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00:03It's the collision, the meeting between big ideas and big violence that have actually
00:10made France what it is today.
00:11Throughout its tumultuous history, Paris has been sacked, occupied multiple times and
00:18endured a bloody revolution.
00:20It's got this history of popular uprising from the Middle Ages right through the 16th
00:26century, the Fronde in the 17th century, and the French Revolution, obviously.
00:31Then the revolution of 1830, 1848, and 1871, there's a whole of that way through.
00:41You've got these explosions, if you like, of popular violence and resistance.
00:48Egality, fraternity, liberty.
00:50The spirit of the revolution lives on in the city of Paris nearly 250 years later.
00:57But despite this, much remains of this most creative of cities.
01:02What has survived is treasured and admired not just by Parisians themselves, but by people
01:08the world over.
01:10Paris, as the fashion capital of the world, is born in the 12th century and becomes known
01:16throughout Europe in the 13th.
01:18Visually, of course, it has never been destroyed.
01:23Like that of the Greeks in the ancient world, the culture of France is regarded with prestige.
01:29Its language became one of international diplomacy.
01:33It is a Polish city.
01:35It's the city of culture.
01:37It dominates the country in a way that many other capital cities don't.
01:41France's reputation for high culture has meant even its invaders have regarded its capital
01:47with fascination and awe.
01:49Its contents to be treasured and not destroyed.
01:53Throughout French history, Paris has been at the center of it all.
01:57It's a city that's been very carefully designed to have a kind of unified architecture.
02:04And often when foreigners come here for the first time, and this is often called the Japanese
02:07effect because it happens to Japanese tourists, they can't believe when they get here what
02:11they've seen on YouTube or on Instagram, it's all real.
02:14The feeling that France is a great power to be reckoned with is something that never goes
02:19away.
02:25Like many ancient cities, Paris owes its founding to its location.
02:30In this case, on a river, the Seine, a mighty river that travels hundreds of kilometers from
02:36the Atlantic to the site of the city today.
02:41Located in the center of Paris, in the middle of the river Seine, the Romans originally used
02:46the island known as Ile de la Cité as a fortress.
02:50It was fortified by the Romans in 52 BC.
02:54During the first century, the city spread to the left bank of the Seine.
02:59The Romans called it Laetitia, meaning swamp or muddy place.
03:05Paris is one of a large number of cities all across what the Romans called Gaul, we call France.
03:12About 60 of them, which were the local government centers.
03:16Paris is in many ways a bog standard Roman provincial city.
03:21By the early 4th century, the city was known as Parisi, after its local inhabitants, from
03:28which its name derives.
03:31The Romans had about 60 cities in Gaul, as it was known, and many, such as Nîmes and
03:37Arles in the south of France were far more important.
03:41This is an old Roman bar of house still viewable in the center of modern day Paris.
03:47Despite the relative insignificance to the Romans, Paris contained more Roman ruins than London
03:54across the Channel, a far more important city at the time.
03:57In the late Roman period, the empire is under huge pressure, there have been invasions across
04:05the Rhine, and therefore the whole of the interior of Gaul is put into a much more defensive posture.
04:13And most cities in northern Gaul, including Paris, acquire a very powerful set of defenses.
04:21In the case of Paris, what they do is they fortify the Ile de la Cité, the area where
04:27now Notre-Dame stands, and a combination of very powerful stone walls and the broad river Seine gives
04:37a hugely defensible kernel to the city.
04:41After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Christianity took hold in Paris as elsewhere
04:47in Europe in the early 6th century. But these were the Dark Ages. Legend was that St Genevieve,
04:55who became the patron saint of Paris in the 5th century, was credited with saving the city
05:01from barbarian invasion, led by Attila the Hun.
05:05St Genevieve organized the citizens to defend their city, not just to give up and be slaughtered
05:13by the Huns, but to stand up against them. And of course, again, having this enormously powerful
05:19fortress out in the middle of the river made it very difficult for the Huns to attack, and
05:25eventually, in fact, Attila gives up and goes and tries somewhere easier. Paris starts to
05:31rise to become exceptional in a way that it hadn't ever been under the Romans.
05:40It was soon after that that Frankish kings from the Netherlands took control over Paris and
05:46beyond. Then, in the 8th century, the Pope crowned Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor,
05:55establishing Paris, for centuries to come, as the European epicentre of the Roman Catholic
06:01Church. The city then withstood Viking sieges in the 9th century after they had invaded Normandy.
06:11Over time, these Vikings became part of the Norman population.
06:18One of the official titles of the kings of France down towards the revolution was the most
06:24Christian king. So, yes, it was kingship, it was political and military kingship, obviously,
06:32but also to an extent sacred kingship, because the kings of France were crowned in Reims Cathedral,
06:40so they had divine sanction and approval for being kings, and to oppose them was potentially
06:49sacrilege as much as anything else. This cathedral, on the outskirts of today's Paris, was in fact
06:57the first Gothic building in Europe. It was built as a mortuary and cathedral to house the remains
07:04of the early French kings. Gothic was invented in Paris as a very sort of practical, but also
07:11extremely deluxe and exciting new style. And that's where you get the first sort of expansive set of
07:17Gothic windows around the shrine of Saint Denis to really spotlight his holy powers. And that's
07:24especially important because Saint Denis is the patron saint of the kings of France. So you also have all
07:29this royal money coming in to support this huge new building endeavour. The facade of this building was
07:35originally covered in gold mosaics. Today, that's not the case. It's in an area of social deprivation and
07:41it's in an area where there's a lot of poverty, yet still inside of this basilica, you've got what remains
07:47of the French kings and queens. There was a lot of iconoclasm there in the revolution, though, so that's why
07:53so many
07:54deluxe things are long lost. The Ile de la Cité became the centre of medieval Paris in the 12th century,
08:01and an important religious centre, the home of Notre Dame Cathedral, where construction began in 1163.
08:10And the majestic royal chapel of Saint-Chapelle, built by Louis IX to house holy relics he'd brought from Jerusalem.
08:19By the Middle Ages, Paris was the largest city in Europe, an important religious and commercial centre.
08:27And because of its cathedrals, the birthplace of the Gothic style of architecture.
08:33The medieval period is when Paris became fashionable. It's when Paris started to cultivate their own style.
08:40And you really see this in the art and architecture of the Gothic imagination.
08:44So that's kind of kicking off in the 1140s, in and around Paris.
08:50Architects are able to build these extraordinary sites with pointed arches and stained glass windows,
08:57higher and brighter buildings that we've ever seen before.
09:00And so that's, for me, the hallmark of medieval Paris, is the Gothic imagination,
09:05and then that just gets copied everywhere else at courts in Europe.
09:11The University of Paris on the left bank, organised in the mid-13th century, was one of the first in
09:18Europe.
09:19At the beginning of the 12th century, the French kings of the Capetian dynasty controlled little more than Paris and
09:26the surrounding region.
09:27But they did their best to build up Paris as a political, economic, religious and cultural capital of France.
09:36The Saint-Chapelle, the chapel of the former royal palace on the Ile de la Cité, flooded by light through
09:43its stained glass windows,
09:45is a masterpiece of Gothic style. Built nearly 800 years ago, is still regarded as the most beautiful church in
09:53Paris.
09:55Its light and ambience are breathtaking, and its most striking feature is its 15 stained glass windows,
10:04soaring 50 feet to a star-covered, vaulted ceiling.
10:09It was built by the French king, Louis IX, in 1248, to house holy relics he'd collected in the Holy
10:17Land.
10:18The Saint-Chapelle is the royal chapel in Paris, and it's arguably the most sort of deluxe, beautifully designed church
10:27in all of Europe.
10:28When you visit it today, it's almost like standing inside of a jewellery box, or looking through a kaleidoscope.
10:34It's full of gold, it's full of polychromy or paint, and it's got over 1,000 different panels of Gothic
10:42glass windows.
10:43So, you're not going to find a more sort of visibly and visually charging atmosphere.
10:49But the Saint-Chapelle isn't just beautiful.
10:53This holy chapel is extremely sacred in its function and its representation, what it sort of needs to do.
11:00What it needs to do is hold precious relics.
11:03It was constructed from about 1239 until 1248 to hold the crown of thorns, putatively worn by Christ during his
11:13Passion.
11:13And not just the crown of thorns belonged to the Saint-Chapelle.
11:17About 20 other sacred relics were collected there and enshrined together under the aegis of King Louis IX of France.
11:27It was the largest private collection of passion relics in Christendom.
11:33Louis was deeply religious and went on a crusade to the Holy Land, where in 1239 he apparently collected the
11:42relics,
11:43which included the crown of thorns, fragments of the true cross, nails from the crucifixion, and droplets of Christ's blood.
11:51It is said Louis bought the relics from the Emperor of Constantinople, paying three times as much as it cost
11:59to build the church.
12:00The crown of thorns, a true cross relic we're told that was longer than a man's leg.
12:06The holy lance that pierced the side of Christ on the cross.
12:10Those are the kind of top three objects, but it also gets into sort of deeper aspects of the drama
12:16of the Passion.
12:17It had a shroud that was wrapped around Christ's face when he was in the tomb.
12:22It contained fragments of some of the purple vestments that Christ was wrapped in when he was mocked by the
12:28soldiers as the King of the Jews.
12:31There are some objects in that collection that aren't actually directly related to Christ.
12:35Some that might surprise people today, like drops of the Virgin Mary's milk.
12:39And four head relics, a bit of John the Baptist's head, and then the head of St. Clement, St. Blaise,
12:47and St. Simeon.
12:49So, a really formidable collection of holy things.
12:52And I should add that all of these things were acquired by Louis IX because he bailed out his broke
13:00cousin,
13:02the Latin Emperor, Baldwin II, who was then in Constantinople.
13:06So, all of those sacred items, about 20 of them, in Paris, enshrined in the Saint-Chapelle,
13:12came from very ancient imperial collections in Constantinople.
13:20When Louis was older, he launched his first crusade.
13:24That occurred in 1244, and he left for the Holy Land in 1248.
13:30The crusade was a disaster. It went terribly wrong.
13:34His brother died in it alongside thousands of other fighters.
13:37He was actually captured in Egypt and held for ransom.
13:42He didn't return to Paris until 1254.
13:45When he comes back to Paris, the formerly quite fun king,
13:50who loved to dress in furs and fine clothes, was a totally transformed man.
13:56And that's when his asceticism really kicks off.
13:59It looks like he felt that the crusade disaster was his fault.
14:03And he started to live a much more humble life thereafter.
14:07So, in the 1250s and in the 1260s, King Louis IX, his life really resembled that of a friar or
14:16a monk.
14:16He was up praying all times of day and night.
14:19He'd washed the feet of the poor.
14:21He spent loads of money building hospitals, looking after lepers.
14:25He was a huge patron, not just of the arts and architecture, like I said earlier, but of health and
14:31abbeys and churches.
14:34Louis IX presided over a regime which moulded church and state together.
14:40His Saint-Chapelle remains an exquisite example of Gothic architecture,
14:45which would be exported to other parts of Europe and to the wider world.
14:50But the holy mission of the crusading King Louis would end tragically in North Africa.
14:56In 1267, King Louis IX launches his second crusade.
15:01And in this case, like his first crusade, the real objective was, of course, taking back, as it were, the
15:09Holy Land for Christians.
15:11And, of course, taking back is not really the right word, but he wanted to take it over.
15:16He was really keen on conversion.
15:20And there's something very interesting about what Louis did after the first crusade in the 1250s, even though it failed.
15:26He brought back with him thousands of Muslims who'd converted to Christianity
15:31and set them up with free housing in and around Paris and Pontoise.
15:35It's an amazing sort of civic project.
15:37So in the 1260s, in 1267, when he declares his second crusade,
15:42he starts that crusade in present-day Tunisia, near Carthage.
15:47But in August, there's an outbreak of dysentery.
15:51And at this stage, he gets it and he dies quite soon after.
15:55Louis' crusades were disasters.
15:58They were the most expensive in the run-up.
16:01They had the highest number of participants.
16:04But they failed miserably, as in tens of thousands of people died early on in the kind of planned attack.
16:12King Louis became Saint Louis in 1297, after being canonised by the Pope.
16:19His holy chapel, Saint-Chapelle, has been beautifully restored after being badly savaged in the French Revolution.
16:29Nearby also on the Ile de la Cité, Notre Dame, the cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary,
16:37is considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture.
16:43Beautifully restored after a tragic fire in 2015, Notre Dame is visited by thousands of people every day.
16:51Several attributes set it apart from the earlier Romanesque style, including its pioneering use of the rib vaults and flying
17:00buttresses,
17:02its enormous and colourful rose windows, and the naturalism and abundance of its sculptural decoration.
17:09It seems to represent the entire history of Paris and all of France, too.
17:15It's the place where Parisian identity and French national identity was essentially forged.
17:22It becomes the place where power is cultivated and pronounced.
17:27And we've talked a lot about that so far in the medieval period.
17:31So, for example, when Louis IX brings the crown of thorns into Paris,
17:36he leads this spectacular procession through the city that culminates in this climactic celebration inside the cathedral of Notre Dame.
17:44It's sort of the umbilicus or the sort of navel of his kingdom.
17:48And that's where the people are allowed to sing their praises for the first time to honour the crown's coming.
17:54Later on in history, of course, when Napoleon crowns himself emperor, he does so inside Notre Dame,
18:03because that's again where the power is activated for these kings and these rulers and these generals.
18:08And, of course, earlier on in the French Revolution, when people are very angry about being oppressed by these ancient
18:17regime participants,
18:19they focus their iconoclasm on Notre Dame.
18:22Notre Dame is the crucible of this French power.
18:26It's also a place that is incredibly holy and means lots of things to lots of people.
18:32It's a place of great scholasticism.
18:35It's where a lot of theologians have passed through, and it's a sanctuary for everybody,
18:40not just bishops, not just monks, but for anyone who's ever lived in Paris.
18:44You could find solace inside those walls.
18:47Mounted within this impressive display, it also now holds Louis IX's most holy relics, the crown of thorns,
18:56which disappeared during the French Revolution only to appear here after the restoration of the monarchy.
19:02From my point of view, at least, the object that's in Notre Dame today is probably the same object that
19:10King Louis IX carried into Paris eight centuries ago.
19:13What you see today in Notre Dame Cathedral is a 19th century circlet with crystal and gold.
19:21And if you look very carefully in those kind of crystalline vitrine sections, you can see these rushes or bands
19:28gathered together.
19:30You can't see much more than that, but that's offered to pilgrims and the faithful to kiss every Good Friday.
19:37So if you want a close look at the relic of the crown of thorns, I recommend that you book
19:41in for Passion Week next year and visit it,
19:44because you can queue up to venerate the relic, and you have a few seconds looking at it.
19:49And that's the best chance to get a close look at it today.
19:51The exquisite quality of French religious craftsmanship during the early Middle Ages, apparent in the Gothic structures of Saint-Chapelle,
20:01Notre Dame, and the Cathedral of Saint Denis,
20:04can be seen elsewhere in the collections of Paris museums, from tapestries, sculptures, stained glass, and ceramic inlay.
20:12The high quality of French craftsmanship, which would make it the envy of Europe in the coming centuries,
20:20was evident as far back as the time of the Crusades and the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066.
20:28In the 13th century, Paris was arguably the most impressive and powerful city in Europe.
20:35At the start of the century, you had about 100,000 people living in about a square mile radius.
20:41By the end of the century, 200,000 people.
20:44So it's growing, and it's growing because it's a place you want to work and trade.
20:49It's the epicenter of what's cool in Europe.
20:53You've got goldsmiths, you've got architects, but you also have, of course, the University of Paris.
20:59In other places, like Bologna, there's an earlier one from the late 11th century.
21:04Oxford and Cambridge are just coming into their own at the start of the 13th century.
21:08Paris is where you go to learn about medicine, where you go to learn about the law,
21:13and, of course, where you go to learn about how to have power in the church.
21:17I think people might be aware that if they live in a place like St. Louis that it alludes to
21:23a saint,
21:23but they might not know that their saint is a crusader king who got it wrong
21:27and who kicked off various different styles of art and architecture
21:32and who patronized craftsmen and who tried to convert North Africans
21:38and convert the Mongols to Christianity.
21:42I think St. Louis is one of the most fascinating people in the Middle Ages,
21:46and he made Paris into a sort of new paradise.
21:51In acquiring the Crown of Thorns, of course, he makes Paris into a new Jerusalem.
21:56The power and attraction of a Christian faith dominated art
22:01and found ready patrons in religious zealotry of the early French kings such as Louis.
22:06All the best stuff is being developed there because, in part, you've got a lot of comfortable patronage
22:14from a very, very wealthy royal family and an extensive, luxurious, fashion-loving royal court.
22:22It is perhaps the most impressive place to make things because these artists have the ability to experiment.
22:31They have a lot of money coming in, and their productions are valued by the most wealthy people just around
22:38the corner.
22:39There are all these other glorious places with excellent artistic production, but Parisian style remains special.
22:47And a lot of the developments further afield owe their sort of roots to sourcing Parisian stuff
22:55and getting Parisian goldsmiths, artisans, and architects over.
23:00As for Louis, the great royal patron of the medieval age,
23:04his name would be the name carried forward by most French kings in the centuries to come.
23:13Over time, especially throughout the Capetian dynasty, the Louis as a sequence of rulers are much loved and respected,
23:23and so they continue to name their ruler after Louis.
23:27And this continues beyond the Capetian dynasty, beyond the Valois dynasty, and into the Bourbon dynasty,
23:34in part because of the reputation of Louis IX.
23:38Louis IX becomes Saint Louis. He's a Christian king.
23:42And that's one of the most attractive and desirable things for any ruler in Christendom.
23:48You know, he's on par with Charlemagne, in a sense.
23:52Or Constantine, these great rex christenissimi, most Christian kings.
23:57So especially after Louis IX, who dies in 1270, but is canonized in 1297,
24:04you want to be called Louis, just like him.
24:10With the departure of the French king to the Louvre Palace, the Tuileries Palace,
24:15and then the Palace of Versailles, the Ile de la Cité became France's judicial centre.
24:21In 1302, it hosted the first meeting of the Paris Parliament,
24:26and was later the site of the trials of the aristocrats during the French Revolution.
24:31La Conciergerie, situated in an old Gothic palace next to Saint-Chapelle,
24:37was converted into a prison for those convicted at show trials in the Palais of Justice next door.
24:46In the 14th and 15th centuries, Paris entered a dark age,
24:51hindered twice by the Black Death or bubonic plague.
24:58But in the late Middle Ages, the cultural artistry that was emerging from Renaissance Italy
25:04would eclipse what was being produced elsewhere in the continent, including France.
25:10Like everywhere else, the French kings would now embellish their capital cities
25:16with architectural styles borrowed from those of Renaissance Italy.
25:21Italian artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, were recruited to work for monarchs such as Francis I.
25:30There is a movement by the kings and their key courtiers to export Italian artists back to France.
25:40And there is a legend that Francis I was very, very close to Leonardo da Vinci in his last years.
25:48Certainly, he provides accommodation for Leonardo at a manor house near the Royal Chateau at Anboise.
25:58And this is where Leonardo spends the final years of his life.
26:03He travels there with his favourite assistant.
26:06He takes his favourite, most precious paintings and those he's still working on with him to France.
26:12And this is how many of Leonardo's paintings finish in the royal collections and are now present in the Louvre,
26:21in the national collections.
26:24It's said Leonardo brought his most famous work, the Mona Lisa, now at the Louvre at this time.
26:31Certainly, Francis I was a huge fan.
26:37Situated on the border between Saint-Chapelle-de-Prince and the Latin Quarter,
26:42the Luxembourg Gardens, inspired by the Boboli Gardens in Florence,
26:47were created on the initiative of the mother of Louis XIII,
26:51the widow of Henry IV, Queen Mary de' Medici, in 1612.
26:57The gardens cover 25 hectares of land.
27:00Here, you find statues, not only of Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris,
27:07but of numerous French queen consorts, but none were ever a queen in their own right.
27:14It's very interesting because we tend to think of many female figures in French history as key and influential,
27:22particularly in the 16th century Catherine de' Medici.
27:28Unfortunately, under Salic law, which is particular to France, no woman, no princess can become queen in their own right.
27:39Queen Mary de' Medici's husband Henry IV and her son Louis XIII also oversaw the building of some of the
27:47city's most famous parks and monuments.
27:50A statue of Louis XIII still stands in the centre of this picturesque small park known as the Place des
27:59Vosges in the city's Marais district.
28:02The park is surrounded by these exquisite apartments, built in the early 16th century, the finest example of the style
28:11in the city.
28:12This still remains, arguably, Paris's most beautiful square, a masterpiece of aristocratic elegance, and is the first example of a
28:22planned development in the city.
28:24Soon, the French kings and their capital would see themselves and their city as the natural heir to not only
28:32the culture of Renaissance Italy, but of Rome itself.
28:36It is in their interest to try and perpetuate the Roman system because, amongst other things, it produces things like
28:43tax and other revenues and things that you want.
28:47The modern diplomatic system was established by the Italians in the 15th century, who initially send out temporary ambassadors and
28:59then establish resident ambassadors at the key courts.
29:04The system of negotiation is established by the great Italian peace treaties of the 15th century, but then we think
29:15of French diplomats as really leading that process, particularly by the 17th century.
29:23So France becomes the arbiter of the world, whereas Italy had been in the 15th century, French becomes the language
29:33of diplomacy, whereas Latin and, of course, the vernacular Italian had been in the 15th century.
29:40At the royal burial tombs of the French monarchs at the cathedral at the cathedral at Denny, the royal effigies
29:47of monarchs such as Francis I, Louis XII, would now be presented not just as monarchs, but as emperors, beginning
29:55a trend that would last for centuries.
29:58But by the 17th century, Paris was once again the centre of global ambitions.
30:05It was the largest city in Europe, with a population of half a million, matched in size only by London
30:12in the 16th century.
30:14Paris had become the book publishing capital of Europe. Its heritage is still on display in the streets, cafes and
30:23riverside stalls.
30:27France's next king, Louis XIV, would take the royal connection to empire, ancient Rome, Italian Renaissance and, of course, Roman
30:37Catholicism to new heights.
30:40The most tangible evidence of Louis XIV having a strong sense of grandeur are the statues which are produced of
30:48him, both for Versailles and for places like the Place des Victoires in the middle of Paris and the Place
30:53Vendôme.
30:54As it now is in the middle of Paris II.
30:57These have Louis as a Roman emperor of one sort or another, perhaps dressed in his coronation robes, perhaps dressed
31:05as a Roman emperor, perhaps wearing a laurel wreath, perhaps having victory crowning him with a laurel wreath standing behind
31:12him.
31:12But in any case, what is going on here is the projection of the King of France as a Roman
31:20emperor and not just as God's vicar on earth, but almost as a demigod himself.
31:26Louis XIV.
31:28Louis XIV was born in 1638 and was also known as Louis the Great or Louis Le Grand or the
31:37Sun King.
31:39He was the King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715.
31:46The King of Spain until 1665, Philip IV, always was called the Planet King because he had territories all over
31:56the planet, in the Americas, in the East Indies and everything else like that.
31:59And Louis XIV said, well, you know, if he's the Planet King, I'm the Sun King and the Sun is
32:04a much bigger thing than the planet.
32:06His reign of more than 72 years was for centuries the longest of any sovereign.
32:13He ascended the throne aged only five.
32:17Later on, as he became a teenager, he was very much led by Mazarin, who was the chief minister at
32:25that time.
32:26And when Mazarin died, people thought this very young King would actually depend upon other dominant ministers like that.
32:37And they came to him and they said, who should we report to now?
32:40And the King said, to me, I'm the King.
32:43And from then on, you know, everybody knew that this was the King and he was the one who was
32:48going to give the orders.
32:49Louis XIV becomes, over the course of his reign, the most important figure in Europe.
32:54And of course, as King of France, he is the embodiment of France and in fact sees himself as the
32:59embodiment of its interests as well.
33:01And he wants everybody else to think so, too.
33:03To a very large extent, people outside France do think that.
33:08And the great thing about Louis XIV, he was not impulsive.
33:11He was careful. He was systematic.
33:15He was a very conscientious ruler in one sense.
33:18But that conscientiousness reflected the fact that he had a dominant personality.
33:24His pageantry, opulent lifestyle and innate cultivated image earned him enduring admiration as he established a cultural prestige for France,
33:36which lasted through the subsequent centuries and continues today.
33:40In the age of the divine right of kings, Louis would grow to see himself as a modern equivalent of
33:48the Egyptian pharaohs and Paris would be his new Rome.
33:53This is why Voltaire, who wrote the first great life of Louis XIV, sort of 30 years after he died,
34:02said, you know, this was the peak, the most culturally glorious age since the Roman times.
34:08France's relationship with Italy is an ambivalent one.
34:12In the 16th century, they had sought to take over large chunks of it through inheritance and conquest.
34:17There is in many respects a cultural cringe in France towards Italy in the 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries.
34:24But as the 17th century wears on, you start to see a desire to actually surpass Rome in the achievements
34:32of the French, in the perfection of the French language and also in the perfection of artistic styles that you
34:39can date back to imperial antiquity.
34:42It was very, very impressive because it did make the French language, French ways, French fashions and so on, the
34:52really dominant ones in Europe for a good century and maybe more.
34:57The Louvre, now one of the world's most popular museums, had been the Paris home to a succession of French
35:05monarchs stretching back to the Middle Ages.
35:07A number of French kings added or redesigned this giant palace.
35:13It has been embellished, renovated and added to over a period of nearly 500 years.
35:20Louis XIV's great contribution was to the grand façade housing its eastern entrance, signified by his initials, embellished into the
35:32stonework, as was common for all French monarchs as acknowledgment of their architectural contribution.
35:38The history of the Louvre would change forever when the sun king decided to move his court outside of Paris,
35:47where he would construct a brand new palace.
35:51Initially, Louis XIV simply expanded the original hunting lodge by adding a couple of wings at the front and some
35:59formal gardens at the back.
36:01In the 1670s, however, Louis XIV decided to expand Versailles once again, this time on a truly massive scale.
36:11By 1682, the vast new palace was finally completed and was now worthy of becoming his principal home.
36:25Located just over 10 miles outside Paris, the extraordinary grand scale of Versailles was specifically intended by Louis XIV to
36:35visibly demonstrate the French monarch's huge power and wealth.
36:39This was important because from 1682 onwards, it became not only his principal home, but also the seat of the
36:48French government.
36:51It's interesting to reflect why he should have wanted to build a palace outside of Paris.
36:58He had a perfectly serviceable, in fact, a rather brilliant palace in Paris, which was the Louvre.
37:04But Louis XIV doesn't seem to have felt very comfortable in Paris.
37:09So putting himself at a distance from the people of Paris, who have a reputation, obviously, of being turbulent and
37:15later revolutionary, was definitely one possible reason.
37:19But I think also he just liked, you know, he liked the model, he liked to be himself the centre
37:24of attention, the centre of a world that he had constructed, really.
37:30Remarkably, the palace is said to have over 2000 rooms.
37:34Of all the rooms, the largest and most spectacular is its dazzling main reception, the Grand Gallery, otherwise known as
37:43the Hall of Mirrors.
37:45Astonishingly, it's 240 feet long, certainly the most famous room in all of France.
37:52Over the centuries, it has hosted numerous great state occasions, including the signing of the Treaty that recognised the independence
38:00of the United States of America, and the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.
38:07The room's magnificent mirrors, of course, are its most famous feature.
38:14Louis XIV was very proud of his mirrors, because there is 357 mirrors, and it was very difficult to make
38:21so big mirrors at that time.
38:23So Louis XIV sent spies to Venice to know how to make these mirrors, but he wanted to have his
38:30own French manufacturers.
38:32So this Hall of Mirrors was kind of like a showroom of the French technical abilities.
38:40When they arrived here, the visitors had to be very impressed by the power and the money, the richness of
38:46the King Louis XIV and the French people.
38:51Three hundred years after, it's always a symbol of France, Versailles, so Louis XIV succeeded with his dream of Versailles.
39:04When the King decided to settle here in 1682, thousands of his courtiers came here in Versailles, so you have
39:13to imagine here more than a thousand people a day.
39:25Cleverly, Louis XIV took advantage of the vast size of Versailles by insisting that his thousands of courtiers live here
39:33in the palace too, so that he could keep a close eye on them.
39:37The reign of previous French kings had been plagued by plots led by discontented nobility.
39:44By keeping the nobles here at Versailles isolated from their regional power bases, Louis XIV could easily foil any treacherous
39:53plots.
39:56Right at the heart of the palace, beyond room after room of grand state apartments used for receptions and official
40:04occasions, were Louis XIV's so-called private apartments centered around the royal bedchamber.
40:13We are here in the king's bedroom and it is the most important room in the palace because it's just
40:19in the middle and because it is the room of the king, of course, and it was the seat of
40:25the government, so European ambassadors were received here.
40:32Remarkably, to modernize almost all aspects of Louis XIV's life took place as a public ritual, and even his bedroom
40:40was usually crowded with courtiers.
40:43The most distinguished or favored of them would even be invited as a great honor to participate in the couche
40:50ceremony, which involved helping the king undress before he went to bed.
40:57Here you have a balustrade, and it's very important. It is a symbolic separation between the temporal and spiritual area.
41:05As the king was considered as God on earth, so only few people could enter and cross this balustrade.
41:13That is to say, the people, the king wanted to honor for the couche. It is what we call etiquette.
41:20Nowadays, it's very funny to understand, but at that time, it was very important.
41:24His reign would come to be seen as a golden age, and later rulers, not just in France, but all
41:32across Europe, would try to copy the legacy of the so-called Sun King.
41:38One of the things which is very evident from the late 17th and for the rest of the 18th century
41:43is any monarch worth their salt, any monarch wanting to sort of cut the mustard and international power politics, wants
41:50a Versailles.
41:51So Versailles became a model which was much admired, but also was much imitated.
41:57All the courts of Europe began to imitate Versailles. In other words, to build royal palaces outside their capital cities.
42:06So you see, this is why, when William III comes to the throne, this is why he elaborates Hampton Court,
42:12for example, sort of British Versailles.
42:14But you've got palaces like that in Austria, Schönbrunn, for example. In Naples, Caserta, for example.
42:24The great palaces of the great palaces of Russia, which, that's in the 18th century.
42:28But what they've got their eye on all the time is the Versailles model which Louis XIV had established.
42:34France was by far the most populous country in Europe, so it could draw upon enormous numbers of manpower,
42:41which obviously was crucial for dominating other countries as well. So that was part of it.
42:49And Louis XIV wanted also to be the dominant ruler in Europe. He had that power behind him.
42:55He had that taxation revenue behind him. He had the biggest army in Europe by far.
43:00And by the first decade of the 18th century, he had an army of 400,000 men, which was totally
43:09unprecedented in Europe.
43:11The Hotel Nacional des Invalides, with its imposing golden dome rising to over 110 metres,
43:20was built by Louis XIV to house and treat wounded soldiers.
43:26It also tended later to several thousand soldiers from Napoleon's army.
43:32Louis XIV takes very seriously the Roman idea of discipline in his armed forces,
43:38but also the need to ensure that his veteran troops, as they come to the end of their time in
43:45his service,
43:46are taken care of. And he wants to try and build upon recent traditions of the last 100 or 200
43:52years,
43:53but also build upon Roman traditions of military authority, military decorum, and military welfare.
44:00The hospital of Les Invalides is for old veteran soldiers, particularly those who have got severe wounds,
44:08but may well live quite a few more years, those who have done their duty.
44:12The way in which it is designed as a grid system, the austerity of it, the way in which you're
44:21using stone which will last,
44:23all of these ideas were very much the ideas of the time as to what Rome was like.
44:30That Rome built to last, it built in monumental stone, it built in monolithic stone, and it built in a
44:40rather austere fashion.
44:42That is the agenda, not just of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, but also of Louis XIV's war minister, the Marquis de
44:50Louvois.
44:50And it's the rivalry between Louvois and Colbert, which I think very much helps to shape the design of Paris
44:58in the 1660s and the 1670s.
45:01Nearby, Napoleon's tomb can be found in a crypt in the Cathedral of Saint Louis,
45:07also constructed during the reign of Louis XIV.
45:11Later, Napoleon, who died in exile on the island of Saint Helena,
45:15was laid to rest here in a giant red quartz-sized sarcophagus, which was finally constructed 40 years later in
45:231861.
45:24The old city walls of Paris were dismantled during the reign of Louis XIV,
45:30but Louis erected giant entry gates modelled on Roman triumphal arches.
45:36Two of these, the gate of Saint Martin and the gate of Saint Denis, are still here today.
45:44What these are, are gigantic statements that France is the new Rome,
45:50Paris itself is the epicentre of this and is the new Roman city.
45:55Now those look big, but what was also planned was another triple arch, like Constantine the Great's arch,
46:03which was supposed to be set up to the east of Paris, halfway between Paris and what is now Vincennes.
46:08But that never got built because it was one step too far, it was one project just too big for
46:15that period.
46:16Jean-Baptiste Colbert is the great culture minister of France of the 1660s and 1670s.
46:22And Colbert believes that in order to emulate Rome, you've got to emulate as much as possible the various trappings
46:30of Roman imperialism,
46:32the visual trappings of it. But he also believes that Rome's power derived from the city itself and the example
46:41it set to the world.
46:43He wants Paris to do the same and he persuades Louis XIV that that is the way forward.
46:48So in the case of the triumphal arches, what you see going on here is a direct attempt to emulate
46:56Roman triumphal arches,
46:57which display the victory of the French over what they considered to be the barbarians of the rest of Europe.
47:06Louis XIV established itself as the world's capital of fashion and luxury, as it exported colossal amounts of the stuff
47:15on a grand scale.
47:16The craftsmanship in its tapestries, furniture and paintings was the best in Europe.
47:23Back in the early 17th century, the great centre for the manufacturing of luxury goods was really the Spanish Netherlands,
47:31what is now Belgium and the Dutch Republic. But the French are determined to make Paris the centre of the
47:37luxury goods industries.
47:39They know that they cannot necessarily compete in terms of volume, but they know that they can compete in terms
47:45of skill.
47:46And so what they do is that they encourage the development of skills.
47:50They bolster the guilds where they feel that it can be useful to encourage high quality manufacturing.
47:58And they really go for what we would now call value added.
48:02They are really trying to make France the luxury exporters of Europe to the rest of Europe.
48:08And it begins in the 1660s and it really has its ups and downs for several centuries.
48:16But that is why, for example, we still associate Paris with the luxury goods industries today.
48:21But he also sets up establishments like the Gobelin Tapestry Manufacturing, the purpose of which is to essentially make France
48:30and particularly Paris the centre in the world of tapestry manufacture.
48:36And tapestries are phenomenally expensive objects. We can buy them quite cheaply now in reproduction.
48:43But in France, you'd be talking about major outlays of money for any aristocratic family that might want to have
48:48them.
48:49So Louis wants to be the person who is producing these as well. He wants to have the ultimate kudos
48:56that comes from doing that.
48:57Venice was prestigious in part in the middle of the 17th century because of its glassware and its mirrors.
49:06France sees that this is something that they can do as well.
49:12And so Louis XIV is determined to make France the centre of glassware.
49:17Not because they think they can necessarily outcompete the Venetians, but because it is a prestige luxury industry.
49:25And if it involves grandeur, if it involves prestige, the French government wants to be in on the act.
49:31And it wants to promote those people within its borders who can really deliver this wonderful material.
49:38French cabinets, the sort of thing that you would see in the side of reception rooms, in aristocratic houses, in
49:46royal palaces.
49:47Louis XIV very much encourages the development of the highest end of French carpentry.
49:56The most luxurious forms of furniture are built in French workshops, particularly in Paris and in parts of the north,
50:05north of France and Lyon as well.
50:08And Louis doesn't just promote these objects and promote the people who are in fact producing these objects.
50:18He buys them himself. He commissions them from the royal palace.
50:22You get the most extraordinary cabinets with marquetry that you really are unrivalled anywhere else in the world.
50:31Louis now wanted France to become the centre, not just of Europe, but the world.
50:37French science, as well as its arts, would get it there, with the founding of the Paris Observatory and the
50:44French Academy of Sciences.
50:47The French government, particularly driven by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, very much want Paris to be seen as the centre of
50:54Europe, if not the centre of the world.
50:58This is not just a matter of symbolism. This is not just a matter of culture and prestige.
51:03It also involves the Paris Meridian and actually trying to make the rest of the world think that, in fact,
51:11the Meridian line does not run through Greenwich, it runs through Paris.
51:15They are trying to standardise measurements in France 140 years or so before they come up with the metric system.
51:23And they are trying to attract foreign scientists to Paris so that this will be the great centre in the
51:30world.
51:31Not Peking, not Beijing at the time, which had had that reputation, but Paris from now on will be the
51:37centre of astronomy.
51:38And if Paris is at the centre of the world, in the centre of astronomy, Paris is also at the
51:44centre of the solar system and the centre of the universe.
51:48And to that end, the French government builds the Great Observatory, which at that point is just to the south
51:56of Paris's city walls, in open countryside where you can gaze at the night stars without any of the problems
52:03of light coming from the city.
52:04The observatory of Paris remains to this day to the south of the Luxembourg gardens.
52:11And it is, again, one of the great examples of Roman imperial style architecture in Paris.
52:18And like many Roman buildings, the original ones, I mean, back in the days of Augustus, this is actually a
52:26very austere and simple building that is built to last.
52:32On September the 1st, 1715, Louis XIV died here in his bedroom, surrounded by his courtiers.
52:41On his deathbed, his last words to his successor as king were,
52:45Apparently, I loved walls and buildings too much. Do not copy me.
52:53Louis's critics say Louis's privilege, he was king almost his entire life, from the age of five until his death,
53:00meant he became too full of himself.
53:04If you look at some of the sort of semi-allegorical pictures of Louis XIV, he's dressed as a Roman
53:11emperor, and this is the legacy of Rome.
53:15Even one of his visual signatures, they say the extravagant wig, was introduced because he was almost bald.
53:23They're absolutely universal by 1700, but they start off with Louis XIV, who was losing his hair, and wanted wigs,
53:32and everyone copied them.
53:34Whatever your view, it was less than 100 years after Louis's passing that the divine right of kings, so central
53:42to the ancient regime, would begin to falter,
53:45and would soon come to a sudden and bloody end on the streets of Paris.
53:53Next time, Napoleon, the empire builder, shapes Paris as it enters a new and uncharted era in its grand history.
54:04Napoleon, who really dominates Europe in a way Louis XIV never managed to do, and turns Europe completely upside down.
54:13The empire builder, andoses the empire of Paris as it enters a new and uncharted era in Louis XIV.
54:43Oh, oh, oh, oh.
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