By the 18th century Paris was one of the great wonders of Europe, renowned for its magnificent royal monuments and as a centre for science, literature and the arts. More so than any other European city, Paris reflected the spirit of an age - an age that reached its zenith with the reign of France's Sun King, Louis XIV. First published in 1968, this book attempts to capture that spirit. In his exploration of Parisian history, Orest Ranum ranges widely through the streets and quarters of the city, attentive to the achievements of town planners, architects and engineers, as well as to city politics, social currents and the spirit of religious reform. Behind it all lay the rule-creating authoritarianism of the absolute state, which, ironically, unleashed Parisians' creative impulses in everything from literature, painting and music to architecture, mathematics and physics.