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Mº Cite & Mº/RER St-Michel . The Ile de la Cite is where Paris began. The earliest settlement of any size was the small Gallic town of Lutetia, overrun by Julius Caesar's troops in 52BC. The Romans garrisoned it and laid out one of their standard military town plans. The town gradually established itself as an administrative centre, becoming the seat of the Merovingian kings in 508 AD, then of the counts of Paris, who in 987 AD became kings of France. A thriving community grew up on the island and it became the city's centre of religious and political power. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, much of the medieval character of the island was erased by Baron Haussmann, Napoleon III's somewhat overzealous town planner. He demolished the homes of around 25,000 people, as well as churches, shops and lanes, in order to make way for several buildings in bland Baronial-Bureaucratik style and to clear the space in front of the cathedral of Notre-Dame - the result is the large windswept square you see today. Aside from the cathedral, the island's main sights are the Palais de Justice , formerly the residence of the Capetian kings; the remains of the medieval Conciergerie ; and the Gothic Sainte-Chapelle . The enormous Prefecture de Police looms nearby, as does the Hotel-Dieu, a hospital, begun under the auspices of Notre-Dame and now administered by the state. Among the island's most charming areas are the leafy square du Vert-Galant , the serene place Dauphine and the quais at its tail end.
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