PARIS GUN

any of several long-range cannon produced by the German arms manufacturer Krupp in 191718 during World War I. The guns were so called because they were specially built to shell Paris at a range, never before attained, of approximately 121 km (75 miles). The guns were fabricated by adding a tube to the barrel of a 380-millimetre naval gun. The barrel was thus elongated to about 34 m (112 feet), weighed 138 tons, and needed supports to hold it straight. A charge of 250 kg (550 pounds) of gunpowder was used to propel a shell out of the barrel at a velocity of 5,260 feet per second. The extremely long range of the guns (35 km had been the previous range limit for shellfire) was achieved by sending the shells on a trajectory 39 km (24 miles) up into the stratosphere, where atmospheric drag was almost nonexistent. After modifications, the Paris Guns were initially 210 mm (8.2 inches) in calibre, but successive firings eroded the inner linings of the gun barrels and their calibre was increased to about 240 mm. The Paris Guns were moved to their emplacements near the German front lines on railway tracks and successively carried out an intermittent bombardment of Paris over a period of about 140 days, beginning in March 1918. The Paris Guns killed about 250 Parisians and wrecked a number of buildings, but they did not appreciably affect French civilian morale or the larger course of the war. The name Big Bertha, which was derisively applied to the guns by Parisians under bombardment from them, is more properly applied to the 420-millimetre howitzers used by the German army to batter Belgian forts in August 1914, at the start of the war. History Foundation and medieval growth Paris was in existence by the end of the 3rd century BC as a settlement on an island, the modern le de la Cit, in the Seine River and was inhabited by a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii. The first recorded name for the settlement was Lutetia (Latin: Midwater-Dwelling). When the Romans arrived, the Parisii were sufficiently organized and wealthy to have their own gold coinage. Julius Caesar wrote in his Commentaries (52 BC) that the inhabitants burned their town rather than surrender it to the Romans. In the 1st century AD Lutetia grew as a Roman town and spread to the left bank of the Seine. The straight streets and the public buildings in this locale were characteristically Roman, including a forum, several baths, and an amphitheatre. A series of barbarian invasions began in the late 2nd century. The town on the left bank was destroyed by the mid-3rd century, and the inhabitants took refuge on the island, around which they built a thick stone wall. From the early 4th century the place became known as Paris. By this time, Christianity seems to have spread to Paris. A 10th-century sacramentary cites St. Denis (Latin Dionysius) as having been the first bishop of Paris, in about AD 250. A graveyard excavated near the Carrefour des Gobelins shows that there was a Christian community in very early times on the banks of the Bivre (a left-bank tributary of the Seine); but it was probably under St. Marcel, the ninth bishop (c. 360436), that the first Christian church, a wooden structure, was built on the island. By the end of the 5th century, the Salian Franks, under Clovis, had captured Paris from the Gauls, making it their own capital. It remained the capital until the end of Chilperic's reign in 584, but succeeding Merovingians carried the crown elsewhere. Charlemagne's dynasty, the Carolingians, tended to leave the city in the charge of the counts of Paris, who in many cases had less control over administration than did the bishops. After the election of Hugh Capet, a count of Paris, to the throne in 987, Paris, as a Capetian capital, became more important. The population and commerce of Paris increased with the gradual return of political stability and public order under the Capetian kings. The maintenance of order was entrusted to a representative of the king, the provost of Paris (prvt de Paris), first mentioned in 1050. In the 11th century the first guilds were formed, among them the butchers' guild and the river-merchants' guild, or marchandise de l'eau. In 1141 the crown sold the principal port (near the Htel de Ville) to the marchandise, whose ship-blazoned arms eventually were adopted as those of Paris. In 1171 Louis VII gave the marchandise a charter confirming its ancient right to a monopoly of river trade. During the reign of Philip II (11791223), Paris was extensively improved. Streets were paved, the city wall was enlarged, and a number of new towns were enfranchised. In 1190, when Philip II went on a crusade for a year, he entrusted the city's administration not to the provost but to the guild. In 1220 the crown ceded one of its own precious rights to the townsmenthe right to collect duty on incoming goods. The merchants were also made responsible for maintaining fair weights and measures. The King's formal recognition of the University of Paris in 1200 was also a recognition of the natural division of Paris into three parts. On the Right Bank were the mercantile quarters, on the island was the cit, and the Left Bank contained the university and academic quarters. Numerous colleges were also founded, including the Sorbonne (about 1257). In the 14th century the development of Paris was hindered not only by the Black Death (134849) but also by the Hundred Years' War (13371453) and by internal disturbances resulting from it. The provost of the merchants in 1356 was tienne Marcel, who wanted a Paris as rich and free as the independent cities of the Low Countries. He gave the House of Pillars to the municipal government, and he slew the Dauphin's counselors in the palace throne room and took over the city. Marcel showed great executive skill and equally great political stupidity and allied himself with the revolting peasants (the Jacquerie), with the invading English, and with Charles the Bad, the ambitious king of Navarre. While going to open the city gates to the Navarrese in 1358, Marcel was slain by the citizens. In 1382 a tax riot grew into a revolt called the Maillotin uprising. The rioters, armed with mauls (maillets), were ruthlessly put down, and the municipal function was suspended for the next 79 years. It was not until 1533, when Francis I ordered the teetering House of Pillars replaced by a new building, that a monarch manifested an encouraging interest in municipal government. The dynastic and political vendetta between the Burgundian and the Armagnac faction (140735) had continual repercussions in Paris, where the butchers and skinners, led by Simon Caboche, momentarily seized power (1413). The resumption of the Hundred Years' War by the English in 1415 made matters worse. After a revolt of the Parisians (1418), the Burgundians occupied Paris; the Anglo-Burgundian Alliance (1419) was followed by the installation of John Plantagenet, duke of Bedford, as regent of France for the English king Henry VI (1422). Whereas Charles VI had lived in his father's Htel Saint-Paul, Bedford lived in the Htel des Tournelles, on the southeastern edge of the Marais, which was to be the Paris residence of later kings until 1559. During the reign of Charles VI, construction began on the Notre-Dame Bridge (1413). In 1429 Joan of Arc failed to capture Paris. Only in 1436 did it fall to the legitimists, who welcomed Charles VII in person in 1437. Successive disturbances had reduced the population, but the Anglo-French truce of 1444 allowed Charles to begin restoring prosperity. In 1469, during Louis XI's reign (146183), the Sorbonne installed the first printing press in Paris. Otherwise this was a period of intellectual stagnation. Churches were rehabilitated and new houses were built, however; from 1480 splendid private mansions began to appear, such as the Htel de Sens and the Htel de Cluny. From the Renaissance to the Revolution The influence of the Italian Renaissance on town architecture appeared in the new building for the accounting office and in the reconstruction of the Notre-Dame Bridge (150010) in Louis XII's reign. Under Francis I (151547) this influence grew stronger, finding notable expression in the new Htel de Ville. Furthermore, whereas from Charles VII's time the kings of France had preferred to reside in Touraine, Francis returned the chief seat of royalty to Paris. With this in mind he had extensive alterations made to the Louvre from 1528 onward. The new splendour of the monarchy, which was well on its way toward absolute rule, was reflected in the way Paris developed as the capital of an increasingly centralized state. The population increased and the town expanded again. Rigorous measures were taken to stamp out Protestantism, which first appeared in Paris during Francis I's reign. The Renaissance in Paris culminated with Henry II, who made his solemn entry into the capital in 1549. The new impulse given to building mansions for the nobility and bourgeoisie began to transform Paris from a medieval to a modern city. In 1548 the Brothers of the Passion began performing secular plays at the Htel de Bourgogne, in the rue Franaise, thus inaugurating the first theatre in Paris. The transfer of the royal residence from the Htel des Tournelles to the Louvre, signaling the development of the neglected western outskirts of Paris, was completed after Henry II's death in 1559. Catherine de Mdicis began to build the Tuileries Palace, the gardens of which became a meeting place for elegant society. Classical taste was brilliantly exemplified by the Pont-Neuf, begun in 1577. In the mid-16th century the Wars of Religion broke out in France between Roman Catholics and Huguenots, which in Paris brought about the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572); the Day of the Barricades (1588), when the Catholic League rose against Henry III; and the long resistance of the Parisians to the Protestant Henry of Navarre, who succeeded as Henry IV in 1589. Henry IV's siege in 1590 was unsuccessful, and only after his conversion to Catholicism did Paris submit to him (1594). In Louis XIII's reign (161043) Paris expanded farther. On the Left Bank, outside the wall, the queen mother, Marie de Mdicis, built the Luxembourg Palace, with its spacious gardens; along the Right Bank, west of the Tuileries, she laid out the Cours-la-Reine as a promenade for carriages. While the Marais north of the Place Royale was being reclaimed and developed, two uninhabited islets east of the cit were united to form the le Saint-Louis. On the western fringe of the town, a quarter with straight streets was laid out north of Richelieu's new palace, the Palais-Cardinal (162436; later the Palais-Royal), which also had a magnificent garden; west of this there was more building and a new fortification was erected. The war of the Fronde (164853) was the major event of the first two decades of Louis XIV's reign. From 1661, when Cardinal Mazarin died and Louis started his personal rule, Paris was dedicated to reflecting the glory of the monarch, even though he was early resolved to establish himself and the seat of his government outside of Paris (he chose Versailles). For the planning of the new splendours of Paris, the greatest part of the credit must go to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the king's superintendent of buildings. Work on the Louvre had been resumed in 1624 and was completed by Claude Perrault's magnificent colonnade (166774). The Tuileries Palace was altered and sumptuously decorated. Beyond its gardens to the west, outside the walls of Paris, the tree-planted avenues of the Champs-lyses were laid out (1667); these were complemented, at the opposite end of Paris, by the Cours de Vincennes. In 1702 the Marquis d'Argenson (Marc Ren de Voyer), who as lieutenant general of police succeeded the provosts of Paris, raised the number of districts from 16 to 20 (15 on the Right Bank, five on the Left). Paris had nearly 600,000 people, and from the Left Bank new suburbs were advancing toward the villages on the surrounding hills. During the 18th century a great deal was done to improve and beautify Paris. Louis XV's temporary residence in the Tuileries during his younger days encouraged development nearby, so that the Faubourg Saint-Honor expanded and became, like the Faubourg Saint-Germain, an aristocratic quarter. The garden of the Palais-Royal became a centre of elegant society. The Grands Boulevards began to be bordered with houses, including some fine mansions, and the eastern stretch became a fashionable promenade with little theatres and cafs. Villas built by nobles and financiers were scattered around this outlying sector. On the Left Bank the southern course of boulevards was laid out and the routes were lined with trees and houses. Some of the houses that had been built earlier on the bridges were razed in 178688; others remained until 1808. Water was supplied to both banks by two fire pumps, developed by Jacques-Constantin Prier and his father, Auguste-Charles. The wall of the farmers-general, built in the 1780s to facilitate the levying of duties on imports, represented the extension and the unity of Paris.