Writing a brief historical outline of Paris is no easy task: few cities have been so involved in great events which have changed the course of history. Its founders were probably the Gauls, who built a small settlement on the left bank of the Seine. The Romans reached here at an early stage, led by Julius Caesar, who in his " Gallic Wars " repeatedly mentions the town under the name of Lutetia. As a result of the continued and increasingly serious threat of the barbarian invasions, the original settlement was transferred to the island called Ile-de-la-Cité. from which point a slow but continuous expansion on both banks of the river began.
The simple residence first of the Merovingian then of the Carolingian kings, Paris became a true capital in the year 987 when Ugo Cape to founded a new dynasty, raising the city to a status it was to retain throughout the entire course of the history of France. From this moment, Paris began to develop not only as an urban centre, but also from the cultural point of view. The accession to the throne of Philippe II Auguste, who reigned from 1180 to 1223, marked the beginning of one of Paris s most splendid periods: the construction of the Louvre was begun and in 1215 the University was founded. New splendour came with the reign of Louis IX (Louis the Blessed), which lasted from 1226 to 1270 and during which the Sainte-Chapelle was built and work on Notre-Dame considerably advanced. Under the following dynasty, that of the Valois, Paris experienced one of the most bitter periods in its history: 1358 was the year of the revolt headed by the leader of the Parisian merchants. Etienne Marcel. Charles V reestablished order, being responsible among other things for the construction of the Bastille, but the peace did not last. The civil war waged between the Armagnac and Burgundian factions permitted the occupation of France by England, Henry VI being crowned King of France in Notre-Dame in 1430. Finally, in 1437, Charles VII reconquered Paris but there were renewed internecine struggles and increasingly bloody revolts, alternating with terrible epidemics of the plague, which devastated the already distressed population. Then, throughout the 16th century, the importance of Paris was diminished in favour of the castles of the Loire, which the various kings who succeeded to the throne of France chose as their dwellings. This did nothing to put a halt to the internecine strife in the capital itself The spread of the Protestant movement lay at the origin of the bloody religious struggles which for a long time rent Paris and
France, culminating in the massacre of the Huguenots on 24 August 1572, the famous Night of St. Bartholomew.
After the assassination of Henry III at St. Cloud by the young Jacques Clement in 1589, the city was besieged for four long years until it opened its gates to Henry IV, who had abandoned his original faith and been converted to Catholicism. All the same, at the beginning of the 17th century Paris already had a population of 300,000 persons. The city continued to grow in importance as a
cultural and political centre, above all under the powerful Cardinal Richelieu, who in 1635 founded the Academic Frangaise. During the new dynasty of the Bourbons, the city expanded even more: by 1715, during the reign of Louis XIV, it had half a million inhabitants.
But Paris without doubt gained its place in history in 1789 with the beginning of the French Revolution, often (...)