PARIS (the ancient Luktia Parisioruin), the metropolis of France, is situated in 48' 50' n. lat., and 2° 20' e. long., on the Seine, about 110 m. from its mouth. The population of the city was, in 1869, 1,875,000; in 1872, 1,799,250; and at the end of 1876, 1,088,806. Its circumference is upwards of 23 miles. It lies in a hollow, about 200 ft. above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by low hills, which in their highest ranges to the 11, only attain an elevation of 290 or 300 ft., as at Montmartre and Belleville. These hills, which are separated by narrow valleys or plateaus, as those of St. Denis to the a., Ivry to the 0, Moutrouge to the a., and Grenelle to the S.W., are encircled at a distance of from two to five miles by an outer range of heights, including Villejnif, Meudon. St. Cloud, and Mont-Valerien, the highest point in the immediate vicinity of the city. ,The Seine, which enters Paris in the s.e. at Bercy, and leaves it at Passv in tbe.w., divides the city into two parts, and forms the two islands of La Cite and St:Louis, which are both covered with buildings.
The earliest notice of Paris occurs in Julius Cmsar's Coninentaries, in which it is described under the name of Lutetia, as a collection of mud huts, composing the chief settlement of the Parisii, a Gallic tribe conquered by the Romans. The ruins of the Palatium Thermarum (Palais des Thermes), and of ancient altars, aqueducts, and other buildings, show that even in Roman times the town extended to both banks of the Seine. Lutetia began in the 4th c. to be known as Parisia, or Paris, from the Celtic tribe of the Parisii, to whom it belonged. In the 6th c. Paris was chosen by Clovis as the seat of government; and after having fallen into decay under the Carlovingian kings, in whose time it suffered severely from frequent invasions of the Northmen, it finally became in the 10th c. the residence of Hugh Capet, the founder of the Capetian dynasty. and the capital of the Frankish monarchy. From this period Paris continued rapidly lb increase, and in two centuries it had doubled in size and population. In the middle ages Paris was divided into three distinct parts—La Cite, on the islands; the Ville, on the right bank; and the quartier Latin, or university, on the left bank of the river. Louis XI. did much to enlarge Paris, and to efface the disastrous results of its hostile occupati.on by the English during the was under Henry V. and Henry VT. of England: but its prog ress was again checked during the wars of the last of the Valois, when the city had to sustain several sieges. On the accession of Henri IV. of Navarre in 1589, a new era Was opened to Paris. The improvements commenced under his reign were continued under the minority of his son, Louis VIII, Louis XIV. converted the cid ramparts into pub lic walks or boulerardq, organized a regular system of police, established drainage and sewerage works, founded hospitals, almshouses, public schools, scientific societies, and library, and thus gave to Paris a claim to be regarded as the focus of European ci vili salon. The terrible days of the revolution caused a temporary reaction. The improve ment of Paris was recommenced on a new and grander scale under the first Napoleon, when new quays, bridges, markets, streets, squares, and public gardens were created., All the treasures of art and science which conquest placed in his power were applied to the emhellishment of Paris, in the restoration of which he spent more than £4,000,000 sterling in twelve years. downfall again arrested progress, and in many respects Paris fell behind other European cities.
Renovation of various sorts was recommenced under Louis-Philippe; but as lately as 1834, much of the old style of things remained; the gutters ran down the middle of the streets, there was little underground drainage from the houses, oil lamps were suspended on cords over the middle of the thoroughfares,• and, except in one or two streets, there were no side-pavements. It was reserved for Napoleon III. to render Paris the most
commodious, splendid, and beautiful of modern cities. When he commenced his im provements, Paris still consisted, in the main, of a labyrinth of narrow, dark, and ill ventilated streets. He resolved to pierce broad and straight thoroughfares through the midst of the‘•, to preserve and connect all the finest existing squares and boulevards; and in lien 011ie old houses pulled down in the heart of the town, to construct, in a ring outside of it, a new city in the most approved style of modern architecture. With the assistance baron Haussman, the prefect of the Seine, his schemes were carried out with rare energy and good taste. Two straight and wide thoroughfares, parallel to and near each other, crossed the whole width of Parisfrom n. to s. through the Cit; a stilt greater thoroughfare was made to run the whole length of the towri, n. of the Seine, from e. to west. The old boulevards were completed so as to form outer and inner cir cles of spacious streets—the former chiefly lying along the outskirts of the old city, the latter passing through and connecting a long line of distant suburbs.. In the year 1867, when the International exhibition was opened, Paris had become in all respects the most splendid city in Europe; and in 'that year it was visited by upwards of a million and a half of foreigners. Many further improvements were then contemplated. New botan ical and zoological gardens were to be formed; the museums and class-rooms of the Jar din des Plantes were to be rebuilt; an underground railway was to be formed, crossing Paris from e. to w.; Montmartre was to be leveled, and the Seine was to be deepened up to Greeelle, the point where it leaves the town; and there a harbor was to be formed for sea-going ships, which was to convert Paris into a port de MCr. Financial and political difficulties were, however, at hand (see FniuccE), and these great schemes had to be postponed. The siege of Paris by the Germans, which lasted from Sept. 10, 1870, to Jan. 28, 1871, caused much less injury to the city than might have been expected—it was reserved for a section of the Parisian population to commit an act of vandalism without a parallel in modern times. On Mar. 18, the red republicans, who had risen against the government, took possession of Paris. On Mar. 27, the commune was declared the only lawful government. Acts of pillage and wanton destruction followed. On May 15, the column erected to the memory of Napoleon and the great army, in the place Yen dome, one of the principal squares of Paris, was solemnly pulled down as "a monument of tyranny." The government troops under marshal MaeMahon attacked the insrgents,. and kept them from doing further mischief. The former succeeded in entering Paris on May 20, and next day the communists began systematically to set fire with petroleum to a great number of the chief buildings of Paris, public and private. The time for a time threatened to destroy the whole city. It raged with the greatest fury on the 24th, and was not checked until property' had been lost to the value of many millions sterling, and historical monuments were destroyed which never can be replaced. The horror inspired by the commune for a time drove the wealthy classes from Paris, and it was feared that it would lose its prestige as a European capital. This, however. has not proved to be the case. In the autumn of 1873, all the private houses burnt had been rebuilt—the monuments only partially injured had been restored, and the streets and public places were as splendid and gay as in the best days of the empire. There remained, however. to recall the commune, the blackened ruins of the Tuileries, the hotel de Ville, and two or three other buildings to which we are about to refer.