Class 4 - PARIS: from Early Times to the Revolution 

     Sometime in the third century BC, a Celtic tribe known as the Pariisi formed a settlement on an island in the River Seine.  This was the humble beginning of the beautiful modern city of Paris. Click on the image below to view a short (and rather light) overview of the history of Paris:

          The Conciegerie is a large, fortress-looking building on the Isle de la Cité.  It was once the site of the royal palace. Click on its image below to learn more about it:

     Notre Dame Cathedral was constructed between the 12th and 14th centuries on the Isle de la Cité. This Gothic masterpiece has borne witness to innumerable historical events and is considered the heart of Paris. Click on the image below to learn how it came to be:

     Sainte Chapelle is a royal chapel commissioned by King Louis IX in the 13th century to house his collection of relics, including the Crown of Thorns.   It was built within the medieval residence of the French kings (the Conciegerie) on the Ile de la Cité.  It is considered among the highest achievements of Gothic architecture, and it has one of the most extensive 13th century-stained glass collections in the world. Learn more about it below:

     Viewing the magnificent stained glass windows of Sainte-Chapelle is a glorious experience. Marcel Proust described his own experience as he observed the effect of the sun on the stained glass in the village church of Combray in this passage: 

     "There was one [glass panel} among them which seemed to be composed of a hundred little windows, of blue principally, like a great game of patience of the kind planned to beguile King Charles VI; but, either because a ray of sunlight had gleamed through it or because my own shifting vision had drawn across the window, whose colors died away and were rekindled by turns, a rare and transient fire—the next instant it had taken on all the iridescence of a peacock's tail, then shook and wavered in a flaming and fantastic shower, distilled and dropping from the groin of the dark and rocky vault down the moist walls, as though it were along the bed of some rainbow grotto of sinuous stalactites that I was following my parents, who marched before me, their prayer-books clasped in their hands; a moment later the little lozenge windows had put on the deep transparence, the unbreakable hardness of sapphires clustered on some enormous breastplate; but beyond which could be distinguished, dearer than all such treasures, a fleeting smile from the sun, which could be seen and felt as well here, in the blue and gentle flood in which it washed the masonry, as on the pavement of the Square or the straw of the market-place; and even on our first Sundays, when we came down before Easter, it would console me for the blackness and bareness of the earth outside by making burst into blossom, as in some springtime in old history among the heirs of Saint Louis, this dazzling and gilded carpet of forget-me-nots in glass."

Marcel Proust, Combray

     Want to learn more about the museum? Click on the image below:

              Since Paris began as a city on an island, and over the years it expanded along both sides of the River Seine, it is not surprising that bridges have always played a major role in transport. Those early bridges were, of course, very different from modern ones. Click on the image below (a copy of a very old drawing) to read a short history of the evolution of the Parisian bridges:

     The Bastille was a fortress in Paris. For most of its history it was used as an armory and a prison. It was stormed by a crowd on the eve of the French Revolution. It became a symbol for the French Republican Movement. Learn more about it below:  

     Jacques-Louis David was the preeminent artist of the Neoclassical period in France (late 18th century). His painting, The Oath of the Horatii (shown below), is considered his masterpiece nowadays. Soon after it was painted, it was viewed as a call to arms for those seeking revolutionary change in France. Can you see why? And this wasn't the only work by David used as a political tool, as you will discover in this week's class.