PARIS POPULATION
History of Paris France

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It is difficult to evaluate the population in Paris, in the Middle-ages.

Around 80.000 inhabitants in the XIVth century the number increased to 300.000 in 1475 to reach one million in 1836.

Paris was an overcrowded, bustling city. One must imagine it with many overcrowded houses within the main walls, narrow and unclean streets with its built-in on bridges houses.

In the Middle-ages, the average house was built mostly from wood and plaster and was prone to dampness which ruined them.

The city was then decorated with superb gigantic monuments such as the Louvre fortress, the Temple and the Bastille fortress. Over the years, these monuments have survived but the urban landscape of the middle-ages has entirely disappeared.

Cluny and the "Lutèce" arenas remain today the two still most visible monuments.

"Saint-Jacques" street perpetuates, with a few streets, the layout of the ancients ways.

One must admit that at all time the medieval Paris suffered from mankind silliness and vandalism.

• Vandalism from architectural advance or for intent of overpassing the predecessors (Destruction of "Saint-Siège" to erect Notre-Dame)
• Destruction due to civil turmoil
• Destruction due to lack of taste
• Wild destruction during the French Revolution.

A mere fifteen or so disappeared in the "Ile de la Cité".

But Napoleonian vandalism was even more fearsome than the one perpetrated by the Jacobeans. Between 1800 and 1815 several churches were destroyed ("Célestins" convent, "Carmes" convent, "Cordeliers" convent, "Saint-Victor" church. "Sainte-Geneviève" was also destroyed except the Clovis Tower which remains today set in between monastic buildings where now stands the famous Henri IV high school. "Saint-Germain-des-Près" loses its cloister in 1802 as well as Saint-Victor church. In Paris, apart from the too modest "Billettes" cloister, there are now no more cloisters left of those in the Middle-ages which gave Paris its finery.

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