Paris_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Lonely Planet [46]
Standard French is taught and spoken in schools, but its various accents and subdialects are an important source of identity in certain regions. In addition, some languages belonging to peoples long since subjected to French rule have been preserved. These include Flemish in the far north; Alsatian on the German border; Breton, a Celtic tongue, in Brittany; Basque, a language unrelated to any other, in the Basque Country; Catalan, the official language of nearby Andorra and the autonomous Spanish republic of Catalonia, in Roussillon; Provençal in Provence; and Corsican, closely related to Tuscan Italian, on the island of Corsica.
French was the international language of culture and diplomacy until WWI, and the French are sensitive to its decline in importance and the hegemony of English, especially since the advent of the internet. It is virtually impossible to separate a French person from his or her language, and it is one of the things they love most about their own culture. Your best bet is always to approach people politely in French, even if the only words you know are ‘Pardon, parlez-vous anglais?’ (Excuse me, do you speak English?). Don’t worry; they won’t bite.
For more on what to say and how to say it en français, Click here. Lonely Planet also publishes the more comprehensive French phrasebook.
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TIMELINE
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3rd century BC Celtic Gauls called Parisii – believed to mean ‘boat men’ – arrive in the Paris area and set up a few wattle-and-daub huts on what is now the Île de la Cité. Here they engage in fishing and trading.
52 BC Roman legions under Julius Caesar crush a Celtic revolt led by Vercingétorix on the Mons Lutetius (now the site of the Panthéon) and establish the town of Lutetia.
AD 845–86 Paris is repeatedly raided by Vikings for more than four decades including the siege of 885–86 by Siegfried the Saxon, which lasts 10 months but ends in victory for the French.
1066 The so-called Norman Conquest (and subsequent occupation) of England ignites almost 300 years of conflict between the Normans in western and northern France and the Capetians in Paris.
1163 Two centuries of nonstop building reaches its zenith with the start of Notre Dame Cathedral under Maurice de Sully, the bishop of Paris; construction will continue for more than a century and a half.
1253 La Sorbonne is founded by Robert de Sorbon, confessor to Louis IX, as a theological college for impoverished students in the area of the Left Bank known as the Latin Quarter, where students and their teachers communicated in that language exclusively.
1358 The Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) between France and England and the devastation and poverty caused by the plague lead to the ill-fated peasants’ revolt led by Étienne Marcel.
1429 French forces under Joan of Arc defeat the English near Orléans but three years later Joan is captured by the Burgundians, allies of the English, and burned at the stake in Rouen.
1532–64 The 16th century is a period of heightened literary activity which sees the publication of Rabelais’ five-part satirical work Gargantua and Panagruel over more than three decades.
1547–50 Some 39 Huguenots (French Protestants) are burned at the stake in place de Grève (today’s place de l’Hôtel de Ville), which spurs a nationwide religious civil war.
1572 Some 3000 Huguenots in Paris to celebrate the wedding of the Protestant Henri of Navarre (the future Henri IV) are slaughtered on 23–24 August, in what is now called the St