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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.

The river Seine is well known for its tree-lined quais (walks along the river banks), open-air bookstalls and historic bridges that connect the Right and Left banks. Paris is also famous for its tree-lined boulevards such as the Champs-Élysées, and for its many architectural gems.

Several schools on the Left Bank were grouped together into the Sorbonne, which counts Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas among its early scholars. In the Middle Ages Paris prospered as a trading and intellectual nucleus, interrupted temporarily when the Black Death struck in the 14th century. Under the reign of King Louis XIV, the Sun King, from 1643 to 1715, the royal residence was moved from Paris to nearby Versailles.

The government agreed an armistice with the invaders and moved south to Vichy, while Paris remained - along with two thirds of France - under German occupation. Hitler himself arrived on 23 June to inspect his latest conquest and, in a famous piece of film footage, seem to dance a triumphant jig below the Eiffel Tower (this effective piece of Allied propaganda was created by film maker John Grierson, who looped a few frames of Hitler stomping his foot once in delight, making the dictator appear to dance).

The city was saved, however, by a desperate French effort to reinforce their lines and by a German failure to press home the attack. In the most famous incident of the "miracle on the Marne", as it became known, thousands of Parisian taxis were commandeered to carry soldiers to the front lines. The Germans were pushed back to the Oise some 75 miles away from the city.

During the latter half of the 18th century, Paris became the intellectual and cultural capital of the Western world. It became a centre of the Enlightenment with its salons becoming the centre of the new thinking of the "Age of Reason." This was positively encouraged by the state, with Louis' mistress Madame de Pompadour supporting the city's intellectuals and prompting the king to construct striking new monuments.