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After numerous encounters between the Romans and the Gauls, the latter were at length wholly subdued about 50 years before Christ, and although the records of this ancient people date nearly as far back as the foundation of Rome, yet our first accounts of Paris are derived from Cæsar and Strabo, who allude to it under the name of Lutetia, the principal city of the Parisii; and from the most probable statements which could be collected from aged persons at that period, it is presumed that its foundation must have occurred not more than half a century antecedent.
I shall present them in the order in which I chanced to visit them. Palais des Thermes . In long-gone centuries, which have faded away into oblivion, a wandering tribe of barbarians alighted from their canoes, upon a small island in the Seine, and there reared their huts. They were called the Parisii.
The Isle de la Cité was the ancient island village of the Parisii. That which was once a river, joys to become a fountain." To carry the suggestion of contrast still farther one should read Hugo's "Notre Dame" on the spot.
He is saluted king by his partisans; he sends ambassadors in every direction, he conjures them to adhere firmly to their promise. He quickly attaches to his interests the Senones, Parisii, Pictones, Cadurci, Turones, Aulerci, Lemovice, and all the others who border on the ocean; the supreme command is conferred on him by unanimous consent.
The islanders were slow to give up their Druidical sacrifices, and it is doubtful whether the Roman gods ever were worshiped by them, though fragments of an altar of Jupiter have been found under the choir of the cathedral of Notre Dame. Nearly four hundred years after Christ, the Emperor Julian remodeled the government and laws of Gaul and Lutetia, and changed its name to Parisii.
It is conjectured that the name of Parisii received its etymology from their being a people who inhabited the borders, as Par and Bar are synonymous from the P and the B having had the same signification, and which are often confused together at the present time by the Germans; and Barisii or Barrisenses, signifying a people inhabiting a space between other nations, hence it is inferred that the Parisii received that appellation from their occupying a spot on the frontiers of the Senones, separating them from the Silvanectes and the Carnutes.
Without hazarding any vague conjectures, I may, I think, safely affirm that Caesar is the first historian who makes mention of this city. In the seventh book of his Commentaries, that conqueror relates that he sent his lieutenant Labienus towards Lutetia; this was the name given by the Gauls to the capital of the Parisii.
This tribe was one of sixty-four which were confederated, and when the conquest of Gaul took place under Julius Caesar, the Parisii occupied the island. The ground now covered by Paris was either a marsh or forest, and two bridges communicated from the island to it.
The territory accorded to the Parisii could not have exceeded more than ten or twelve leagues, adjoining to the lands of a people termed Silvanectes on the one side, and to those of the Carnutes on the other.
This was their home, and being surrounded by water, it was easily defended against the approach of hostile tribes. The name of the place was Lutetia, and to themselves they gave the name of Parisii, from the Celtic word par, a frontier or extremity.
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