Paris

"One day, when all this is over, I will invite you to Paris to stay with me and my family. She is the most beautiful city in all the world, Connor, full of art and culture, women and wine."

- Marquis de Lafayette, 1778.

Paris is the capital and largest city of France. During the French Revolution the city was divided in seven districts: Le Louvre, Île de la Cité, Le Marais, La Biévre, Les Invalides, Quartier Latin and Ventre de Paris.

Formation
Paris was founded during the 3rd century BCE, when a Celtic tribe named the Parisii built a fortified settlement on the Ile de la Cite.

Early Ages
In 52 CE, the Romans conquered the Parisii Celts and built a town on the Seine river named Lutetia.

In the late 3rd century, Paris and its surrounding region were converted to Christianity. By then however, the Roman Empire was in decline; the Franks subsequently captured Paris in 486 CE.

Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, Paris grew rapidly and became one of the largest towns in Europe. In response to its expansion, King Philippe-Auguste constructed the Louvre fortress and a wall surrounding the town.

On 18 March 1314, Pope Clement V, influenced by the Assassin Order, ordered that Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templar Order, be burned at the stake. De Molay's death marked the dissolution of the Knights Templar as a public organization and influenced their conversion into a secret faction.

Rennaissance
During the Renaissance, France was ruled by King Louis XII, though he left the kingdom under the charge of his courtiers, who were secretly allied with the Templars. A group of Italian Assassins, sent by their Mentor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, traveled to Paris to battle that Templar influence.

In 1527, Giovanni Borgia and Maria Amiel traveled to the Louvre in order to find the second half of "the Book", which had been used by Nicolas Flamel to turn lead into gold. Afterwards, they visited the Flamel tomb in Paris' Holy Innocents' Cemetery, but only found it devoid of bodies, or any sign of the Book.

Before the Revolution
In 1776, the Assassin Charles Dorian, attended an Assassin meeting at the Palace of Versailles. However, as Charles searched for his son upon its conclusion, he was assassinated by the Templar Shay Cormac.

As he died, Charles told Shay that the American Revolution had undone the Templars' work in the newly-formed United States of America. Shay suggested that the Templars could stage another revolution, in order to restore the balance of power between the two factions.

French Revolution
From 1789 to 1799, a period of social and political upheaval occurred in France due to the extravagance of the aristocracy. This, coupled by famine and economic turmoil, gradually enraged the French working class and inevitably sparked a revolution against the monarchy and upper classes. The Assassin Arno Victor Dorian lived in Paris during the Revolution.

19th century
In the 19th century, Napoleon I embellished the city with monuments to military glory. It became the European capital of fashion, and the scene of two more revolutions in 1830 and 1848. Under Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon I, and his Prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1852 and 1870 the centre of Paris was rebuilt with wide new avenues, squares and new parks, and the city was expanded to its present limits in 1860. In the latter part of the century, in the Belle Epoch era, millions of tourists came to see the Paris International Expositions and the new Eiffel Tower.

Sometime towards the end of the 19th century, Samuel Liddell Mathers, accompanied by the disembodied being of William Robert Woodman, met one of the Secret Chiefs in Paris. The Chief, who wore a ring marked with the Templar insignia, informed Mathers that his Order's partnership with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn had ended.

20th century
In the 20th century, Paris suffered bombardment in the  World War I and German occupation from 1940 until 1944 in the World War II. Between the two wars, Paris was the capital of modern art and a magnet for intellectuals, writers and artists from around the world.

Modern Era
In 2014, Eric Cooper set up an Assassin headquarters in Paris to help infiltrate a data hub for the Helix, Abstergo Entertainment's upcoming cloud-based game service.