The Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is likely a must-visit for anyone traveling to the city. But did you know? The Île de la Cité, where the Notre-Dame Cathedral is located, has a significant history itself. This natural river island in the middle of the Seine, no larger than two standard football fields, is where Paris began, serving as the heart of the city. The Île de la Cité is the oldest inhabited area in Paris, with the Gauls living there as early as the 3rd century BC. In AD 215, the Romans sacked the area, and the charred stones were transported to the Île de la Cité to construct a defensive wall. This wall, neglected in times of peace, was rebuilt several times over the centuries. One of the earliest bridges to the Left Bank, the Petit Pont, was guarded by a fortified gate, the Petit Châtelet, and has been rebuilt multiple times. The bridge to the Right Bank, the Pont au Change, was protected by the Grand Châtelet, which served as a fortress, prison, torture chamber, and morgue until its demolition in 1801. The Romans officially named the city Paris, marking the year as the beginning of the city's foundation. For the Gauls, Romans, and even people in the Middle Ages, Paris was essentially an island. For centuries, it remained a densely populated urban core with a network of streets. Roman rulers resided on the western side of the island, where French kings later built their castles. In the 12th century, the bishops of Paris constructed the magnificent Notre-Dame Cathedral on the eastern side of the island, on the foundations of a Gallo-Roman temple, thus balancing secular and religious powers and determining the future development of the city and nation.
From 1180 to 1225, King Philip II built a new wall that protected settlements on both banks. From 1367 to 1370, Charles V expanded the Right Bank enclosure, with the Bastille fortress protecting the eastern approaches as the Louvre fortress protected the west. In 1670, Louis XIV replaced Charles V's walls with tree-lined Grands Boulevards, adorned with triumphal arches at the Saint-Denis Gate and the Saint-Antoine Gate; the Saint-Denis arch still stands today. The term "boulevard," originating from "bulwark," was initially a military engineering term for a defensive wall's platform. Mimicking the arch of the river, the Grands Boulevards extend from today's Place de la Madeleine north and east to today's Place de la République. In the latter half of the 18th century, a new wall was constructed with 57 tollhouses to enable tax "farmers," or collectors, to collect customs duties on goods entering Paris. These tollhouses still stand at Place Denfert-Rochereau.
The last wall, built in the mid-19th century by Adolphe Thiers for King Louis-Philippe, was a genuine military installation with outlying forts. By its completion, it had enclosed many villages outside Paris, including Auteuil, Passy, Montmartre, La Villette, and Belleville. The reconstruction and economic recovery following the collapse of Napoleon III's Second Empire in 1870, combined with the employment boom triggered by the Industrial Revolution, attracted an increasing population to Paris. Between 1852 and 1870, the city planner Baron Haussmann demolished the farmers-general's walls and built numerous wide, straight boulevards that cut through the city's dense network of narrow streets. The 19th-century walls were eventually torn down, and the boulevards were extended in 1925.
Today, Paris's many boulevards, ancient buildings, monuments, gardens, squares, and bridges make up one of the world's grandest cityscapes. Much of central Paris was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1991. Although most of the narrow, medieval streets characteristic of the island disappeared during the 19th-century urban renewal, Paris's oldest bridge, its earliest square, the first Parisian prison, and other enchanting ancient structures still await your exploration.
