Population change
Revolution
By 1328, the population had grown to 200,000, which made it the most populous city in Europe at the time. With the increase of population came problems.
Of course, the most famous event in the history of the city took place in 1789 and is remembered across France every year on the 14th of July.
In the first epidemic of Bubonic plague in 1348, it is estimated that between fifty and eighty thousand Parisians died (one third of the population). During the 16th and 17th centuries, plague visited the city almost one year out of three, killing many thousand more. One of the bells of Notre-Dame, the knell, rang for every death signalled, creating a very morbid atmosphere in the city. The Hundred Years’ War between France and England made Paris the scene of unrest with many riots and skirmishes in the city and surrounding areas. Paris was occupied by the Englandfriendly Burgundian forces from 1418, before being occupied outright by the English when Henry V of England entered the French capital in 1420. The King and his administration were accepted mostly because of the Parisians hatred of the French King Charles VI. The French king’s supporters, aided by Joan of Arc, tried to liberate the city by storming the Porte SaintHonoré gateway (the main entry point into the city from the west) but the attack failed and the French suffered extremely heavy casualties. The English did not leave Paris until 1436, when Charles VII was finally able to return. Many areas of the capital of his kingdom were in ruins, and a hundred thousand of its inhabitants, half the population, had left the city. Though Paris was once again the capital of France, French monarchs for almost one hundred years chose to live in the Loire Valley and visited Paris only on special occasions. King Francis I finally returned the royal residence to Paris in 1528. The capital was prominent once again in the French Wars of Religion (1562-98) between Catholics and Protestants when a third of Parisians fled and many houses were destroyed. On the night of 23rd August 1572, many prominent Protestants from all over France were in Paris on the occasion of the marriage of Henry of Navarre—the future King Henry IV. The royal council decided to assassinate the Protestant leaders. The targeted killings quickly turned into a general slaughter of Protestants by Catholic mobs. It became known as The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the killings continued through August and September, spreading from Paris to the rest of the country. About three thousand Protestants were massacred in Paris and five to ten thousand elsewhere in France. In the 18th century, Paris solidified its position as the financial and cultural capital of continental Europe, the primary European centre of book publishing, fashion, and the manufacture of fine furniture and luxury goods. Parisian bankers funded theatres, gardens, works of art and new inventions such as the Montgolfier brothers who launched the first manned flight in a hot-air balloon on 21st November 1783, near the Bois de Boulogne.
46 | The Deux-Sèvres Monthly, July 2021
Paris in the first half of the 18th century was not a pleasant place to live if you were not rich. Jean-Jacques Rousseau describes his arrival in Paris in 1742: “I saw only narrow, dirty and foulsmelling streets, and villainous black houses, with an air of unhealthiness; beggars, poverty, menders of old garments…”. During these times there was widespread discontent among the population, the French monarchy and the poor economic policies of King Louis XVI being the focus of their anger. France’s costly involvement in the American Revolution, and extravagant spending by the King and his predecessor, had left the country on the brink of bankruptcy. Not only were the royal coffers depleted, but two decades of poor harvests, drought, cattle disease and skyrocketing bread prices had kindled unrest among peasants and the urban poor.
These desperate people expressed their resentment towards a regime that imposed heavy taxes (yet failed to provide any relief) by rioting, looting and striking. Things came to a head in July 1789 when Parisians, enthusiastic about the potential breakdown of royal power but panicked by rumours of an impending military coup finally acted. On 14th July, a mob seized the arsenal at Les Invalides, acquired thousands of guns and stormed the Bastille, a prison considered a symbol of royal authority. At that time the prison held only seven prisoners. Almost 100 revolutionaries were killed in the fighting. Despite this, the revolutionaries prevailed and the governor of the Bastille was killed, his head put on the end of a pike and carried around Paris. The fortress itself was completely demolished by that November with many of the stones being turned into souvenirs. King Louis XVI met his death by guillotine in 1793 along with his wife Marie Antoinette.
Latter years In the late 19th and early 20th century, Paris saw the birth of modern art and public cinema projections. Many notable artists lived and worked in Paris during this period, known as La Belle Époque, often in Montmartre where rents were low and the atmosphere congenial. The outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 saw patriotic demonstrations at the Place de la Concorde and the Gare de l’Est and Gare du Nord as the mobilized soldiers departed for