Paris in the 18th century.
Paris is the capital of France, and its largest city. It is located on a stretch of the Seine River that was easily forded due to an island in the middle of the river.
Paris was originally a settlement called Lucotocia founded in the third century BC by a Celtic tribe called the Parisii. The settlement was taken over by the Romans in the first century BC and renamed Lutetia. Early in the fourth century the city was renamed Civitas Parisiorum, and by the end of the Roman era was known simply as Parisius. The Frankish king Clovis made the city his capital after gaining control of northern Gaul in the late fifth century. Paris remained the capital of the Frankish kingdom until Clovis' dynasty was replaced by the Carolingians, who moved the capital to Aix-la-Chapelle in the eighth century.
Paris again became the capital of France in the tenth century, when Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, was elected King of the Western Franks. Although the kingship remained theoretically elective, every subsequent king was a descendant of Hugh Capet. Paris remained the capital of France under the Capetians and successive dynasties.
As the population of Paris grew, it suffered from periodic popular rebellions, including the Jacquerie in the 14th century and the Fronde in the 17th century. Popular anger over growing taxation in the late 18th century led to the Paris Insurrection of August 1789. The insurrection was put down by General Charles-Francois Dumouriez in a bloodbath known as the Terrible September Days, when over 8,000 people were killed and at least 16,000 fled the country.
Following the disastrous Habsburg War of 1795-99, Paris was again the scene of an uprising against the French monarchy. This uprising was put down by the British and German troops occupying France, and King Louis XVII only remained on his throne due to the presence of foreign soldiers in Paris.
In the wake of the equally disastrous Franco-German War of 1878-81, Paris once again fell to mob rule, this time resulting in the massacre of King Louis XXI and his family and the abolition of the French monarchy. Royalists and republicans continued to fight for control of France until 1909, when a coup d'etat by Marshal Henri Fanchon led to the permanent establishment of a republican government.
France was swiftly conquered by the Germans again after the outbreak of the Global War in 1939. The country remained under German occupation, leading to the outbreak of an anti-German uprising in Paris in November 1944. The Paris Uprising spread throughout occupied Europe, leading to the fall of Chancellor Karl Bruning two years later and the establishment of a nominally independent French state in 1947. France remained a German client state after the end of the war, and Paris was one of several European capitals to see anti-German riots in 1969.