I heard that it began in ancient times. A centimeter is the width of a drop of water. 100 of them is a meter. It was a universal method of measurement thousands of years ago, and got "rediscovered" in modern times. Ancient tombs and other structures have lengths that exactly match meters in length, because the width of a drop of water never changes.
It was actually created during the french revolution. They weren’t just satisfied with getting rid of a king, they sought to erase anything that had anything to do with the king, including weights and measures. This is the guy they hired to dream it up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Maurice_de_Talleyrand.