At the beginning of the twentieth century, Paris was the cosmopolitan hub of Europe and home to a vast number of foreigners - including the writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians who were creating works now synonymous with modernism itself, such as , , and . The situation at the end of the period, however, could not have been more different: even before the violence of the Second World War, the cosmopolitan avant-garde had largely abandoned Paris, driven out by nationalism, xenophobia, and intolerance.