Paris History

Paris Travel Itinerary

History

It was Rome that put Paris on the map, as it did the rest of western Europe. When Julius Caesar's armies arrived in 52 BC, they found a Celtic settlement confined to an island in the Seine - the Ile de la Cite.

Under the name of Lutetia, it remained a Roman colony for the next three hundred years, prosperous commercially because of its commanding position on the Seine trade route, but insignificant politically. The Romans established their administrative centre on the Ile de la Cite, and their town on the Left Bank on the slopes of the Montagne Ste-Genevieve. Though only two monuments from this period remain today - the baths by the Hotel de Cluny and the amphitheatre in rue Monge - the Roman street plan , still evident in the north-south axis of rue St-Martin and rue St-Jacques, determined the future growth of the city.

Although Roman rule disintegrated under the impact of Germanic invasions around 275 AD, Paris held out until it fell to Clovis the Frank in 486, whose conversion to Christianity hastened the Christianization of the whole country. Under his successors, Paris saw the foundation of several rich and influential monasteries, especially on the Left Bank.

With the election of Hugues

Capet , Comte de Paris, as king in 987, the fate of the city was inextricably identified with that of the monarchy . Recurrent political tension between the classes and the crown led to open rebellion , such as in 1356, when Etienne Marcel, a wealthy cloth merchant, demanded greater autonomy for the city. Further rebellions, fuelled by the hopeless poverty of the lower classes, led to the king and court abandoning the capital in 1418, not to return for more than a hundred years.

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