Bank Hotel Left Paris Sources of bank hotel left paris resources from the Web

The city emerged into an energetic but restless interwar period, enlivened by the arrival of glamorous émigrés such as Josephine Baker. It was a troubled political period, however, especially when the Great Depression hit Paris.

The Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes were both transformed into large public parks. Although Haussmann was forced to resign in 1869 after financial irregularities, his scheme is largely responsible for the present-day look and layout of Paris.

Roman rule in northern Gaul effectively collapsed in the 5th century. In 451 the region was invaded by Attila the Hun, prompting fears that Paris would be attacked. According to legend, the city was saved by the piety of Sainte Geneviève and her followers, whose prayers for relief were answered when Attila's march turned away from Paris to the south. Ste Geneviève remains Paris' patron saint to this day.

Louis died in 1643, leaving the throne to his five-year-old heir Louis XIV. The new king and his family were forced to flee the city in 1648 by a rebellion, known as the Fronde, against royal authoritarianism and excessive taxes. Rebel rule proved considerably worse, however, and the king returned to a hero's welcome in 1653.

Traditionally Paris was known as Paname in French slang, but this vulgar appellation is gradually losing currency. ( "I'm from Paname"?..)

The new rulers organised themselves into a five-man Directoire but had only a shaky grip on power. In 1795 they were saved from a royalist revolt by a young army officer named Napoleon Bonaparte, who dispersed a hostile Parisian mob by the simple expedient of firing into it with cannons at point-blank range.

Less positively and very controversially, the ancient market at Les Halles was demolished and replaced with a notoriously ugly underground shopping mall, and the 209m Tour Montparnasse skyscraper was built leading to fears that Paris would become overrun with American-style skyscrapers (a move strongly resisted ever since).

His grandson Louis IX, renowned for his extreme piety (and later canonised as St Louis) established the city as a major centre of pilgrimage in the 13th century with the construction of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, the Basilica of St Denis and the Sainte-Chapelle on the Ile de la Cité. The latter was one of the finest medieval Gothic religious buildings ever constructed and was built to house Louis' most precious possession - the (alleged) Crown of Thorns, purchased from the bankrupt Byzantine Empire at an extortionate price.

At the same time, Paris acquired a less savoury reputation as the "sin capital of Europe", with hundreds of brothels, revues and risqué cabarets such as the famous Moulin Rouge. The city also acquired its metro system, opened in 1900.