UNKNOWN.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4627, 14 May 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

UNKNOWN.

A CITY OF UNIQUE HISTORY. Some strange vicissitudes have been the lot of Paris since there first nestled on the Seine island a congeries of email dwellings which has developed by dint of kings with artistic leanings, of financiers with a taste for town planning, and of ruthless destroyers, into the wonderful monument of a nation’s good taste. Paris was cradled ere yet the Caesar had discovered that “all Gaul is divided into three parts,” so that it would be strange if a town which had its foundation well before the beginning of the Christian era could show nothing of an extraordinary history. Those early river dwellers must have made some scanty living by trading upon the Seine waters through the rich country watered, by the river and its five tributaries. The early town was attacked and more than once destroyed after the great Caesar himself came to the island, but it was tenadous of life, ami the site was a convenient one. In the twentieth century that island bears upon it the Palais de Justice, that great religious monument, Notre Dame, ’ana the smaller but more wonderful sermon in stone. La Sainte Chappelle.

THE HISTORICAL PARTS OF PARIS.

If von desire to approach your knowledge* of Paris from the historical point of view let your first journey be to the Pantheon across the river. There yon will find a series of mural paintings dc picting scones in the life of St. Gem--vieve, the patron saint of the city. One of these shows the saint on the walls or the citadel keeping watch against the foe without. The period was that ot Charlemagne (825 A.D.), by which tnmthe island settlement had grown out on the river bank. Over three hundred voars earlier the capital of the realm oi the groat Clovis Emperor of the 1* ranks was fixed in this spot when I ranee was merely L’lle (the islanfl) de 1-ianct. that is the country around Pans, n was the capital of the realm or Hugh Capet in 987, a monarch known to most Englishmen only through the pages ol Henrv the Fifth and the Archbishop s speech concerning the Sahc lan, Henrv was out to Hie Ihcori contains pictures ot an cari> Siege, probably that of 885, and of the «reat fire in 580. when the early cit. was destroyed, but all the early histo'.. ct the place is of war, of wresting Uy one party from another, of the strivings of strong men to raise up grcatei a> nasties Bv the twelitli century oi o n ..va Paris bad begun to expand, to achieve distinction and a pun nice, of ■architectural beauty. The I nivorsit? , possiblv the mod famous in Ml tin. world,’dates from 1200, fi'« lu period the population was definite.? increased bv 1 numbers of students moie or less serious, and so has continued down to these times. Meantime efforts at great permanent buildings vue bein" made in an architecture more suited" to the inhabitants. Roman build lugs of heavier type were being• P’'” ed down to give place to a lighten st. . UNDER ENGLISH RULE.

The great church of Notre Danw, looking as if it might crash intotlu. river the small island on which it te.-ts avqs begun in 1163, taking the p ace an earlier building, and m the vears of its construction setting the a\ a> lor other boiltogs. Cl«e by, in bv the Palace de Justice, is Ba hamte fhabeile most wonderful tracery * n intone, built midway through the thirteenth century, to receive the cioaau of thorns sent from Constantinople, dlo fourteenth century saw the erection ol the Bastille, a guardhouse tor one ot the city gates, but the toe Avas. old England then truly merne. Latei on in the course of the evolutionary process ol building all the small states into ono bin France, the capital of the F lanus llLmo .ho objoot of who ravaged it. It would he uni.an to describe this as dissension, but the tx istence of the Burgundian nvah-y cc - tainly encouraged our oaah Beni} the Fifth until he entered Par! V Sf uL rrns 14°0 as sovereign, and held his court at the old Louvre Palace His son, the unfortunate Henry N 1., " crowned in Notre Dame in 1431, and thcity Avas thenceforward governed lm four vears by the Duke of Bedford, name redolent of London landlordship and Covent Garden .Market! But Joan of Arc started the tide running the other wav, and the English were SAvept from Paris and almost from France soon THE FRENCH KINGS. A wonderful array of groat French Monarehs crosses the stage. Henri Quatre besieged Paris for four years from 1590-94. 'Francis I. pulled doivn the old Louvre and commenced the hbav buildHere Charles IX. ordered the massacre of S. Bartholomew. Under Louis XIV. it endured yet another siege. Then comes the period of rest, feudal period so soon to burst into the toriible era of revolution. The Bishop in 1623 w as created an Archbishop; Kings were concerned in beautification of its buildings • other Kings occupied themselves in'’silken dalliance in their suburban palaces. The city extended on both banks of the river, and gained a reputation for gaiety. Overhead the clouds Avere gathering. A preliminary thunderclap in the capture of the Bastille on the 14th Julv, 1789; a King compelled to enter his’ capital never to* emerge alive, and Paris disappears under a sea of blood and outrage. An oppressed people claimed and asserted the right to live in accordance with the rights of man as promulgated by a poet. Out m it all arose a small pot-bellied figure who Avas to SAvay the destinies of all France for twenty years, and to give Paris some of its most wonderful features and monuments, amongst them being the “finest street in Europe,” the Encode Rivoli, which he began. After all its Avar Paris in 1815 Avas to Avitness France’s greatest humiliation AAhen the treaty of November imposed a Avar in clemnitv of 28 millions of pounds, the loss of‘half a fleet, and of-all the conouests of the victim of Saint Helena. Then rest, but only' for fifteen years. Revolution in 1830; Charles X ; deposed, and‘Louis Philline brought in. 184 55 and Louis Phillipe taken out again, and Paris in the throes of a ncAv revolution and the head of a citv which had been fortified for ages became completely fortified all round with detached forts surrounding it. Napoleon HI. President, and later. Emperor, gave the Parisians their Grand Opera House, uoav churches, Avonderful roadAvays. completed the galleries between Tnillcries and the Louere. prepared for victories, and suffered Astounding and perishing defeats. He Added new glories to the city but Jus aoliev left it a prey to the besieging irmv of 250.000 Germans, avlio entered „ conoueror-s on Ist March 18H, a ibattered and it was thought a ruim-d •By. This was not the last shock. In tfav the Government forces had to bo ; o <re Paris afresh ; n their attacks on he Commune or rioters Avho commited destruction worse than that susained in the siege, blowing up and deacing buildings and actually preparing o blow up Notre Dame and the Panheon in their inswote rmre The Boulanger fizzle of 1889 FpoKcn o plunge the white capital into insur-

gent riots again, but happily strong councils prevailed. It was a good augury for a lengthened time of peace which the city seemed to deserve. How marvellous the Paris we know —phoenix from the ashes of 1871, Jupiter Pluvius having failed to wash it away by the floods of recent times, and the flood tide of modern barbaric invasion having failed to reach it, wc look forward to a great and a more glorious Paris of the future.