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Paris became the scene of revolutionary ferment, with political clubs taking over buildings for their headquarters. The uprising had, however, badly disrupted food supplies and in October an angry crowd marched to Versailles to protest - whereupon Marie Antoinette allegedly dismissed them with her famous remark, "let them eat cake."

Under Louis XVI, Paris reached new heights of prestige as a centre of the arts, sciences and philosophy. It was in Paris that the Montgolfier brothers made their historic balloon ascents in 1783. However, the French state was by now virtually bankrupt, its finances drained by the Seven Years' War and the French intervention in the American War of Independence.

The name of the city comes from the name of a Gallic tribe (parisis) inhabiting the region at the time of the Roman conquest. The historical heart of Paris is the Île de la Cité, a small island largely occupied by the huge Palais de Justice and the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. It is connected with the smaller Ile Saint-Louis (another island) occupied by elegant houses built in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The victor was, to the surprise of many, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte - the nephew of the late Emperor. He won by an overwhelming majority (receiving 75% of the votes cast) but was not content with being a mere president. On 2 December 1851 he seized power in a coup, declared himself the Emperor Napoleon III and settled in the Tuileries Palace.

Paris was, however, not spared from the religious violence affecting the rest of the country as Protestantism gained ground in defiance of an increasingly harsh Catholic backlash. Paris was a predominantly Catholic city - so much so that Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus there in 1534 - but also had a growing Protestant population. The rival religious factions pursued an increasingly bloodthirsty feud, with religiously-inspired assassinations and burnings at the stake.

Matters came to a head on 23 August 1572 with the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, when Catholic mobs killed an estimated 3,000 Protestants on the instructions of King Charles VIII. His successor, King Henry III, attempted to find a peaceful solution but the city's population turned against him and forced him to flee in May 1588. The following year, he was assassinated by a fanatical Dominican monk, bringing the Valois line to a premature end.

As an exception to the normal rules for French cities, some powers normally vested in the mayor of the city are instead vested in a representative of the national government, the Prefecture of Police which also controls the Paris Fire Brigade. As an example, Paris has no municipal police force, though it has some traffic wardens. This is a legacy of the situation that up to 1977, Paris had no mayor and was essentially run by the prefectoral administration.

The weakness of the late Carolingian kings of France led to the gradual rise in power of the Counts of Paris; Odo, Count of Paris was elected king of France by feudal lords while Charles III was also claiming the throne. Finally, in 987 Hugh Capet, count of Paris, was elected king of France by the great feudal lords after the last Carolingian king died.