A Portrait of Majestic France (2023)

Bordeaux (bôrdo¢), city (1990 pop. 210,336), capital of Gironde department, SW France, on the Garonne R. It is a busy port, accessible to the Atlantic, with important shipyards and industries. Wine is its major product, with Bordeaux the generic name of the region’s wine. A prosperous Roman city, it flourished (11th cent.) as the seat of the dukes of Aquitaine. Eleanor of Aquitaine precipitated war between France and the English, who ruled the city (1154-1453). The city reached its height of prosperity in the 18th cent. It was the temporary seat of French government in 1914 and 1940.

This delightful town along the Seine is home to the House of the Knights Templar, or Maison des Templiers.

As the French capital, Paris is the commercial, financial, and industrial focus of France, a major transportation hub, and a cultural and intellectual center of international renown. A beautiful city in which tourism is the main industry, Paris is cut by the Seine River. On its stately, formal right (northern) bank are many of the most fashionable streets and shops, and such landmarks as the Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, Louvre, and Sacré Coeur.

The left bank houses governmental offices and is the site of much of the city’s intellectual life. It is known for its old Latin Quarter and for such landmarks as the Sorbonne, the Luxembourg Palace, the Panthéon, and the modern Pompidou Center (see Beaubourg). The historic core of Paris is the Île de la Cité, a small island occupied in part by the Palais de Justice and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Above the city rises the Eiffel Tower. Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements (boroughs) and governed by a mayor.

A fishing village when it was conquered (52 B.C.) by Caesar, it became an important Roman town. It was a Merovingian capital in the 5th cent. and became the national capital with the accession (987) of Hugh Capet, count of Paris. It flowered as the center of medieval commerce and scholasticism but suffered severely during the Hundred Years War. Paris consistently displayed a rebellious and independent spirit, as in its resistance to Henry IV (1589-93); the first Fronde (1648-49); the revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848; and the Commune of Paris (1871). During World War II it was occupied (1940-44) by the Germans but was relatively undamaged.