Tag Archives: history

The Arts & Crafts Museum

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The Musée des Arts et Métiers. the Museum of Arts and Crafts in the 3rd arrondissement is dedicated to science and technology.

It occupies the premises of the former Priory of Saint Martin des Champs, which was nationalized during the French Revolution. Part of the museum is even housed in the former priory church.

Even though only about 2,500 of the over 80,000 objects and 15,000 drawings are on display, there are many treasures to discover, such as an original Foucault pendulum, the official meter and kilogram, printing presses, first-generation cars and planes, the original model of the Statue of Liberty or the first mechanical calculator.

The museum was first opened in 1802, at which time the different devices were explained to the visitors by demonstrators. The collection grew also thanks to the various World Fairs held in Paris.

The Foucault pendulum
Meters

The permanent exhibition is organized into seven collections, scientific instruments, materials, energy, mechanics, construction, communication, and transport, which are again subdivided into four time periods: before 1750, 1750-1850, 1850-1950, after 1950.

An object from a very recent period
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La Libération, August 1944

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As first a settlement and later a city, Paris has existed for over 2,000 years. History has left its marks on the city, and traces of different time periods can be found all around Paris. In non-chronological order, let’s look at some that you might have come past during a visit without knowing.

If you have been driving on the roads of northwestern France, maybe you have noticed stone markers with a flame in addition to regular distance markers. The bornes de la liberté are set along the route of the Allied Forces from D-Day in June 1944. Liberty Road (la Voie de la Liberté) starts in Normandy, travels across northern France to Metz near the German border and then northwards to Bastogne on the border of Luxemburg and Belgium. But other markers can be found outside of this main route.

In March 1941, following the battle of Kufra in Libya, Leclerc (then a colonel) and his men swear an oath to “not put down the arm until our colours fly over the cathedral of Strasburg”. They fulfilled their oath in November of the same year. But before they could liberate Strasburg, they had to liberate Paris.

In August 1944, the Second Armored Division, in French 2e Division Blindée shortened to 2e DB, marched into Paris from the south. Commanded by the now General Leclerc, it was also called the Division Leclerc.

This monument commemorates not only the Oath of Kufra and the Liberation itself but also the events in this town the 2e DB crossed.

Traces of the combat in Paris in August 1944 can be found–among other places–on the wall of the Paris School of Mines on the boulevard Saint Michel (6th arrondissement, near the Luxemburg Gardens).

The avenue d’Orléans, in the 14th arrondissement leading from the Porte d’Orléans to the Place Denfert-Rochereau is today called Avenue du Général Leclerc.

Map of Paris showing the Avenue du Général Leclerc (the lower point) and the wall of the Paris School of Mines (the upper point).
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Why the Hôtel de Sens is not a hotel

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Did you know that in French, a “hotel” isn’t always a place where you can book a room for a night? A hôtel-Dieu, for example, was originally a hospital for the poor run by the Catholic Church, Dieu being the French word for God. The most famous of all these hospitals is also the oldest in Paris, created in the year 651 by the Parisian Bishop Saint Landry. Today you can find the hospital building right next to Notre Dame on Cité Island.

A hôtel particulier is no more a hotel than a hôtel-Dieu, but a grand townhouse or mansion. Their main characteristic is that they will be free-standing, most often located between the main courtyard and the garden, and of course, be in a city.

The Hôtel de Sens is a hôtel particulier built in the 15th century in the 4th arrondissement, near the Seine river. At the time, Paris did not have its own archbishop but belonged to the archbishopric of the Archbishop of Sens, a town 100km to the southeast of Paris. The archbishop had this hôtel particulier built as his pied-à-terre when he was in Paris.
Several archbishops resided there, in fact, over time, as well as other notable figures such as Antoine du Prat, chancellor and prime minister under King François 1er, Louis de Bourbon-Vendôme, a prince from the royal family, or Louis de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine.

One resident, however, had a more eventful stay than the others: Marguerite de Valois, better known as La Reine Margot (granddaughter of François 1er and first wife of King Henri IV). Her marriage with King Henri IV was annulled in 1599. She lived at the Hôtel de Sens from 1605 to 1606. Legend has it that she had a fig tree at the door cut down because it was in the way of her carriages. Whether it is true or not, the street now bears its name.

Marguerite had a number of lovers. According to another legend, two of them fought it out just below her window. One was killed, the other executed in the same spot.

Main entrance of the Hôtel de Sens on the corner of Rue du Fauconnier and Rue du Figuier

During the Revolution, the Hôtel de Sens became property of the state, was sold and housed, like many hôtels particuliers in the area at the time, shops, workshops, or factories. During the 1830 Revolution (commemorated by the July Column at Bastille), a cannonball hit the façade and lodged so deep within the wall it became impossible to remove. It is still there today, visible to any passersby, with the date engraved beneath.

Location of the Hôtel de Sens
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Nicolas Flamel

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You might know Nicolas Flamel from fiction stories or movies, where he is portrayed as an immortal alchemist who discovered the philosopher’s stone. But did you know Nicolas Flamel was a real-life person?
Most facts about him are debated and vary from one source to another, so I’ll stick with the key points.

Nicolas Flamel’s birth year and place are uncertain, but he was probably born around 1340 in the Paris area. He died on March 22, 1418 in Paris.
As a child, he was lucky enough not to die of the plague, which in 1348 killed between a third and half of the European population.

In the days long before the printing press was invented, Nicolas Flamel began his career as a public writer in a small single-story house in the rue des Écrivains, Writers Street. This street disappeared when the central east-west axis rue de Rivoli was created in the 1800s.

Nicolas Flamel married Pernelle, twice widowed, with whom he opened a small shop near the church Saint Jacques de la Boucherie, and a workshop nearby specialized in precious manuscripts. He financed the construction of a doorway of the Saint Jacques de la Boucherie church, the arcade of which showed him with Pernelle. Today, only the Tour Saint Jacques remains of this church, a tower which was built a hundred years later.

The Tour Saint Jacques seen from Rue Nicolas Flamel

It was often speculated how the Flamels acquired their wealth, and Nicolas was rumored to be a successful alchemist. In reality, Pernelle brought money into the marriage from her previous two husbands, and Nicolas had a successful career as a scribe and bookseller. He also owned several houses in Paris and its suburbs, real estate investments that in the economic depression of the Hundred Year War contributed to his wealth.

They contributed financially to churches, and Nicolas continued to do so after Pernelle’s death in 1397. He had several houses built to house the poor. The only one still in existence is located at 51 rue de Montmorency (3rd arrondissement) and is said to be one of the oldest stone houses in Paris.

Nicolas Flamel died in 1418 and was buried in the church Saint Jacques de la Boucherie. His bones, together with Pernelle’s, were later transferred to the Catacombs. His tombstone can be seen in the National Museum of the Middle Ages – Musée Cluny in Paris.

location of Rue Nicolas Flamel and Maison Nicolas Flamel

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Beware of anachronisms

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When I’m reading, one thing that’ll jolt me out like nothing else is anachronisms. Please do your research and make sure that nothing is out of place/time.

Time itself is a prime example of anachronisms in stories set in the past or in fantasy settings inspired by the past. In a medieval setting (which is also still very popular in fantasy), even though there are clocks in church towers or secular public buildings, people are unlikely to carry a time piece around with them and say “We’ll meet again in 30 minutes” or even “Wait a minute”. (Unless otherwise specified in your fantasy world building, of course.)

Another example of an anachronism is the mention of electricity passing between the protagonist and the love interest in a book set in Ancient Rome. It jolted me so much out of the story that I haven’t read any of the other books by the author, even though I’m a huge fan of Ancient Rome stories.

You don’t want that to happen with your readers, do you?

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In Memory of the Spire

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The construction of Notre Dame started in 1163 and concluded in 1345.

Do you remember where you were when you heard that Notre Dame was on fire? I do. It was a Monday night, I came home from swim practice, and when I opened the door, my husband greeted me with the words “Notre Dame is burning”. I stared at him, unable to process his words, so he switched on the TV, and sure enough, Notre Dame was burning.
It was April 15, 2019.
The moment that was probably most often shown in replay was when the spire over the crossing came crashing down into the roof.
I took this photo a few years before the fire, while visiting the bell towers with out-of-town friends.

The first spire was built in that spot in the middle of the 13th century but, distorted by the winds over the centuries, eventually collapsed and was removed in 1786. The cathedral remained spireless until the restoration led by famous architect Viollet-le-Duc in the mid-19th century. The new spire was guarded by 16 statues, which were taken down for restoration on April 11, 2019 – four days before the fire.

After a few months’ interruption due to the strict lockdown, works on Notre Dame have picked up again. It is doubtful whether the whole rebuilding process will be concluded within five years, as the French president promised on the “morning after”. Given how long the initial construction of the cathedral took, what is a year or two more? At least, after some discussion, it was decided to rebuild the destroyed spire as it was before the fire.

Carpentry journeymen demonstrate the reconstruction of the nave
Location of Notre Dame on a map of Paris

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Water fountains everywhere

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Tourists in Paris might be suspicious when they come across these historic water fountains. Can you really drink the water trickling down between those four statues?

Yes, you can. The water is perfectly safe. Just hold your water bottle underneath the trickle, and all you need a little patience because the flow isn’t very strong.
But why have these old-fashioned fountains instead of modern ones which are more easily accessible and allow for a stronger flow?
Oh, but we have those too.

These old-fashioned fountains have a long history behind them. Let me tell you.

Once upon a time, there was a rich Englishman with French roots, who saw the difficulty of supplying water to Paris following the 1870 siege of the capital. He offered to provide 50 drinking water fountains and asked the mayor to accept this donation.
The name of this philanthropist was Sir Richard Wallace. His heritage is still visible in the urban landscape of Paris today, and the fountains are called Wallace fountains in his memory.

There are four different types of water fountains, and all four can still be found around town. They supply potable water from 15 March to 15 November but are turned off in the winter to prevent freezing and bursting pipes.
The model you will see most is quite large, which was meant to help people spot it. On a pedestal stand four caryatids with their backs to each other, holding up a pointed dome. The water trickles down in the center non-stop day and night.

This model was inspired by the Fontaine des Innocents.

There used to be two tin-planted iron goblets on small chains but they were removed for hygiene reasons in 1952.

The second of Sir Wallace’s models was a wall-mounted fountain where the trickle of water falls from the mouth of a naiad into a basin. These were cheap to install and should have been mounted in large numbers on the walls of buildings such as hospitals. It didn’t happen, though, and today there remains only one of these, rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire near the Jardin des Plantes entrance.

There are also two small versions. One is very common in public parks, a simple push-button fountain, well-known to parents and nannies who bring their kids to play.

The last model is a small version of the caryatid fountain, with slender columns replacing the statues to reduce the production cost.

The fountains are all painted the same colour, a strong green, required by the city of Paris to match their other street furniture. Today, some of the fountains have been painted in different colours, but the majority is still green.

Many homeless people drink from the fountains even today, as they are one of the rare free points of access to water. So the legacy of Sir Richard Wallace lives on, 130 years after his death.

Official map of drinking fountains in Paris (Eau de Paris website)

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Haussmann Buildings

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When you walk on Paris streets, you’re bound to notice the uniformity of the building facades. Almost everywhere you look, buildings will be the same height and in a similar style, with cream-colored stone facades.

These facades are called “Haussmann-style facades”. As I explained before, in the mid-1800s, Baron Haussmann, on orders from Emperor Napoléon III, transformed the city of Paris.

As part of the city’s transformation, the old houses were torn down, and new ones were built. The Immeuble de Rapport (Revenue House) and the Hôtel Particulier (Townhouse) became the reference for these buildings. They were meant to resemble each other, the esthetics of the rational.
Now let’s have a closer look at these Haussmann buildings.

As you can see in the photo, then as now, the ground floor housed the shops opening onto the street. You’ll notice as well that the first floor just above the shops has a comparatively low ceiling. The rooms on this level were part of the shops or housed their back shops, workshops, or storage area.
The second floor was the noble floor, with high ceilings and high windows that let in a lot of light. Wrought-iron balcony rails run along the façade.
Can you see how the windows are smaller from one floor to the next as you go up? That’s because with each level you go up, the ceiling comes down. Accordingly, these levels were less expensive and people with slightly lower income than the rich second-floor people lived there. The wrought-iron rails running around the façade on the fifth floor mainly serve esthetic purposes.

The rooms under the roof were tiny and cramped servants’ rooms. Service staircases run down from their level directly to the kitchens of the second floor, so the servants could easily and discreetly access their workplaces.
Today, many of these servants’ rooms have been reconfigured, often regrouped to form small apartments that are often rented to students. The second-floor apartments are still as they were in the old days, enormous rooms with high ceilings, stucco, giant fireplaces and big windows.

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How Baron Haussmann Transformed Paris

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One thing that will strike you when you look at a map or a satellite view of Paris are those wide streets, called avenues and boulevards, that run through the city. They look like someone had drawn them with a ruler, which is somewhat unusual for an old European city.
But they were drawn with a ruler, so to speak, by Baron George Eugène Haussmann. Let me tell you how and why he transformed Paris in the mid-1800s.

It was the time of the Second Empire, the reign of Napoléon III, nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte (who reigned during the First Empire).
Napoléon III had lived in exile in London, and he had been impressed by the city that was rebuilt after the big fire of 1666, becoming a model for hygiene and modern urbanism.
Made Prefect of the département Seine (Paris), Baron Haussmann was given the task by Napoléon III to transform Paris.
The city was composed of crowded neighborhoods with narrow streets, dirt abounded, clean water and clean air were scarce.

Haussmann wanted to improve the flux of people, goods, air and water for the city. The name of his campaign was Paris embellie, Paris agrandie, Paris assainie – A more beautiful, bigger, and cleaner Paris.
Another aim of his campaign was to prevent possible popular unrest, which was quite frequent in Paris: Following the 1789 French Revolution, there had been revolts notably in 1830 and 1848. (The 1830 uprising inspired the barricades in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables).
By demolishing the old center of Paris, Haussmann deconstructed the centers of unrest and scattered the working-class population throughout the new neighborhoods.
The old crowded neighborhoods were destroyed, narrow streets made way for large avenues and boulevards. The new train stations are served by some of them, to facilitate the transport of goods arriving by train.
In order to improve hygiene through better air quality, new parks were created (Parc Montsouris in the south of the city, Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the northeast) and existing ones improved (Bois de Vincennes, Bois de Boulogne).
A square (small park) was set up in each of the 80 neighborhoods. (Four neighborhoods constitute one arrondissement.)
Haussmann also transformed the Place Saint Michel and its fountain which had marked him in his student times by its dirtiness.

Saint Michel fountain at Place Saint Michel today

In order to showcase monuments both new and old, Haussmann organized vast perspectives by creating avenues (such as the Avenue de l’Opéra for the Opéra Garnier) or squares, such as the one in front of Notre Dame.

In parallel, working with engineer Eugène Belgrand, Haussmann created a water conveyance network as well as a modern sewer network, and launched the construction of theaters (Théâtre de la Ville and Théâtre du Châtelet) and two train stations (Gare de Lyon and Gare de l’Est).

It is estimated that the works of Baron Haussmann modified 60% of the city of Paris.
The new buildings lining all those new avenues and boulevards are a story in themselves.

Rue de Rivoli

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The new bridge is the oldest bridge and other fun facts about the Pont Neuf

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Pont Neuf

Do you speak French? At least enough to count to ten? Then you will know that neuf means nine. But don’t jump to the conclusion that the Pont Neuf was the ninth bridge crossing the Seine river. In fact the Pont Neuf Is the oldest existing bridge of the 36 that cross the Seine within the city limits today. Even back in 1578 when its construction began (after lengthy interruptions, it was finished in 1603), it was not the ninth bridge. Neuf, in fact, also means new, which it obviously was when it was built. But why name this particular bridge the “new bridge”?
The difference between this new bridge and the others was that it was built of stone and without any houses, thus allowing Parisians to look at the river flowing below, which was impossible to do from the other bridges.
It is hard for us to imagine what “normal bridges” meant to Parisians back in those days, for today there are no bridges with houses on them in Paris. However, if you look at other parts of Europe, you can find the occasional stone bridge bearing houses, such as Pulteney Bridge in Bath, UK (18th century), the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy (14th century), or the Pont de Rohan in Landerneau, Brittany (16th century).

Houses on the wooden bridges would have looked somewhat like these.

The New Bridge in Paris was an immediate success because it was both large (no houses) and you could look at the river below (no houses). It became a place for commerce, gathering, celebrating, meeting for all levels of society.
When 12 countries of the European Union first adopted the Euro as their currency on January 1st, 2002, the Pont Neuf with its 12 arches was chosen to symbolize this important passage.

Pont Neuf on January 1, 2002
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