Nestled in the arms of the Seine,
Paris took off in the early 2nd century.
This modest-sized town, then administrative center, became a capital
thanks to its river trade and monarchs' ambitious dreams.
After surviving barbarian invasions,
Clovis's capital became the financial, political
and administrative seat of the kingdom
under the impetus of a new dynasty: the Capetians.
In the 12th century, from the reign of Philip Augustus,
the Kings of France put Paris on the map.
Reorganized and embellished according to the monarchs' wishes,
the city's face changes.
Paris was about to become one of Europe's most prestigious capitals.
Paris A capital tale
Paris Capital of Kings
Philip Augustus was definitely the first king to make Paris a capital.
We know very little about Clovis,
but Philip Augustus was definitely the first to have this vision.
When Philip Augustus came to the throne in 1180,
Paris had a population of about 25,000.
It was a city with a varied landscape,
built-up in the center,
on the He de la Cité, but the left bank was still largely rural
and had many fields, known as clos.
It grew more rapidly on the right bank,
which became the economic heart of the capital.
Medieval Paris was an insalubrious city.
Bad sanitation meant epidemics were common.
And the mud-filled streets stank.
It's said that Philip Augustus complained about the foul stench
from the window of his palace
on lie de la Cité.
Imagine the city's streets full of cattle, pigs, dogs and so on.
It was like an open sewer!
Paris was a dump.
But the coffers were not full enough for Phillip Augustus to realize his dreams.
Who would pay for his ambitious project?
We won't find financing for Paris amongst these beggars.
I have a nice suckling pig for you, my Lord.
Pig? What tax did you pay to bring it into Paris?
A sufficient and suitable tax indeed, my Lord.
You... All of you!
You'll open your purses
and clean up my capital.
Firstly, Philip Augustus dealt with the Cemetery des Innocents:
a communal grave where pigs dug up corpses to feed.
The king had a wall built around what was Paris's largest cemetery
until the 18th century:
the Cemetery des Innocents.
Before Philip Augustus sealed it off,
the cemetery was an open space surrounded by stalls and shops.
Children played here, washerwomen hung up their laundry.
Death mingled with the hustle and bustle of the street.
The communal graves spilled over and contaminated the neighborhood,
despite the fountain in its center.
Place des Innocents was built on top of one of Paris's oldest cemeteries.
In the Middle Ages,
all equal before their inevitable fate, living and dead came together
in the energetic and ever faster Dance of Death.
Violence ruled in the neighborhood's disreputable streets.
The Rue de la Grande Truanderie was a den of thieves and murderers.
Violence was rife
because the city, like all large cities in the Middle Ages,
drew those interested in its wealth.
The crime figures were pretty alarming.
At the end of each night, a dozen or so bodies
would be collected and displayed in the morgue near Chételet.
In the threatening shadow of the Grand Chatelet fortress,
the right bank developed rapidly.
Place de Gréve, now the Place de I'Hotel de Ville,
was the city's trading heart.
Among the stalls and booths of the goldsmiths,
apothecaries or simple tradesmen,
goods were not safe from thieves and beggars.
In the area known as Champeaux,
Philip Augustus had two large indoor markets built
for the drapers and weavers.
The king organized and regulated trade in order to control it.
The first rules and regulations appeared,
unifying and codifying the practices of over one hundred trades.
The importance of these guilds changed with the period.
In Philip Augustus's day,
the butchers' guild was very well known.
The butchers were located near Chételet.
They had their church: St-Jacques de la Boucherie, St James of the Butchery.
The new merchant class was concentrated
around the parish of St-Jacques.
Construction began on the church in Philip Augustus's reign
but it was not completed until the 15th century.
At the time, the butchers' guild was extremely powerful.
It even made the king tremble
during a popular revolt led by one of its number,
Simon Le Coustelier, known as Caboche.
All that remains of the church is the bell tower, the Tour St-Jacques,
standing imposingly in the middle of the square.
To aid the city's growth,
the mercantile class put their wealth at Phillip Augustus's disposal.
And Paris emerged from the shadows.
Lord Thibault,
you're now in control of the provosts and the bailiffs of Paris.
You'll see that the bourgeois pay while I am at the crusades.
He organized the kingdom's finances in such a way
that his bailiffs could go and collect taxes owed in the provinces
and bring them back to Paris.
And the Cour des Comptes, or Court of Accounts,
which had already grown under Philip Augustus's predecessors,
really established itself under his rule.
The total Parisian accounts for 1202 and 1203
brought in 197,000 pounds.
against 96,000 pounds of expense
leaving 100,000 pounds profit.
Lord Thibault, our coffers are full.
Pave the rues St-Denis, St-Antoine and St-Jacques.
With what's left,
you will build the Louvre fortress and complete the ramparts
that protect my city.
So he concentrated financial
and administrative power around the Palais de la Cité,
which is where all the money collected in the kingdom arrived.
Under Philip Augustus,
legal and financial institutions were centralized in Paris.
All that remains of the Palais de la Cité today are the towers,
the Conciergerie and the Cour de Mai.
The courtyard is now the main entrance of the Palais de Justice, or law courts.
This historic site is still the seat of judicial power.
Paris symbolized the power of the monarchic state.
That is why everything had to be protected at all costs.
The right bank was protected because Philip Augustus
was the first to realize
- maybe his predecessors had been aware but they did not have the means he had -
that trade had to be protected at all costs
as this is what kept the city alive.
Paris was at the mercy of outside attacks.
To ensure the safety of his capital,
Philip Augustus had a 5-kilometer-long wall built.
It's most impressive portion is still visible
in the Rue des Jardins St-Paul, in the Marais.
With its battlements, fortified gates and round towers,
the city now resembled a citadel.
The massive wall around it
increased the prestige of the capital, which was on its way
to becoming the most important city in the western world.
Scattered around Paris,
the remains of these ramparts can still be seen today.
By the western entrance to city, close to the Seine,
an imposing fortress was erected:
the Louvre.
Built at the end of the 12th century,
the Louvre fortress marked the western limits
of the city of Paris.
It was meant to defend the city from attacks from the west,
in other words from Normandy, then in the hands
of the King of England, Richard the Lionheart.
The castle's purpose was above all military and strategic.
With its two gates, of which the main one opened onto the Seine,
framed by imposing twin towers,
the Louvre seemed impenetrable.
This formidable and austere fortress
watched over a city with a singular urban landscape.
The streets were very narrow, the houses taller than we imagine,
and the bridges were covered with houses,
so Parisians only very rarely had an overall view of their city.
They knew their own street, they knew what lay around their street.
They could see a patch
of sky but they were basically confined.
In 1163, on the He de la Cité
a new building would cause the Parisians to look up.
Maurice de Sully,
Bishop of Paris, planned a sumptuous structure of massive proportions:
Notre Dame Cathedral.
It was built on the ruins of an old Carolingian basilica.
The Romanesque church
was used as a place of worship during part of its construction.
It was the largest church in Paris and still is.
Its construction
impressed people at the time. Chroniclers said:
"Notre Dame will be the largest building ever erected north of the Alps
"since the end of the Roman Empire."
It took nearly two centuries to complete.
Parisians looked on astounded.
Foremen and journeymen worked round-the-clock shifts,
to offer the Virgin Mary the largest building
ever built.
Each period offered Notre Dame its finest work.
The cathedral witnessed the birth and perfection of Gothic art.
Never before had a building aroused so much passion.
Technical feats followed breathtaking challenges.
Notre Dame gradually became an ethereal masterpiece,
its arms stretched skyward.
Opposite the Cathedral's main entrance, the Rue Neuve-Notre-Dame was laid out.
At 6 to 7 meters wide, it was a boulevard for the time.
All that remains on the square of the original road, houses and churches
are these marks on the ground.
This square has become a meeting place
for Parisians and tourists from all over the world.
On the tympanum of the new cathedral, the king and the bishop are depicted
kneeling before Christ, who is watching over the city.
Politics and religion defend the values of Christendom together.
Another power, also engaged in crusades in the Holy Land,
established its quarters in the north of the city.
The Knights Templar, founded early in the 12th century,
was obviously connected with the crusades.
They were so named because their original HQ in Jerusalem
stood on the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon.
Under the Pope, the Templars enjoyed complete autonomy.
This new militia of Christ accompanied the king on crusades.
The order of the Templars was a military order.
It built a genuine fortress within Paris: the Temple.
Unfortunately nothing remains of it today
but the area where it once stood is still named after it.
They also acted as bankers.
And in Paris, it was common knowledge that the King of France
deposited his treasury
- or a large part of it - in the Temple.
Inside the enclosure, protected by a fortified wall,
an imposing keep made the building look menacing.
The Temple was a state within a state in the heart of Paris:
a capital that would soon have a new lease of life.
Louis IX, or St Louis,
was a mystical king regarded by his subjects as a miracle-maker.
He would be canonized
by the Roman Catholic Church less than 30 years after his death.
He wanted to make Paris the capital of western Christendom.
It was a very powerful, rich and militarily important kingdom.
Philip Augustus had extended the royal domain
but the Capetian dynasty needed
to be more secure, as it was still under threat.
To achieve this, Louis IX used the emblematic figure
of St-Denis and his burial site.
The power of the Capetians
was felt in 3 places:
Paris, where the king usually lived, even if he traveled a lot,
Rheims, where the king
was consecrated and crowned, and St-Denis, where monarchs were buried
and where the abbots organized, established
and developed the dynastic memory,
which would become a kind of
national collective memory.
Thanks to Louis IX, the Basilica of St-Denis acquired a privileged status.
Louis IX made the necropolis official.
Sixteen kings and queens had been buried in St-Denis before him,
but there were no representations of these monarchs.
He had the bones monarchs who had been buried here found and put into caskets
and commissioned 16 recumbent statues to go atop the caskets.
The idea was
to display the Merovingians, Carolingians and Capetians
and show the unity of the Frankish kings.
Louis IX succeeded in legitimating the monarchy
as if it descended from the same line.
This was a genuine feat as Clovis, Dagobert
and many other monarchs were from different families.
In the 1240s, Paris's sphere of influence had never been greater.
At that time, Paris was very definitely
the capital of the kingdom of France.
It was a busy, densely populated city.
There were about 200,000 inhabitants, which is a huge amount.
Population wise it was one of the largest cities in Europe.
It was a political and administrative capital,
which had been firmly established by Louis lX's grandfather, Philip Augustus.
But it was also a vibrant intellectual capital,
thanks to the foundation of the Sorbonne
and the booming colleges where the mendicant orders taught.
The students gradually deserted
the cloister of Notre Dame for the left bank, far from the city center.
Initially, it was based on the lie de la Cité.
But the students weren't rich, nor were the professors,
and they found out that rent was much cheaper on the left bank.
On the slopes of Mount St-Genevieve,
increasing numbers of students listened to their masters.
Seated on their perches, they taught theology, the arts,
literature and philosophy.
Faculties and colleges sprung up, modeled on the most famous of them all,
founded by Robert de Sorbon,
Louis lX's confessor.
The Sorbonne welcomed
all sorts of students, both rich and poor,
united in their thirst for knowledge.
The university earned a prestigious reputation thanks to its libraries
and professors.
It attracted a lot of students
not only from France but also from abroad.
So France's prestige was quite considerable.
We tend to think that people stayed close to home in the Middle Ages,
but that wasn't the case at all.
Intellectuals traveled a lot, on foot or by mule.
It obviously took a long time.
But people would go from Paris to Warsaw,
from Warsaw to Rome, from Rome to Madrid...
As the professors constituted a sort of intellectual elite within Christendom,
the king was obviously very keen to keep near him in his capital, Paris,
this intellectual force which would,
in a manner of speaking,
train the elites of Europe from the 13th century onwards.
The university turned Paris into an intellectual capital
comparable to ancient Athens.
On the He de la Cité, thousands of pilgrims
from the remotest parts of France and Europe flocked to Notre Dame.
They came here to pray and admire this cathedral
whose soaring spires seemed to defy logic.
It's very clear
that the lie de la Cité was the jewel.
It was the centre of Paris. It was the first thing people saw.
This cathedral dominated the skyline.
For a very long time, it would dominate the lie de la Cité.
Since the time of Denis and Genevieve, patron saints of the city,
Paris had molded itself to Christianity.
Faithful to this tradition, Louis IX attempted a political move
that would establish the capital's religious influence for good.
The Emperor of Jerusalem, Balduino II de Courtenay,
Baldwin ll of Courtenay, was in dire financial straits
and he needed to finance his military campaigns.
So he pawned one of his greatest treasures, Christ's Crown of Thorns,
to the Republic of Venice.
When he went to see the King of France to offer it to him
- this was in 1239 -
Louis IX immediately understood the political and religious importance
that the kingdom of France would have were it to acquire this famous relic.
By acquiring the Crown of Thorns, Louis IX displayed
his devotion to Christ.
In 1239, on the occasion of a magnificent procession
to Notre Dame Cathedral,
the king donated this instrument of the Passion to the capital.
It is supposed to have been worn by Christ at the time of his crucifixion.
But Louis IX had other ambitions.
He wanted to build a reliquary worthy of housing the Crown of Thorns.
This building would rival the splendor of Notre Dame.
Inspired by the Christian emperors of the Orient,
Louis IX built an extravagant reliquary of stone and stained glass:
the Ste-Chapelle.
This chapel resembles a giant reliquary.
The upper chapel, where we are now,
is a glorification of the remarkable treasure that the relics were.
It took only 7 years
to complete this masterpiece of Flamboyant Gothic architecture.
Way ahead of its time, the Ste-Chapelle would influence architecture
for centuries to come.
When visitors enter the Ste-Chapelle, they gasp and say, "Wow!"
And that's how the message should be understood.
This is no ordinary place. You have entered the world
of God. You are in a kind of mystical dialogue with God.
You are somewhere else.
With its many stained-glass windows forming walls of light,
the Ste-Chapelle even seems to defy the laws of physics.
On each window,
the king reminds us he is the worldly and spiritual chief of his people.
Now a holy city,
Paris could hold its own against the City of the Popes in Avignon.
In 1248
Louis IX placed the Crown of Thorns,
a nail and a piece of the Cross
in the Ste-Chapelle.
The acquisition of the Crown of Thorns
caused the papal legate to say, when he came to consecrate
the Ste-Chapelle upon its completion in 1248,
that the King of France was now the equal
of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Apart from the pious aspect of Louis IX this was a political move on his part.
The Crown of Thorns
would guarantee France divine protection.
In this era, the owner of a relic acquired immense power.
Louis IX made Paris one of Europe's most important capitals.
In 1356,
the Parisian bourgeoisie was commanded to pay the ransom of John the Good,
who had been captured by the English.
But they were increasingly hostile to royal authority.
With the growth of Paris's economic power,
the bourgeoisie, particularly the haute bourgeoisie,
who had profited most from this economic growth,
were intent on displaying their power
and defending their own interests.
The son of a wealthy family of Parisian drapers
and provost of the merchants of Paris, Etienne Marcel led the Paris Uprising.
Etienne Marcel was responsible for setting up
what would later become the Paris City Council,
the HQ of the trade and financial authorities of Paris,
on the Place de Gréve, now the Place de I'Hotel de Ville,
in the Pillar House,
a pre-existing house with an arched gallery.
From the window of the Pillar House,
Etienne Marcel urged the people to revolt.
He encouraged the rioters to eliminate the kingdom's traitors.
Etienne Marcel marched with the people of Paris
to the king's palace,
where he had the Marshals of Champagne and of Normandy assassinated,
and took over the building.
Master of Paris,
Etienne Marcel saved the young Dauphin just in time
and placed his bonnet on his head.
It's possible that Etienne Marcel was rather overwhelmed
by the rioting crowds, who could have destroyed everything in their path.
So he did the right thing in trying to protect the Dauphin
by placing his own red and blue bonnet,
the colors of Paris, on the Dauphin's head.
Obviously this was an affront in the Regent's eyes.
He, the future King of France, was in the hands
of one of the representatives of the Parisian bourgeoisie.
The city briefly got the upper hand over the monarchy
at the time of Etienne Marcel's uprising.
But the municipal government really established itself
when the Dauphin left the city.
Accused of wanting to hand over the city to the English,
Etienne Marcel lost the support of the people.
He was assassinated in July 1358 at the Ports Saint Antoine.
Today, Paris City Hall stands
on the site of the Place de Gréve and the House of Pillars.
Etienne Marcel is regarded as the first mayor of Paris.
From then on, the monarchy would be wary of Paris,
a far too rebellious capital.
In Charles the V's reign, a new wall was built on the right bank.
It encircled a much larger area than Philip Augustus's previous wall.
This was between 1360 and 1380. And with this new wall,
the Louvre lost its defensive role as it was now inside the city.
The Louvre became a royal residence.
Charles V's wall extended the borders of a city that kept on growing.
Parisians were now protected by a wall twice as long as Philip Augustus's.
Various gates afforded access to the city: St-Marcel, St-Jacques,
and St-Germain on the left bank,
and St-Honoré, St-Martin and St-Antoine on the right bank.
At the time, there was a strategic gateway
on the eastern edge of Paris - the Porte St-Antoine -
which was simply a fortified gate with two towers.
During its construction,
the king decided to turn this gate into a fortress
- the Bastille - that could house a garrison.
The Bastille was built, above all,
just as the Louvre had been a century earlier,
as a means of defense against invaders from the east.
The Bastille
sprang up at Porte St-Antoine,
close to the district of St-Paul where the king and his court
occasionally resided.
During a popular revolt, a mob tried to storm the Bastille.
Charles V became increasingly wary of the Parisians.
From then on, the fortress was for the king's exclusive use
so that he could flee the capital in the event of danger.
Through the Bastille, Charles V
could leave Paris safely
and go to the other main residence that he'd had built in Vincennes.
The castle there could withstand an attack by an angry mob
and even by an enemy army.
Vincennes was originally a manor where the king would come
to escape the city and hunt in the nearby forest.
In Charles V's reign, with its monumental keep
and wider wall, Vincennes began to resemble a fortified town.
Charles V definitely boosted
Vincennes's prestige.
He turned it into a royal residence.
The king's health was fragile
so the air of Vincennes was good for him.
Also, he didn't feel safe at the Louvre
and wanted to have this keep built
so he could live there and protect himself.
Charles V also had a second wall built all around the castle.
Over one kilometer in length,
it had nine towers.
The king's ambition knew no bounds.
He then continued his work as the "builder king"
by erecting the wall around the keep
and founding the Ste-Chapelle.
To emphasize the continuity of the Capetian dynasty,
the Ste-Chapelle in Vincennes
was modeled on the chapel in the royal palace on the He de la Cite.
Despite these remarkable changes, the Middle Ages
left Paris in tatters.
The capital without a king slid into anarchy.
The Armagnacs and Burgundians tore each apart.
Paris was occupied by the English for over 15 years.
In 1429,
the burghers refused the help of a young woman called Joan of Arc.
They drove her out of the city.
Shaken to its foundations yet again,
the capital had to reinvent itself
and engineer its renaissance.
Francis I's accession in 1515
did not mark a turning point for Paris.
Not till a few years later did Francis I live in Paris
and really make the city the showcase of his power.
The accession of Francis I, Prince of the Renaissance,
enabled the monarchy to regain control of the rebel capital.
The House of Pillars,
seat of the municipal council since the days of Etienne Marcel,
was too run-down for such a prestigious city.
The monumental city hall commissioned by Francis I
symbolized the king's authority over the capital.
This majestic edifice was the city's first Renaissance-style building.
The king decided to live in the capital but it lacked
a modern palace worthy of a monarch.
When Francis I came to power in 1515
the Louvre was still an old mediaeval castle,
a fortress, totally unsuitable for courtly life of the time.
And so, between 1520 and 1530, he transformed the castle.
The huge keep in the courtyard was demolished
and work began on the conversion.
The windows were enlarged, the royal apartments decorated...
Paris became the centre of royal power.
A luxury sector emerged to satisfy the needs of a court
in pursuit of elegance.
Princes from all over Europe came to Paris to acquire haute couture clothes,
silverware and goldware.
Paris gained its reputation as the capital of luxury
between the end of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.
One it has preserved over the centuries.
The court was very elegant and needed to show how elegant it was.
And so Paris gradually became a Mecca for cabinetwork,
interior decoration, for couture clothes too.
Unfortunately time has taken its toll
and few traces of all this exist today.
The city enjoyed a newfound prosperity after 100 years of war.
Every year, at the St-Germain Fair, traders from all over Europe
flooded the capital with their goods and creations.
In the 16th century
the city's population swelled.
People came from the countryside, from neighboring towns,
from the north of France, but also from abroad.
Traders came from far away,
jewelers, gold and silversmiths,
printers from Germany, as well as professors and students
who attended the colleges on the left bank, the University of Paris.
Paris was an open city and the population was mobile.
Since the printing of the first bible
by Gutenberg in 1455,
parchment makers, transcribers, writers and illuminators
had contributed to the prestige of Paris's bookshops on the left bank
and the He de la Cité.
Printing was fundamental
to cultural activity in Paris from the 1470s
when the first presses were set up at the Sorbonne.
Printing was a way of spreading ideas, of making authors known.
Classical authors were printed, to the delight of cultured circles
as well authors who discussed new ideas.
Among these new ideas,
Martin Luther's Protestantism spread quickly in Paris.
Thousands of Protestants gathered to sing hymns at the Pré-aux-Clercs
and in the Faubourg St-Germain.
These meetings were the scenes of violent confrontations.
The Protestants' prayers aroused the Catholics' hatred.
The authorities,
particularly the monarchy, tried to ban these meetings.
From the 1520s, there were executions
on the Place de Greve and on the Place Maubert on the left bank.
The executions displayed the renewed power
of the monarchy and a reunited Church.
These executions did not have
the hoped-for effect as they gave rise to vocations.
Spectators were often moved by the truth of the Reformist message
as they witnessed the steadfastness and heroism of people
who died for their ideas and their faith in God.
The repression of the Protestants had failed.
The authorities adopted a new strategy.
From the Louvre Palace, Catherine de' Medici
tried to reconcile Catholics and Protestants.
In August 1572, she married her daughter, Queen Margot,
to a Protestant prince, the future Henry IV of France.
But on 22 August
Admiral de Coligny, who was close to the Queen Mother
and a recent convert to Protestantism
was injured in an assassination attempt.
This scuttled the queen's peace efforts.
One has to imagine the panic of the French court on 22 August 1572
when tens or rather hundreds of armed Protestants,
in Paris to attend the wedding of their leader,
the young King of Navarre,
demanded justice.
In response, the Queen Mother
managed to convince her son, Charles IX,
to organize a plot against the Protestant leaders.
The queen knew the people were on her side.
It was to be a surprise attack. And the Parisians acted fast.
On 24 August 1572 at around 3am,
the bells of the Church of St-Germain I'Auxerrois gave the signal.
Madness seized the city.
The Louvre was the scene of terrible slaughter.
In the palace corridors, in the apartments and streets,
the elite of the Protestant nobility and the Calvinist petty-bourgeoisie
were eliminated.
The Parisians settled their scores ruthlessly.
You have to imagine the Parisian militia taking up arms.
This militia was made up of tens of thousands of men,
members of the bourgeoisie who had weapons, swords, arquebuses,
who took to the streets, who had been organized
since the beginning of the Wars of Religion,
and who hunted down Protestants
all over the city.
Men and women were killed, old people, children...
The Seine turned red and blood ran in the streets.
Admiral de Coligny was assassinated, then flung from a window.
His decapitated body was exposed to public condemnation.
By daybreak, nothing could stop the massacre.
Everyone attacked the heretics.
Members of Parliaments had their throats slit.
In the Latin Quarter,
professors, students, booksellers and printers were slaughtered.
Men, women and children were hunted down all over the capital.
Strung up by the feet,
Admiral de Coligny's body was displayed for several days
on the gallows of Montfaucon.
When the rioting subsided,
the death toll was put at five to ten thousand.
The St Bartholomew Day's Massacre
checked the expansion of Protestantism in France.
All that Paris desired was to rise from the ashes.
Impoverished and starving after a long siege,
Paris surrendered to Henry IV without a fight.
The city had bread, peace and a king again.
The recently converted king is supposed to have said, "Paris is worth a mass."
Henry lV's arrival in Paris in March 1594
was a key moment in the capital's history,
an event whose anniversary had to be celebrated
as it was the moment
of reconciliation between the king and the city.
The capital surrendered and gave the king a jubilant welcome.
He went to Notre Dame Cathedral to thank God for this victory
and in the streets and from their windows,
the people witnessed the long-awaited arrival of this king
who was finally going to restore peace and order
after years of civil war.
After several decades of troubles, a new capital emerged.
Its monumental architecture
celebrated the victories and grandeur of the first Bourbon kings.
To emphasize their absolute authority, the city would have to be magnificent.
For this reason, the Bourbons
built a lot of palaces and public buildings in Paris.
They wanted to make another Rome.
I.e. they wanted to copy the Rome
of the Popes, the Renaissance and the Baroque period,
as well as that of the Roman emperors.
With Henry lV's building works, Paris's center shifted to the west.
At the Louvre,
now the king's residence,
Henry the IV commissioned the Great Gallery,
a gigantic wing overlooking the Seine.
This Great Gallery
was the start of what would later be called the Grand Design,
that's to say the project to connect the Louvre
to the Tuileries Palace and make it one of the greatest palaces in the world.
The Grand Design also included the redevelopment of the Cour Carré.
Henry lV's building projects
had a mixed impact.
Most appreciated by the Parisians and foreign visitors alike
was the Pont Neuf.
The small paintings for foreigners,
which were mass produced and are the equivalent of today's postcards,
always showed view of the Seine with the Louvre and the Pont Neuf.
With its wide pavements and no houses,
the Pont Neuf was the capital's first modern bridge.
With semicircular shafts on its piers, it was quickly invaded by tumblers,
street peddlers and second-hand booksellers.
It became one of the Parisians' favorite places to stroll.
At the foot of the bridge, the Square du Vert-Galant
- the Green Gallant, Henry lV's nickname -
was a hotbed of debauchery in the capital's heart.
Paris cemented its nefarious reputation. This was a city where anything went
At the western end of the Pont Neuf, Henry IV
completed construction of the Samaritaine pumping station.
It no longer exists but for 200 years
it supplied water to the city's central districts.
Much loved by the Parisians, Henry IV
on the Place Dauphine to give the city's inhabitants more air.
His son, Louis XIII, copied this residential and provincial model
to complete a new royal square in the east of Paris.
This square would later be called the Place des Vosges.
The Place Royale only had a limited impact:
a covered promenade for the well-to-do of the Marais,
the city's most fashionable district.
But apart from a few privileged spots,
Paris was a densely populated city where crime ruled.
Paris was still a medieval city with narrow streets,
which was the case of the Rue de la Ferronnerie
where Henry IV was assassinated by Ravaillac
when his coach's progress was stopped by traffic congestion.
Now a pedestrian street, the Rue de la Ferronnerie
is near Place des Innocents in the Les Halles district.
Louis XII showed little interest in the capital but his principal minister,
Cardinal Richelieu, had a palace with sumptuous gardens built here.
The Palais Cardinal
became the Palais Royal, or royal palace,
when the young Louis XIV moved there in 1648.
That year, Parisians were exasperated by epidemics, food shortages
and heavy taxes to finance an interminable war against Spain.
Yet again they rose up against royal absolutism.
This was the Fronde.
The Fronde was a revolt of the local government, in Paris,
against the monarchy:
a struggle which, just as in the time of Etienne Marcel,
relied on the people's support.
Among other things, they were made to march on the Palais Royal
where Anne of Austria and the young Louis XIV were living at the time.
The opposition was parliamentary, aristocratic
and popular.
Barricades were erected on the He de la Cite
and in the districts of Les Halles and Faubourg St-Germain.
The Porte St-Antoine was the scene of fierce fighting.
In a weak position, the Queen Regent
had to show the young Dauphin at the palace window
every evening to calm the passions of the Parisians.
The royal family soon fled the capital for the Chéteau of St-Germain-en-Laye.
Paris had lost its king again.
It was said afterwards
that he hated Paris, but that isn't exactly the case.
If he had hated Paris, the city would certainly not be the jewel
that it is today with all these fine Louis XIV buildings.
The fact is, he was wary
of Paris and believed he would be safer at Versailles.
Although the young king made a triumphant return to Paris in 1652,
the court lived at Versailles,
where a magnificent building campaign was inaugurated.
In 1671,
Louis XIV spent his last night at the Tuileries.
From then on, he only ever passed through Paris.
This parting of ways was not a sign of a lack of interest.
Quite the reverse.
Louis XIV still wanted to create a new Rome
and a capital that had to outshine all the other major European cities.
The capital provides me with constant inspiration to raise new monuments.
I see creation of a brand new Rome.
Monsieur Colbert,
it is recently made known to me that my wars have left many men crippled.
Air! Air! Open wide carriageways to the north.
Paris needs room to breathe.
Monsieur Louvois, in place of the Hétel Vendéme,
I wish to create a vast square.
We'll call it something tasteful: Place Louis-le-Grand.
Monsieur Desjardins, you will sculpt me with the defeated nations at my feet.
Erect the statue in the center of the Place des Victoires.
I am told that many veterans of the 30-years-war have become crippled.
For these invalids
we shall build a Hétel des lnvalides on Place de Grenelle.
Admired for its artists, who triumphed at the Académie Frangaise,
envied for its tree-lined walkways and adorned with triumphal arches,
the Paris of Louis XIV was worthy of the Sun King's reign.
There were also the royal squares such as the Place des Victories,
a circular square inaugurated in 1686
and designed by Jules-Hardouin Mansart.
And then, between 1685 and 1691,
the Place des Conquétes was built.
The Place des Conquétes took the name Place Louis le Grand
before becoming the Place Vendéme.
Louis XIV shaped the city in his image.
The great monuments built by Louis XIV in Paris
were actually often his ministers' monuments.
The royal squares were Louvois's idea,
the triumphal arches were Colbert's.
The only monument in Paris that's really Louis XIV's
is the Hotel Royal des Invalides.
Louis XIV only visited his capital
about 20 times during his 60-year-reign.
But on each occasion he would check on the progress
of the lnvalides' construction.
In undertaking this vast project on the Grenelle plain,
he hoped to boost the image of his army
and his own in the eyes of his troops.
The 100-meter-high dome
of the royal chapel dominated the capital's skyline.
The Sun King's dreams of grandeur knew no bounds.
The prestige of the City of Light
would soon be destroyed by the wrath of Parisians,
muttering angrily in the shadows about absolutism.
Subtitles - Vdm