Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
During Louis XIII's reign (1610-43) two uninhabited islets in the Seine - Île Notre Dame
and Île aux Vaches - were joined to form the Île de St-Louis.
The population of Paris at the start of François' reign in 1515 was 170,000 - still almost
20% less than it had been some three centuries before, when the Black Death had decim-
ated the city population.
The Rise of the Royal Court
Under Louis XI (r 1461-83) the city's first printing press was installed at the Sorbonne and
churches were built around the city in the Flamboyant Gothic style. But it was during the
reign of François I in the early 16th century that Renaissance ideas of scientific and geo-
graphic scholarship and discovery really assumed a new importance, as did the value of sec-
ular matters over religious life. Writers such as Rabelais, Marot and Ronsard of La Pléiade
were influential, as were artist and architect disciples of Michelangelo and Raphael who
worked towards a new architectural style designed to reflect the splendour of the monarchy
(which was fast moving towards absolutism) and of Paris as the capital of a powerful cent-
ralised state. At François I's chateau, superb artisans, many brought over from Italy, blended
Italian and French styles to create what is known as the First School of Fontainebleau.
But all this grandeur and show of strength was not enough to stem the tide of Protestant
Reformation sweeping Europe in the 1530s, strengthened in France by the ideas of John
Calvin. Following the Edict of January 1562, which afforded the Protestants certain rights,
the Wars of Religion, which lasted three dozen years, broke out between the Huguenots
(French Protestants who received help from the English), the Catholic League (led by the
House of Guise) and the Catholic monarchy. On 7 May 1588, on the 'Day of the Bar-
ricades', Henri III, who had granted many concessions to the Huguenots, was forced to flee
from the Louvre when the Catholic League rose against him. He was assassinated the fol-
lowing year.
Henri IV, founder of the Bourbon dynasty, issued the controversial Edict of Nantes in
1598, guaranteeing the Huguenots many civil and political rights, notably freedom of con-
science. Ultra-Catholic Paris refused to allow the new Protestant king to enter the city, and a
siege of the capital continued for almost five years. Only when Henri IV embraced Catholi-
cism at the cathedral in St-Denis - '
Paris vaut bien un messe
' (Paris is well worth a Mass),
he is reputed to have said during Communion - did the capital submit to him. Henri's rule
