City walls of Paris Over time , several city walls of Paris were built : Paris was surrounded by walls from ancient times until the twentieth century , except for roughly a century between 1670 ( when Louis XIV ordered the demolition of the Louis XIII Wall ) and 1785 ( when construction began on the Farmers - General Wall ) . The initial purpose of these walls was to defend the town and protect the inhabitants ; later , with the building of the Farmers - General Wall , they also served to assess taxes for goods sold in Paris . The Philippe Auguste Wall marked the first time Paris had really been protected from attack in any substantial way , and allowed the town to both consolidate and expand , frequently to slightly more than could be contained by the existing walls . As Paris grew , new houses were built both inside and outside the wall . With time , each wall would be destroyed and its site built up or transformed into a street or boulevard ; a new wall would be built further out , to include both the original city and some more houses , and sometimes gardens or vegetable fields . Only a few traces of these walls survive : a few sections of the Wall of Philippe Auguste , and some pavilions of Claude Nicolas Ledoux which formed part of the Farmers General Wall . However , the walls ' influence on modern Paris can be seen in some of its major streets and concentric boulevards : Gaulish enclosure . In his " Commentaries on the Gallic War " , Julius Caesar wrote : " " Id est oppidum Parisiorum , quod positum est in insula fluminis Sequanae " " , indicating that Lutetia ( former name of Paris , the town of the tribe of Parisii ) was a fortified camp on an island . The identification of this island with the Ile de la Cité is possible , but disputed , because it could instead have been Nanterre . The first wall of Paris was therefore probably built by the Gauls and coupled with the natural protection of the river Seine . Gallo - Roman wall . At the time of the Roman Empire , people and houses spread on the banks of the river , particularly the left one . During the first barbarian invasions , in 285 , the people of Lutetia abandoned the left bank and took refuge on the Island of the City . The eastern half of the island was protected by a wall , constructed of rocks collected from the Arènes de Lutèce . First medieval wall . The existence of an enclosure around the centre of Paris , on the right bank , around the tenth century is probable . During recent research , the INRAP has discovered traces of this enclosure at the corner of rue de l ' Arbre - Sec and rue de Rivoli . Wall of Philippe Auguste . The Wall of Philippe Auguste was built from 1190 to 1213 , enclosing 253 hectares on both sides of the river Seine . Many elements were later incorporated into civil buildings or into the Charles V Wall . Wall of Charles V . The Wall of Charles V was built from 1356 to 1383 , during the reign of Charles V and his son and successor Charles VI . The region enclosed on the right bank increased , and now included among other things the mansions of the Marais and the Templar enclosure . The region enclosed on the left bank remained the same as with the Wall of Philippe Auguste . The new city limits totalled 439 hectares across the two banks . During the construction of the Wall of Louis XIII , this wall was partly incorporated into the new wall and partly destroyed . Louis XIII Wall , sometimes called the " yellow ditches wall " . The Louis XIII Wall was designed by Jacques Lemercier and built between 1633 and 1636 . It enlarges the Charles V Wall over the western part of the right bank ( now the First and Second Arrondissements ) . From 1670 onwards , Louis XIV believed that as a result of his conquests , Paris had been made a secure city . He ordered the wall destroyed and replaced it with the future grands boulevards . Wall of the Farmers - General . The Wall of the Farmers - General was built in the years after 1785 , under the direction of Claude Nicolas Ledoux and at the request of the Ferme Générale . It enclosed 3402 hectares , when the village of Austerlitz was incorporated into Paris in 1818 . Later , this wall was replaced by the second belt of boulevards : Charonne , Ménilmontant , Belleville , La Villette , La Chapelle , Clichy , Batignolles , Courcelles , avenue de Wagram and Iena , streets Benjamin Franklin and Alboni , boulevard de Grenelle , Garibaldi , Pasteur , Montparnasse , Edgar Quinet , Raspail , Saint - Jacques , Auguste Blanqui , Vincent Auriol , Bercy and Picpus . Unlike previous walls , the goal of this wall was not to defend Paris but only to force the payment of taxes on goods entering the capital . It was destroyed when Paris was extended up to the Thiers Walls in 1860 . Thiers Wall . The enclosure was constructed from 1841 to 1844 after a law enacted by Adolphe Thiers . It covered 7802 hectares , along the boulevards des Maréchaux of today and a glacis extending to the location of today ' s Boulevard Périphérique . It was demolished between 1919 and 1929 .