. Paris and its story, by T. Okey; illustrated by Katherine Kimball & O. F. M. Ward . ear the rich corn-land of La Beauce, and to the north-east, over the openplain of La Valois, lay the way to Flanders, It was one ofthe river stations on the line of the Phoenician traders intin, that most precious and rare of ancient metals, betweenMarseilles and Britain, and in the early Middle Ages became,with Lyons and Beaucaire, one of the chief fairs of thathistoric trade route which the main lines of railway trafficstill follow to-day. The island now known as the Cite,which the founders of Paris chose f
. Paris and its story, by T. Okey; illustrated by Katherine Kimball & O. F. M. Ward . ear the rich corn-land of La Beauce, and to the north-east, over the openplain of La Valois, lay the way to Flanders, It was one ofthe river stations on the line of the Phoenician traders intin, that most precious and rare of ancient metals, betweenMarseilles and Britain, and in the early Middle Ages became,with Lyons and Beaucaire, one of the chief fairs of thathistoric trade route which the main lines of railway trafficstill follow to-day. The island now known as the Cite,which the founders of Paris chose for their stronghold, wasthe largest of the group which lay involved in the many The Seine takes five hours to flow through the seven miles ofmodern Paris. GALLO-ROMAN PARIS 3 windings of the Seine, and was embraced by a natural moatof deep waters. To north and south lay hills, marshes andforests, and all combined to give it a position equallyadapted for defence and for commerce. The Parisii were a small tribe of Gauls who werecontent to place themselves under the protection of the. more powerful Senones. Their island city was the home ofa prosperous community of shipmen and merchants, but itis not until the Conquest of Gaul by the Romans thatLutetia, for such was its Gallic name, enters the greatpageant of written history. It was— Armed Caesar falcon-eyed, who saw its great military importance, built a permanentcamp there and made it a central entrepot for food and ■■ Cesare armato con g/i occhigrifani^—Inferno^ iv. 123. 4 PARIS AND ITS STORY munitions of war. And when in 52 the general risingof the tribes under Vercingetorix threatened to scour theRomans out of Gaul and to destroy the whole fabric ofCaesars ambition, he sent his favourite lieutenant, Labienus,to seize Lutetia where the Northern army of the Gaulswas centred. Labienus crossed the Seine at Melun, fixedhis camp on a spot near the position of the church of St,Germain IAuxerrois, and began the first of
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectart, bookyear1904
