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Paris
HISTORY :
Paris comes from a village of Celtic fisherman. The tribe Parisii moved
to 3rd century BC on the island of the city, fortified it and called Lutetia. In 52 BC.
AD Lutetia fell into the hands of a lieutenant of Julius Caesar.
The Romans
called it the "city of
Parisii" Civitas Parisiorum.
The town
was fortified and began to spread on the left bank of the Seine
The Christian was
introduced by St. Denis, first
bishop in the city,
who was beheaded by the Romans in 280. Legend told that he then walked
with his head to the location of the basilica of Saint-Denis.
Threatened by the barbarian invasions, the Parisians in 451 resisted to
the Huns of Attila under the inspiration of St. Genevieve, who became the
patron saint of the city.
The Middle Age creates
differentiation still present in Paris: the medieval city is then
divided between the right
bank of Commerce (the market of Les Halles), the City :
headquarters of political and religious power (still with the
courthouse and the hospital of the Hotel-Dieu) and the left bank :
intellectual and academic. Indeed Island
City is then adorned the cathedral Notre-Dame
(undertaken in 1163), the Sainte-Chapelle
in St. Louis (1246), while the royal palace in the city
was enlarged by Philip the Fair ( 1285-1314).
The 16th
century witnessed a new impetus, ardently Catholic religious passions
divided the city from 1534 between Catholics
and Protestants. The people killing the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's
Day in 1572 falls into the camp of the Catholic League,
rises to the announcement of the murder of its leader, the Duke of Guise in
1588, and proclaimed the downfall of the King Henry III. Henri IV in Paris
does after having abjured his Protestant faith.
The Bourbons
encourage the beautification of the city. During his reign in the early
17th century, Henry IV
continues the Louvre
and the Tuileries
started by Catherine de
Medicis, which will facilitate the extension of uptown to
the west of Paris.
Henry IV completes
the Hotel de Ville and
Pont Neuf, founded a new type of geometric spaces and
homogeneous with the Place
Royale (now Place des Vosges) and the Place Dauphine. The
cultural influence of the capital increases under Louis XIII with the
creation of the Royal
Press in 1620, the Jardin
des Plantes and the French Academy.
Louis XIII created
new fortifications right bank (current Grands Boulevards)
to allow the city to grow: new wards replace the campaign in the Faubourg Saint-Honore, the Ile
Saint-Louis, the Marais, the Faubourg Saint - Germain. Richelieu
built the Palais Cardinal (now Royal
Palace), Marie
de Medicis moved to the Palais du Luxembourg.
But the Sun King never
forgot that he had fled as a child, the capital. He sulked and moved
from Paris to Saint-Germain,
then at Versailles in
1680. With its 500 000 inhabitants, Paris remained the
center of intellectual life and continued to embellish: The majestic
building continued under the authority of Colbert,
which appealed to great architects like Francois Mansart and Claude
Perrault.
From the late 17th century date from the colonnade of the Louvre, which
marked the advent of the classical style as opposed to the Italian
Baroque, the Invalides, the Observatory, the Salpetriere hospital, the College des Quatre
Nations (now the Institute), the Porte Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin,
the royal seat of Louis-le-Grand (Vendôme) and wins, the Tuileries
gardens, the Manufacture des Gobelins.
Napoleon did not
have time to complete all projects of magnitude for the capital, he
began the Arc de
Triomphe, the Exchange, the Vendome Column, channels of Ourcq, Saint
Martin and Saint-Denis. He destroyed the homes of old
bridges and the banks of the Seine to find the river view
This is
the Second Empire
that transformed Paris
and gave it its present appearance. Influenced by the modernism,
when he lived in London, seeking to both improve people's
lives
and ensure the rapid repression in cases of riot, Napoleon III
entrusted to Georges
Haussmann management of works, from 1853 to 1869. The
prefect of the Seine in Paris would make a great modern capital,
adapted to modern transport, and sanitized airy parks.
BREATH
PARIS PRESERVES THE SOUL - Victor Hugo
Sites of Pilgrimages
THE BASILICA OF THE SACRED
HEART
"A
temple must be placed on a rise overlooking Paris to recall the divine
protection on France and the Capital"
It
was after the defeat of Napoleon
III at Sedan that was decided to build the Sacred Heart in 1870.
The people of Paris suffered a terrible siege, he knows the cold and
hunger to the point that animals in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes
serve them food.
Considering
that this was a divine punishment Clergy invited the faithful to
express their faith. Then the rich bourgeois, Alexandre Legentil and Hubert
Rohaut, wish
to erect a church dedicated to the Heart
of Jesus in Paris.
On March 5, 1873 the Archbishop
of Paris Mgr Guibert send
a letter to the Minister of Religious Affairs requesting that a temple
must be placed on a rise overlooking Paris to recall the divine
protection on France and the capital.
The
choice of Montmartre
was favorable for several reasons. The height first, then here is where
lies the Martyrdom of
Saint Denis and where Saint
Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuit order with St. Francois Xavier.
The acquisition of land, which then belonged to a dozen owners and the
city of Paris, triggered the riots of the Commune.
Romano Byzantine style,
inspired by Hagia Sophia
in Constantinople, the architect Paul Abadie won the
competition against 78 candidates.
The
fragility of the soil formed by the gypsum quarries, forced to
undertake major foundation work: digging 83 wells concrete 33 m deep.
The
facade is built of limestone from Château-Landon,
which whitens with age and contact with rainwater.
In
the pediment, in a niche, you can see the statue of Jesus, showing his
heart and on the foothills of the porch two equestrian statues of Hippolyte Lefebvre
represent Joan of Arc
and St. Louis, a symbol of holiness and justice,
brandishing his sword: the
crown of thorns
The
interior is also Romano
Byzantine
. The choir is surrounded by 7 chapels topped by a large dome 80 meters
high. It contains the largest mosaic in the world (475 m2) representing Christ glorified by
the Church and France. The church contains, among other bells, the
biggest bell in France called the "Tilt".
Melt in Annecy in 1895 it is 3 meters in diameter and weighs 18 835 kg
In
the crypt, a wide promenade which opens on 14 chapels, provides access
to the Treasury
and the Chapel of the
Pieta, where lie the Cardinals
Guibert and Richard.
The great organ of the Sacred Heart is a
Cavaillé-Coll, who belonged to the Baron
Albert Espée, Wagnerian passion. It was installed at the Sacred Heart of
Paris three years before the death of Baron.
You can
climb the 237 steps leading to the gallery of the dome and enjoy a view
overlooking the choir and the outside with a panoramic view of Paris.
At over 200 m high, clear day the view extends for 50 km around.
Websites
about the Basilica of Sacred Heart
Official
website of the Sacred Heart : http://www.sacre-coeur-montmartre.com
Official website of tourisme office of Paris : http://www.parisinfo.com
Notre
Dame de Paris
Notre-Dame
de Paris is very old,
it is over 800 years !
Appointed
bishop of Paris in 1160, Maurice
de Sully decided to give a cathedral to the city, a cathedral worthy
of
the first
city in France. He wants to build in the style now known as Gothic.
King Louis VII, his
classmate, favors the project.
The Church, the
notables of the city and all the people involved: some offered money,
others their jobs, know-how.
Construction
began in 1163, Notre Dame
will be completed just over 100 years later, in 1272.
During this
period, all the corporations of artisans (masons, sculptors, carpenters,
joiners,
masons, glass ...)
will work tirelessly under the direction of experienced architects. All
offer an equally their efforts to God
and Mary.
Mary, Mother of God
is to her that Maurice Bishop had wanted to dedicate the cathedral as a
whole, she is devoted, Notre-Dame
de Paris! It also does not account for less than 37
representations of the Virgin
(sculptures, paintings, stained glass ...).
Since its
construction, the cathedral is one of the great symbols of Paris and
France. Great religious and political events took place there which
told the historian Michelet that Notre Dame is in itself a history
book. One can of course not every quote, it would take pages and pages!
You can still cite some :
- It was
not yet completed at the end of the thirteenth century,
- This is
where Parisians have watched the body of King Saint Louis
who died in Tunis;
- Here the
King Philip the Fair,
in 1302, opened the first General States of France;
- King Henry IV in
1572 is married Marguerite
de Valois in 1594, was formally converted to Catholicism;
- Pope Pius VII is
sacred Napoleon
Ier, Emperor of France in 1804;
-
it is also at Notre
Dame that we sang the Te
Deum at the end of the First and Second World Wars;
- Pope John Paul II
came there twice in 1980 and 1997 for the World Days of Youth.
- More
recently, in 2005, at Notre
Dame that tens of thousands of faithful and people of good
will came together to pray when Pope
John Paul II died and await the appointment of new Chief of the Church,
Pope Benedict XVI.
Websites
about Notre
Dame de Paris
Official
website of the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris :
http://www.notredamedeparis.fr
Official website of tourisme office of
Paris : http://www.parisinfo.com
Rue
du Bac : Miraculous Medal
The rue du Bac is a
street of Paris, located in the 7th arrondissement. Long and 1 150
meters, she left the docks Voltaire and Anatole France and ends Rue de
Sevres.
Saint Catherine Labouré
(May 2, 1806 – December 31, 1876) (born Zoe Labouré) was a sister of
the Daughters of Charity
and a Marian visionary who claimed to have relayed the
request from the Blessed
Virgin Mary to create the Miraculous Medal
worn by millions of Catholics and even non-Catholics today.
Catherine stated
that on the night of July
18, 1830, she woke up after hearing the voice of a child
calling her to the chapel, where she heard the Virgin Mary say to
her, "God
wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do
not fear; you will have the grace to do what is necessary. Tell your
spiritual director all that passes within you. Times are evil in France
and in the world."
On November 27, 1830, Catherine
reported that the Blessed
Mother returned during evening meditations. She displayed
herself inside an oval frame, standing upon a globe, wearing many rings
of different colours, most of which shone rays of light over the globe.
Around the margin of the frame appeared the words "O Mary,
conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."
As Catherine
watched, the frame seemed to rotate, showing a circle of twelve stars,
a large letter M
surmounted by a cross, and the stylized Sacred Heart of Jesus and
Immaculate Heart of Mary underneath.
Asked why some of her rings did not shed light, Mary reportedly
replied "Those are the graces for which people forget to ask."
Catherine
then heard Mary
ask her to take these images to her father confessor, telling him that
they should be put on medallions. "All who wear them will receive great
graces.
Catherine did so,
and after two years' worth of investigation and observation of
Catherine's normal daily behavior, the priest took the information to
his archbishop without revealing Catherine's identity.
The request was approved and medallions began to be produced. They
proved to be exceedingly popular. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception
had not yet been officially promulgated, but the medal with its
"conceived without sin" slogan was probably influential in popular
approval of the idea.
Pope John
Paul II used a slight variation of the reverse image as
his coat of arms, a plain cross with an M in the lower right
quadrant of the shield.
Catherine lived her
remaining years as an ordinary nursing sister. She was pleasant and
well-liked by patients and her fellow nuns. Catherine never told
anyone but her confessor about her visions. So, even at her death in
1876, no one knew that Catherine
was the one who brought the Miraculous
Medal to the world.
Exhumed in
1933, her body was judged to be incorrupt by the church,
and it now lies in a glass coffin at the side altar of the Chapel of Our Lady of the
Miraculous Medal (often simply called by its address, 140
Rue du Bac), Paris, one of the spots where the Blessed Mother appeared
to her. On July 27,
1947, she was canonized by Pope Pius XII.
Websites
about Miraculous Medal
Official
website of Miraculous Medal : http://www.chapellenotredamedelamedaillemiraculeuse.com
Official website of tourisme office of
Paris : http://www.parisinfo.com
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