de Lutèce à nos jours

Paris

L’histoire de la Ville Lumière

Les premiers habitants: Les Parisii

Ce peuple gaulois habite une île au milieu de la Seine.

La Seine trouve sa source en Bourgogne. Elle doit son nom à la déesse de la source gauloise, Sequana.

La Seine divise Paris en deux: la Rive Droite la Rive Gauche.

Réalité Source-Seine

La Guerre des Gaules

En 52 BC: César conquiert la Gaule.

Il appelle cette ville

LUTÈCE

Vercingétorix – chef gaulois qui gagne à Gergovie, mais qui perd à César à la bataille d’Alésia (Alise-Sainte-Reine, Bourgogne). Il est exécuté après six ans de prison.

Réalité

Fiction“Nous sommes en 50 avant Jésus-Christ. Toute la Gaule est occupée par les Romains. Toute? Non! Un village peuplé d’irréductibles Gaulois résiste encore et toujours à l’envahisseur.”

Origin of the word: SANDLes arènes de Lutèce could hold 15.000 spectators – larger than the population of the city (10.000). Gladiators fought here: men against men, animals against animals, men against animals. Much blood was spilt. To absorb the blood - SANG, they put a type of soil on the floor of the arena: SAND – sable.

Les Thermes de Cluny

Les Arènes de Lutèce

Ve siècle:

Geneviève is born in Nanterre in 423. The only, and late-born, child of wealthy, aristocatic gallo-romains, her father, Severus, is a high roman authority and a christian. When she is 7, the bishop Germain d’Auxerre, sees how extraordinary she is. With his support, she decides then to consecrate her life to Christ and to be “a virgin of the Gaules”. Her mother, Gerontia, is so shocked that she becomes blind. According to legend, Geneviève’s first miracle is to restore her sight.

451 – Attila the Hun invades Gaule

The inhabitants of Lutèce panic, but Geneviève’s calm and faith persuade them to remain in the city and trust in God. The Gauls are victorius!

Basilique de Saint Denis

Using her influence, she proposes the construction of a cathedral honoring the first bishop of Lutèce, Denis, an italian massacred in the year 250 on the “mont des Martyrs” (Montmartre) to be built on the tomb of the saint several miles north of Lutèce. It will strengthen the christian presence of the Right Bank and help chase the pagans from the Left Bank.

The cathedral became the final resting place of the Kings of France. During the French Revolution, their bodies were removed and tossed into a common grave. The tombs remain here to this day. The bodies of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and Louis XVIII are the only tombs there which actually contain remains.

Clovis, 1e roi de France

Geneviève continues to convert the pagans to Christianity all the while having a good relationship with the leaders of Lutèce: the less and less important Roman, the Wisigoth, and the Franc.

In 481, Clovis (whose name would give us Louis) succeeds his father. Geneviève does not like him and refuses to open the gates of Lutèce unless he converts. The siege of the Francs lasts 10 years – largely because Clovis allows supplies to secretly enter as he does not wish to harm this city that he so wishes to make his capital.

Geneviève knows that she has the support of Clovis’ wife, Clothide, a devout christian.

In 496, thanks to their prayers, Clovis is miraculously victorious over the Alamans (futur Allemands!) and Clovis accepts Geneviève’s God. He is baptised in Reims – where all future kings will be crowned – and Geneviève opens the gates of the city.

He renames the city after its original inhabitants:

PARIS

Geneviève is buried with much ceremony on the mont Lucoticus, later named mont Geneviève where the Panthéon is today.

4 centuries after her death, the city is beseiged by the Vikings. Her remains are paraded through the city and inspire the citizens to fight. The Normands retire and Paris is once again saved.

During a series of epidemics, her memory is invoked, curing many.

In 1130, a poison in rye causes convulsions and gangrene. Those afflicted touch the golden box holding her remains and are cured.

In 1496, Erasme – a famous scholar, is cured of a peristant fever when her remains are again paraded in the city.

In 1793, during the French Revolution, her remains are burnt, place de Grève. Fortunately, parts of her body had been placed in other churches . They are returned to Paris.

They now lie in the spire of Notre Dame, atop her city.

Even after her death (512/502?), Geneviève watches over her city.

Le Louvre: home to Kings since 1191 when it was built as a fortress.

I.M. Pei – Pyramide - 1989

Ile de la Cité

La Sainte Chapelle was built by Louis IX (Saint Louis) to house the crown of thorns that he had brought back from the Croisades.

Notre-Dame de Paris celebrated its 850th birthday in 2013

La Conciergerie – last stop before la guillotinefor Marie-Antoinette, Danton, Robespierre and many more

The cathedral was almost destroyed after the Revolution. It was Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, Notre Dame de Paris, about Quasimodo, the bell-ringer, that incited Parisians to call for the cathedral to be restored.

Île Saint Louis

A place of calm at the heart of the city

Quai Bourbon

Best sorbet IN THE WORLD – a must!

Paris becomes the political – religious – economic – intellectual capital of France

“La Rive Gauche pense; La Rive Droite dépense.”

La Rive Droite, the right bank, becomes the center of commerce, around Les Halles.

The University of Paris establishes itself on la Rive Gauche, the left bank.

Beginning in the 12 e century, the economy of the country required a literate population, knowledgeable in mathematics and accounting. Private schools, with well-respected teachers, such as Pierre Abélard, drew students to the Île de la Cité. A boiterous lot (even then!), it was decided to keep the students on the Rive Gauche, away from the merchants. Commerce associated with education such as bookstores settled there as well. Such was born le Quartier Latin, after the name of the language of instruction in the schools.

People come from far away for the free (even today) education that they can receive in Paris. In the 13th century, a master of theology, Robert de Sorbon, buys some land near the mont Sainte Geneviève to house some university students who have no financial resources. The college of arts and sciences of the University of Paris now bears his name: La Sorbonne.

La Rive Droite – Les Halles

Les Halles was the central market, “le ventre de Paris”. For sanitation reasons, it was moved south of Paris, to Rungis, in 1969. In its place, the Beaubourg section of the city, a modern art museum was built, during the presidency of Georges Pompidou and opened in 1977 and an underground mall: Le Forum des Halles

Centre Pompidou

Le Forum des Halles

The city as we know it today began with François I and Henri IV

Le Pont Neuf: 1606, Henri IV -The oldest bridge of the 37 bridges in Paris today. It was the longest and the widest bridge, and for the first time, had no houses on it so that the view from the new Louvre would not be blocked.

La Place des Vosges (La Place Royale), 1612 - The first square of Paris and a favorite of the aristocracy. Its name honors the first département, les Vosges, who paid its taxes in 1798, after the French Revolution.

Victor Hugo lived at number 6 between 1832 and 1848.

Les Tuileries et Les Champs-Élysées

Catherine de Médicis, wife of Henri II, built a palace at the end of the two wings of the Louvre in 1594, enclosing land that had once been occuped by a tile (tuiles) factory. The Tuileries palace was set on fire and destroyed during the riots of 1871. The gardener, André Le Nôtre, who would go on to design the gardens of Versailles, designed the jardin des Tuileries as well as an extension, the “allée des Tuileries” which went as far as the hill of Chaillot, opposite where the Eiffel Tower stands today.

In 1789, it was widened and became known as Les Champs-Élysées.

Elegant cafés opened and it became THE place to meet – then and now.

The horses that sit at either side of the Champs-Élysées at the beginning of the Place de la Concorde come from the château of Marly-le-Roi, near Versailles. The originals are now in the Louvre.

L’Hôtel de Ville, begun under François IJacques Chirac became the first mayor of the city in 1977.

Le Sénat in the Luxembourg palace of the Jardin du Luxembourg, designed by Marie de Médicis, wife of Henri IV

Le Palais Royal, 1639

Le Palais Royal was built for Cardinal Richelieu. After his death, a young Louis XIV lived here. The Comédie Française is found here.

Le Roi-Soleil, Louis XIV is the master of all. Despite his distrust of the city, his move of the court to Versailles, and his subsequent infrequent visits, he knows how to use Paris to show his power and his prestige. With landscaper, André Le Nôtre, he develops a perspective that stretches the length of the Seine.

He adds to the Louvre and builds a hospital for wounded soldiers: l’Hôtel des Invalides.

Each king adds his touch:

In 1667, an edict imposed that lanterns be lit at every intersection of the capital – more than 6,000. The Ville Lumière was born.

One creation of Louis XIV, the beautiful Place Vendôme, designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, would change appearance when Napoléon added a column recounting his victory over the Russo-Austrian army in Austerlitz (1805) made from the 2.000 canons captured during the battle.

Today the Ritz hotel with its white awnings can be seen in a square famous for its occupants: Chopin and Chanel among others.

Louis XIV builds bridges and new cemeteries, such as the famous Père-Lachaise

Paris sous-sol:

As Paris expanded, the land whose underground quarries provided the stone for such massive constructions as Notre-Dame and the Louvre were incorporated into the city; buildings were constructed and the land became unstable. In 1777 areas were disappearing into large holes.

Charles-Axel Guillaumot was chosen by Louis XVI to strengthen the foundation of the city. Underground support walls were built, and underground cavities were filled with dirt.

One other task of his was to use the existing galeries on the Rive Gauche to create an ossuaire for the millions of skeletons in the Cimetière des Innocents, which was a health problem. It was named the Catacombes, in reference to those in Rome.

Years later, other cemeteries were emptied and the remains brought to the Catacombes. One of them, le Cimetière Sainte-Catherine, was where Guillaumot himself had been buried.

His bones are unmarked, one of the millions resting in the area he created.

Entrée: Place Denfert (d’Enfer!)-Rochereau

La Révolution Française

The column in the center of La Place de la Bastille commemorates les Trois Glorieuses – the 27, 28, 29 July 1830 Revolution celebrated in the Delacroix painting Liberté Guidant le peuple

Pont de la Concorde

L’Opéra Bastille (1989)

La prise de la Bastillele 14 juillet 1789

Le génie de la liberté

Napoléon 1e leaves his mark

Tombe du soldat inconnu

Place de l’Étoile - (Place Charles de Gaulle)

L’Arc du Carrousel(jardin des Tuileries)

He is buried under the dome of the Hôtel des Invalides

L’Arc de Triomphe100 posts linked by chain surround the arch: symbolizing the return of Napoleon from Elba.

L’obélisque de Luxor

La Madeleine

Le Palais Bourbon – L’Assemblée Nationale

La Place de la Révolution becomes La Place de la Concorde (harmony between église: La Madeleine and état: L’Assemblée Nationale)

Napoléon III et le Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann build modern Paris

“le vieux Paris n’est plus…” Charles Baudelaire, Le Cygne, 1860

In 1637, there were 400.000 Parisiens.

In 1789: 600.000

In 1850: 1 million

In 1859: 1.696.000

1858 Napoléon III begins his project with Le Baron Haussmann. In a short twenty years, he destroys 70% of the city, and a city that had little changed since the Middles Ages is transformed into a beautiful and elegant capital. He annexes outlying suburbs, divides the city into 20 arrondissements, destroys thousands of homes and poor, dirty neighbors to build beautiful buildings and wide avenues which make protesting barricades more difficult – though not impossible as he will find out during the Commune uprising in 1871. He completes the Louvre, builds the Palais Garnier (Opéra), holds a World’s Fair in 1867, and brings more light to the city in the form of 18,000 gas lights.

There really is water beneath the Opéra – but no phantom – though Box 5 remains empty each night!

Chagall ceiling - 1964

Le Paris de Haussmann tel qu’on le voit aujourd’hui

Les bouquinistes find a permament home along the Seine under Napoléon III.

Colonne Morris, depuis 1868

But Napoléon III et le Baron Haussmann did more than transform the Paris that we see. In 1878, they worked with Eugène Belgrand to build the finest system of clean drinking water and sewers (les égouts) that there is in the world today - a network of over 2400 kilomètres (1500 miles) of galeries under Paris. Each street has an equivalent “street” below. You can even be like Jean Valjean carrying Marius from Les Misérables (Victor Hugo) and visit it!

Napoléon III believed a world power should act as an influence on many levels, including fashion. A promoter of both fine attire and the textile industry, he forbade women from appearing in the same dress more than twice at the royal court, beginning the march toward the fashion world’s every-changing styles. Fashion and design rose to new heights of innovation in Paris during La Belle Époque (1871-1914) when la haute couture emerged.The first fashion boutiques opened along la rue Saint-Honoré during the 19th century. It is now home to upscale boutiques and designer flagships.

le 4 septembre 1870: La Troisième République

Le Palais de Chaillot: 1937

La Bergère des Nuages et le symbole de Paris: Exposition Universelle 1889 pour commémorer le centenaire de la Révolution Française

How many steps to the top?!

Le Palais de L’Élysée home of the Président de la République

La Gare d’Orsay1900 - devenue musée en 1986

La Gare de Lyon

Basilique du Sacré-Cœur et la Butte de Montmartre centre des artistes

Many cafés and cabarets opened in Montmartre when it was outside the city walls, and the liquor did not have to pay heavy city taxes. La Mére Catherine, on the Place du Tertre is where the word BISTROT entered the French language. After the fall of Napoléon, Russian soldiers stationed in Paris frequented the café. They shouted out “bistrot, bistrot” (vite vite!) which was thought to mean coffee!

Le Moulin de la Galette

Le Métro:

1900Fulgence Bienvenüe, ingénieur

La Grande Arche de la Défense

While Paris certainly seeks to perserve its patrimoine of over 20 centuries of history, it also wishes to inspire with new architecture, and to share its joie de vivre.

Vélib’

Tramway

Paris-PlageParc des Buttes-Chaumont

Parc Monceau

Stade de France

Hippodrome d’Auteuil

Hippodrome de Longchamp

L’arrivée du Tour de France

Hippodrome de Vincennes

Roland-Garros

Parc des Princes

Les sports

A city always mindful of its past as it looks towards the future.

Les Galeries Lafayette

Cité des Sciences – Parc de la Villette

Le Canal Saint Martin

La Défense

Bateaux-Mouches

La Fin!