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Henri III had nominated Henri of Navarre, a Protestant, as his heir. The new king, Henri IV, converted to Catholicism in 1594 with the declaration that "Paris is well worth a mass," thus convincing the Parisians to accept him as their king. He undertook a number of major public works in the city but faced constant danger from religious fanatics on both sides, particularly after granting religious tolerance to Protestants under the Edict of Nantes. After surviving at least 23 assassination attempts, he fell victim to a Catholic fanatic on 14 May 1610.

The arrival in Paris of the Industrial Revolution prompted the city's breakneck growth, with migrant workers arriving from the countryside on newly-constructed railway lines. By now its population was over 900,000 people, making it one of the largest cities in Europe and far surpassing any other city in France (the next largest, Lyon and Marseille, had only about 115,000 each).

Although the Third Republic was widely disliked for its political instability and corruption, it did manage to deliver a golden age - a belle epoque - for Paris. The city acquired many distinctive new monuments and public buildings, foremost among them the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the World Exhibition of 1889. It was renowned as a centre for the arts, with the Impressionists taking their inspiration from its new vistas.

The area of modern Paris has been inhabited since at least the fourth millennium BC, although little is known about these early inhabitants. The first known permanent settlement on the site was founded about 250 BC by a Celtic tribe called the Parisii, who established a fishing village on the Seine island that was later to become the Ile de la Cité. This was known as Lutetia, a name first recorded by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars.

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.

As running battles were fought in the streets of Paris, Hitler ordered the city's commandant, von Choltitz, to destroy the capital. Von Choltitz, however, stalled. When General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division arrived on the outskirts of the city, von Choltitz ordered his forces to retreat, leaving the city open and largely intact with only stragglers from the garrison and dead-end resisters from the Vichy regime left to offer resistance. De Gaulle and Leclerc entered the city to a jubilant reception, establishing a temporary military government that lasted until 1946.