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| However, plagues and wars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries left Paris bereft of inhabitants and in quite a pickle. Sanitation continued to be terrible after these calamities and the locals were discontent, chasing King Louis XIV out of Paris in the mid seventeenth century. In 1670 he moved into the Palace of Versailles, a discreet out-of-town pad just a few leagues to the south east of Paris. This royal démenagement meant that anyone with money and power left the city of Paris to itself and settled in Versailles as well. Parisians were left to their own (de)vices and squalor, so it is no wonder that they were so fed up by 1789 that they started a revolution. Once Napoleon I had taken control of the city, some magnificent buildings and displays of power such as La Madeleine, l’Arc de Triomphe, and l’Arc du Carrousel sprang up. Napoleon I also established the Grandes Écoles where the intellectual elite still go to learn how to be teachers, administrators and engineers. At this point, “France” only consisted of Paris and the area that makes up the Île de France until successive kings and monarchs drew in more of their rivals’ lands, centralizing the kingdom’s power in Paris. The university was formally established in 1215, placing Paris at the centre of European intellectual activity. | | ||||
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