OVERVIEW - CultureShock! A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette - page 8

Conciergerie, as part of the Palais Royal. (The Conciegerie
became a prison during the French Revolution, but is now
a national monument.) It was under the Capetians that the
magnificent gothic Basilique Saint-Denis and the exquisite
Sainte-Chapelle were built, and the Sorbonne founded
in 1253. It was also under the Capetians—King Philippe-
Auguste—that the fortress of the Louvre was built and the
larger streets paved with stone. The city marketplace of
Les Halles was also constructed under the Capetian reign.
It remained on the same spot for some 800 years, but was
razed in 1969 to make way for an enormous shopping and
entertainment mall called, of course, Forum Les Halles.
Medieval Paris
But what was daily life like in this beautiful city we revere
today? By the beginning of the 14th century, its population
had reached more than 250,000, cramped in an area perhaps
one-quarter of the city's size today. It may have had an
awe-inspiring cathedral and other impressive churches and
palaces, and it may have become a renowned centre of
learning, but crowded and dank as most cities were at that
time, Paris stank. The rich, of course, lived well regardless of
the conditions, but with no indoor plumbing or underground
sewers; with horses traversing the streets; rubbish piling up
and trenches for excrement running open in the middle of
many streets—life in the city was not easy for the masses.
Houses were heated by fireplaces that smoked and built
up soot inside and out; food spoiled quickly; and insects
and bugs thrived in bedlinens, clothes and on the people
themselves, who went mostly unwashed. In addition,
disease was rampant. The Black Death (bubonic plague)
that hit Europe in the mid-14th century took more than 25
million people, including some 70,000 in Paris, decimating
its population and its economy.
And so came civil unrest and war. As the Capetians' direct
male line died out, the English king figured he was next in line
for the French throne—after all, it was the Normans (from
Normandy in northern France) who, long before their 1066
conquest of England, had owned and ruled northern France.