Paris (city, France)

C

1

Construction and Expansion

Louis XIV was four years old when he came to the throne in 1643. While he was a minor, the government was largely in the hands of the chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, whose palace, the Hôtel Mazarin, was located north of the Palais-Royal. From 1648 to 1653, during the early years of Louis XIV’s rule, the French nobility led a series of revolts against the monarchy. The rebellion, known as the Fronde, took place in the streets of Paris and drove the royal family out of the city to its residence in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, west of Paris.

During Louis XIV’s long reign (1643-1715) he constructed many new buildings and monuments, and made several significant improvements to the city’s infrastructure. When the Fronde revolt was quashed, Louis XIV settled in the Louvre, which he embellished further during his residence. A notable addition was the massive colonnade (designed by architect Claude Perrault) along the east facade of the structure. At the same time, Louis XIV undertook the construction of the extravagant Palace of Versailles west of Paris, where he moved in 1682. French landscape architect André Le Nôtre designed the Jardins des Tuileries (Tuileries Gardens) for Louis XIV, and also laid out the lower part of the Champs-Élysées.

In 1670 Louis XIV decided to demolish the city walls and make Paris an open city for the first time in its history. The Grands Boulevards, a semicircular tree-lined promenade between the present-day Place de la Madeleine and Place de la République, replaced the walls on the Right Bank. Two triumphal arches, commemorating Louis XIV’s military victories, were erected along the Grands Boulevards: Porte Saint-Denis and Porte Saint-Martin.

Louis XIV also built two colossal institutions on the Left Bank. West of the old city walls, the Hôtel des Invalides, a hospice for war veterans, was designed by French architect Libéral Bruant and completed by French architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. To the east, the Salpêtrière, designed by Louis Le Vau (and with a chapel by Bruant), was built as a general hospital for the poor and a shelter for the homeless. Homelessness was a major social concern at the time, affecting an estimated 40,000 Parisians—a full 10 percent of the population.

---

---

The construction of the Pont Royal in 1689 linked the Palace of the Tuileries to the Left Bank and boosted the development of the Faubourg Saint-Germain neighborhood. The Faubourg Saint-Germain and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, by the Tuileries, became fashionable aristocratic residential areas in the 18th century.

The expansion of the city continued during the reign of Louis XV (1715-1774). On the Right Bank, he built Place Louis XV (now Place de la Concorde) and extended the Champs-Élysées. On the Left Bank, the École Militaire and its training grounds, the Champ de Mars, were constructed. Louis XV also constructed the Panthéon and laid out the semicircular Boulevards du Midi on the Left Bank to mirror the Right Bank’s Grands Boulevards.

During the reign of Louis XVI (1774-1792), a new wall marked the boundaries of the growing city. The wall was built between 1784 and 1787, in order to ease the collection of taxes on goods imported into the city.

C

2

Revolutionary Paris

Most of the events of the French Revolution, in which the French monarchy was overthrown in favor of a French republic, took place in Paris, and the event catapulted Paris into the modern age. The revolution officially began with the storming of the Bastille fortress on July 14, 1789. Louis XVI and his queen, Marie-Antoinette, were guillotined at Place de la Révolution (now Place de la Concorde) on January 21 and October 23, 1793, respectively.

A representative assembly known as the National Convention met in the Palace of the Tuileries from 1792 to 1795 to work on building a French republic. Early on the convention’s agenda was the need to rebuild decrepit neighborhoods of Paris and to improve the city’s infrastructure and public sanitation. However, it would be decades before the modernization of Paris was accomplished. The demolition of the medieval Bastille fortress was a first step in this direction, and supplied the stones for the building of the Pont de la Concorde. In 1795 the city was divided into arrondissements. Otherwise, much of Paris was in shambles, its mansions having been deserted by the nobility, its churches confiscated by the state, and its streets delivered to the lower classes.

D

19th-Century Reconstruction and Growth

Reconstruction and modernization of Paris began under Napoleon I, the French military commander who seized power in 1799 and declared himself emperor in 1804. Napoleon envisioned the city as the glorious capital of his expanding empire. Many of his projects were completed after his downfall in 1814-1815.

D

1

Napoleon’s Paris

Napoleon rid the city of two of its medieval landmarks: the Grand Châtelet prison, which was replaced by a square and a fountain, and the prison tower of the Templar stronghold in the Marais, where the royal family had been imprisoned during the Revolution. The city’s new monuments were built in the neoclassical style, echoing the edifices of the Roman Empire. Notable examples of these monuments include the Arc de Triomphe, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (at the entrance to the Palace of the Tuileries), the Madeleine church, the Bourse (stock exchange), and the new north facade of the Palais Bourbon (now the seat of the National Assembly).

Napoleon enlarged the square of Notre Dame for his coronation in 1804 and also opened several broad avenues, such as Rue de Rivoli, Boulevard Malesherbes, and Avenue de l’Observatoire. The new Canal de l’Ourcq, later to be followed by Canal Saint-Martin, increased water supply to Paris, where shortage had always been endemic, and also allowed the creation of several new fountains. New cemeteries away from the city center, including Père Lachaise, Montparnasse, and Montmartre, improved sanitation in the inner city. Napoleon also built three new bridges (including the Pont des Arts), paved the riverbanks, lit many streets with gaslights, built new markets, and numbered houses.

D

2

Restoration

Paris’s population grew by about 120,000 inhabitants during Napoleon’s rule, and it grew by just as many during the Restoration, the subsequent return to power of the Bourbon dynasty with the accession of Louis XVIII (1814-1815; 1815-1824). The population growth led to the expansion of the city and the construction of several new neighborhoods. The fashionable arcades of central Paris were also built in this period. However, the growth also led to further poverty, squalor, and social discontent, and street riots became common. In July 1830 a crackdown on civil rights sparked the July Revolution in the streets of Paris, in which Charles X was overthrown in favor of Louis Philippe of the house of Orléans.

Louis Philippe’s reign, known as the July Monarchy, was marked by intensive industrialization in Paris and the spectacular increase of the population to over 1 million. Most Parisians lived in appalling conditions and were subjected to recurring, deadly cholera epidemics. Intending to improve the quality of life in Paris, Count Rambuteau, the prefect of the Seine, laid out more than 100 new streets and improved and embellished existing squares. The erection of the Luxor Obelisk at the Place de la Concorde and the completion of the Arc de Triomphe date from Louis Philippe’s reign. The first railroad tracks were installed in 1837, and starting in 1841 a new fortification wall was built around the inner suburbs.

As with Charles X, the combination of extreme poverty and repression of freedom of expression brought about the downfall of the July Monarchy. The Revolution of 1848 overthrew Louis Philippe and established the Second Republic. The Second Republic became the Second Empire in 1852, when the elected president, Louis Napoleon (nephew to Napoleon I), declared himself Emperor Napoleon III.

	More from Encarta
	•  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain