OVERVIEW - CultureShock! A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette - page 6

long ago as the 7th century BC and on what is now the Île-
de-la-Cité from about 250 BC . From this island in the middle
of the river Seine and surrounded by the rivers Oise, Aisne,
Ourcq and the Marne, the Parisii plied a lucrative river trade
by commanding a strategic stop for all travellers.
No wonder the Romans wanted it, taking it in 52 BC and
staying some 400 years. They first established themselves
on the island of the Parisii, then slowly expanded their city
across the water to the south, into what is still called the
Quartier Latin (named after the Latin-speaking students of
the university quarter during the Middle Ages). North of the
river was a marsh—a marais —and the trendy 21st century
neighbourhood there still goes by that name, Le Marais.
Some 9,000 people lived in what was then called Lutetia,
but by 212 AD , it was officially named Paris, after the displaced
Parisii. Some ancient ruins from that time have survived, for
example, those in the crypt in front of the Cathedral of Notre
Dame and ruins in the Quartier Latin.
By the 3rd century AD , however, Christianity was spreading
and the Pope sent his bishop Denis to Paris to convert the
Gauls. To the displeasure of the Romans, he succeeded, so
he and two fellow Christians were beheaded near the top of
the region's highest hill, now called Montmartre or 'hill of
martyrs'. Saint Denis became the patron saint of France.
The patron saint of Paris itself is Geneviève, a devout girl
of the 5th century who convinced the Parisians to trust in
the Christian God and saved the city from an onslaught of
Attila the Hun in 451 AD . By then, the Romans had already
lost control of the area and were replaced for 300 years by
the Franks from Germania—a dynasty that fought among
themselves but which managed to establish Francia as
Christian once and for all, though not always peacefully, to
say the least.
By the 9th century, Charlemagne (whose father Pépin III
was the first of the Carolingians) was using harsh military
conquest to expand the domain and to impose Christianity
on the realm. He preferred the Germanic city of Aachen
(Aix-la-Chapelle) to Paris, so Paris declined over the decades,
suffering from neglect and invasions by Norse Vikings.