cultural epicenter of Paris, and the artistic community gathered in bars around Montparnasse, including Rotunde, the Dôme, the Select, and the Coupole -- all of which are still in business.

As Prohibition reached its peak in the U.S., American writers -- including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein -- came to Paris in search of freedom, bohemia, and alcohol. It was here that Ernest Hemingway began his career as a writer, and his 1936 memoir, A Moveable Feast, is arguably the best Anglophone novel about 1920s Paris. When they weren't at the bars of Montparnasse, these writers gathered in the English-language bookshop Shakespeare and Co., run by a young American woman called Sylvia Beach. In July 1920, Sylvia met the Irish writer James Joyce, and in March 1921, she offered to publish his modernist masterpiece, Ulysses.

WWII and Occupation (1939-1944)

When World War II broke out, France believed that it would be protected by its concrete fortifications, known as the Maginot Line. However, in May 1940, the German army simply bypassed the fortifications and entered France by going through Belgium. Fear and panic led to a mass exodus from Paris toward the south of France, but by the autumn most Parisians had returned home. The chaos of this period is brilliantly portrayed in the first part of Irène Némirovsky's novel Suite Française; this book was never finished as Némirovsky died at the age of 39 in Auschwitz. A more romantic, but less historically accurate, portrayal of this time is the classic film Casablanca.

Paris was in German hands by June 1940. Although Parisians had to get used to rationing and the presence of both German soldiers and German street signs, Paris suffered little physical damage during the Occupation. As France was being liberated in 1944, Hitler famously gave the order for the retreating German army to blow up Paris, but the commander in charge, Von Cholitz, could not bring himself to destroy such a beautiful city.

The Occupation was a dark period in the history of both France and Paris, and it was many years before the French recognized the role they had played in the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism had been prevalent in France long before the Occupation, and the Germans found that many sections of society, as well as Marshall Pétain's Vichy Government, were more than happy to get involved in the deportation of the Jews. This culminated in July 1942, when the Parisian police rounded up 12,000 of the city's Jews. They were interned in the Vel' d'Hiv sports stadium before being deported to Auschwitz. Around 75,000 Jews were deported from France during the Occupation. Most of them passed through a temporary internment camp in Drancy, just outside Paris. The town of Drancy still exists and you can see it from the window of the RER B on your way out to Aéroport Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle.

Les Trentes Glorieuses (1945-1975)

After the end of WWII, France embarked on a period of ambitious industrial modernization. The postwar economic boom that followed came to be known as les trentes glorieuses (the 30 glorious years). Wages were higher and increased spending on consumer goods radically changed the culture of everyday life, with more and more French households being equipped with television sets, washing machines, and cars. Women gained more independence, and younger people gained more freedom.

Many of the lifestyle changes brought about by les trentes glorieuses were explored in the films of the French New Wave, known as la nouvelle vague, which were a celebration of youth, Paris, and above all, cinema. New Wave film directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Agnès Varda used lighter, hand-held cameras to film in the streets rather than in studios; they challenged conventional editing practices and encouraged improvisation. It was through New Wave films, such as À bout de souffle (Breathless) and Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), that the world came to know the sights and sounds of Paris.

The Algerian War (1954-1962)

Although daily life was improving at home, France's empire was falling apart abroad. After the French army was defeated in the 1954 French Indochina War, they entered the Algerian War, a long and bloody decolonization war in which Algeria fought France for its independence. The Algerian War lasted until 1962 and, like the Occupation, is one of the more shameful periods of French history. Although subsequent governments have never admitted it, torture was used as an interrogation technique by the French army during the Algerian War.

By 1954 there were 350,000 Algerians living in France, most of whom were in Paris. Although the postwar economic boom depended on an immigrant labor force, the Algerian War made life very difficult for the Algerian community in Paris. Tensions between the leaders of the community and the police escalated, culminating in a protest by 20,000 Algerians in Paris on October 17, 1961. Under the orders of Maurice Papon, the police opened fire on the crowds and savagely assaulted protesters. Over 11,000 Algerian men were arrested and the bodies of a number of Algerians were thrown into the Seine. It is thought that around 200 people died in the massacre, which is commemorated on a plaque on the Pont St-Michel.

Many immigrants who came to Paris during les trentes glorieuses found themselves living in bidonvilles (shantytowns) on the peripheries of the city. Slowly, those living in the bidonvilles were relocated to huge housing estates, known as grandes ensembles, in the banlieues. However, these poorly built housing estates soon became sites of spatial isolation and economic exclusion, and many people believe that the current problems in the banlieues date from this period.

May 1968

In May 1968, at Paris University at Nanterre, a university campus in the suburbs of Paris, students began to protest the campus's overcrowded and dilapidated buildings, occupying some of the buildings for days. When the ringleaders of the sit-in were brought before a disciplinary hearing held at the Sorbonne in Paris, a riot broke out on the Boulevard St-Michel and stones were thrown at police. As the protest gathered momentum, more and more students filled the streets, and TV crews arrived. Trade unions and secondary school students soon joined them. The streets were full of graffiti and slogans challenging society such as "Métro, boulot, dodo" ("subway, work, sleep") and "Sous les pavés, la plage" ("Under the paving stones, the beach"). Although the student riots are only the backdrop to Bernardo Bertolucci's 2003 film The Dreamers, which tells the story of a young American student who gets caught up in a complicated conflict, the film captures the violence and the idealism of May '68.

By mid-May, nine million people were on strike, and the protest threatened Charles de Gaulle's right-wing government. Police reacted to the protesters with violence, but somewhat surprisingly the revolts did not topple the government, as many feared; in June 1968, de Gaulle called an election, and his party won by an overwhelming majority. Although May '68 challenged capitalist society and revived the 19th-century tradition of Parisian militancy, ultimately it confirmed France's middle-class commitment to capitalist values. One of the leaders of the revolt, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, is now a member of the Green Party in the European Parliament.

Mitterand's Grand Projects (1981-1985)

De Gaulle was succeeded by two more right-wing presidents: Georges Pompidou and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. So it was a huge event when the head of the Parti Socialiste (PS), François Mitterrand, won the presidential election in 1981; he remained president until 1995.

Like the great kings and emperors before him, Mitterand understood how important it was for a great leader to leave his mark on the city. With his heart set on prosperity, he launched a number of controversial initiatives known as the Grands Projets (big projects), including I.M. Pei's glass pyramid in the Louvre, La Grande Arche de La Défense, the Opéra Bastille, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) in the 13e. The use of glass in many of the Grands Projets was intended to express the idea of transparency. Like a lot of new buildings in Paris, many of the Grands Projects were hated when they were first unveiled. One critic accused Mitterand of "treating the Louvre as if it were Disneyland." However, today these initiatives have been absorbed into the city's landscape, and Parisians have learned to appreciate the Grands Projets.

Contemporary Politics (1995-Present)

The 1990s were a difficult decade for Parisians. Jacques Chirac became president in 1995 but his presidency was almost immediately undermined by a series of strikes and protests that lasted for months on end. (These strikes were mainly in the public sector and were a response to Chirac's Prime Minister Alain Juppé's planned welfare cutbacks.) There was also a profound sense of fear in Paris, due to a wave of terrorist attacks in 1995. In July '95, the St-Michel Métro station was bombed, resulting in the death of 7 people and the injury of another 84 people. However, at the same time, Chirac wanted to improve Paris, so he commissioned the Musée du quai Branley, which is dedicated to indigenous art from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The building was designed by renowned contemporary French architect Jean Nouvel and has a "living wall" on part of its exterior.

In early 2003, Chirac's decision to oppose the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq gained him popularity both abroad and at home. However, his failed attempt to reform the public sector in the spring and his mismanagement of the deadly heat wave in August -- which killed 14,000 elderly people -- aroused a great deal of criticism.

In October 2005, following the deaths of two teenagers in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, riots broke out in the huge, run-down housing estates in the banlieues. Rioters -- many of whom were the children of North African immigrants -- torched cars, smashed buildings, and threw stones at the police. The violence spread all over France, from Marseilles to Strasbourg, and lasted for several weeks. Chirac was forced to declare a State of Emergency. Nicolas Sarkozy, then minister of the interior, intensified the anger of the rioters when he called them "racaille" (a very insulting expression, meaning "scum"). Sarkozy was elected president of France in 2007, and he has continued to take a hard line on immigration and national identity issues -- these will undoubtedly be key topics of debate in the 2012 presidential election. Five years after these riots, many people feel that the tensions in the banlieues remain unresolved.

Politically, Sarkozy remains a divisive figure. His attempt to reform the pension system by raising the age of retirement from 60 to 62 caused a wave of strikes and protests across France in the autumn of 2010. Despite widespread opposition to the legislation, the French parliament approved the reforms in October 2010. Outside of politics, Parisians tend to look at Sarkozy's personal life with ridicule. His marriage to Italian-French pop singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and his vacations with the rich and famous have earned him the title of the "bling bling president," and stories of his aides putting boxes behind podiums to make him seem taller during his speeches have been met with derision. Given how badly Sarkozy is currently doing in the polls, it remains to be seen whether the French will give him a second chance and reelect him in the upcoming 2012 French presidential election. One thing's for sure, he won't go without a fight.