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The powers of the monarchy were in theory confined by a Charter of Liberties but in practice both Louis and Charles ran an authoritarian regime reliant on Church support. On 25 July 1830 Charles issued the repressive Ordinances of St-Cloud, abolishing the freedom of the press, dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and restricting voting rights to the landed gentry only.

The French Revolution began with the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Many of the conflicts in the next few years were between Paris and the outlying rural areas.

An invading Prussian army heading for Paris was defeated shortly afterwards, clearing the way for the bloodiest phase of the Revolution. A guillotine was erected in what is now the Place de la Concorde and was used on 21 January 1793 to execute Louis XVI. Marie Antoinette followed in October 1793.

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).

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 following day, 14 July the mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides, acquiring thousands of guns, and stormed the Bastille. A brief battle ensued in which 87 revolutionaries were killed before the fortress surrendered. This event marked the first real manifestation of the Revolution, and is still marked in France as Bastille Day.

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.

A general uprising in Paris followed with three days of fighting between loyalists and rebels, including whole regiments of the Paris garrison. The king was forced to abdicate, being replaced by the more acceptable Louis-Philippe.

A concentration camp was established in the Parisian suburb of Drancy to serve as a waystation en route to Auschwitz. Some 70,000 people passed through the camp. Contrary to later assertions by postwar French governments, the camp was run by the French authorities on behalf of the Nazis until July 1943, and the roundups were orchestrated by the Vichy French police. This was only acknowledged by the French government in 1995 and memorialised only as recently as 2001.

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

Tensions were high, and led to the largest abuse in the city's postwar history, when the Paris police, told wrong news about policemen having been murdered by independentists, massacred an estimated 300 pro-independence demonstrators on 17 August 1961; remarkably, the event, though known in some circles, was largely ignored until the 1990s. (See Paris massacre of 1961)

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.