When Paris decided it needed an underground train network, the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Métropolitain de Paris, the metropolitan train company of Paris, was founded. It later bought up other smaller companies and incorporated their lines into its network, all under the name Métropolitain. Unlike other big cities which have a certain uniformity in their underground/subway signage, Paris has various different signs signalling an entrance to the below-ground transport network.
It all started with the Société Nord-Sud, whose initials can still be seen in the frames of some billboards on the platforms.
Nord-Sud built and ran three metro lines in the early 20th century before being bought up by the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Métropolitain de Paris
The most famous entrance signs are those created by Hector Guimard in Art Nouveau style. There were two different types, with and without a glass roof. Of the former, only two remain today, at the stations Porte Dauphine and Abbesses.
The roof-less type is quite numerous and can be found all across town.
This type was given to other cities around the world, such as Mexico City, Chicago, Lisbon, or Moscow. These are all copies, though, the only original one was given to Montreal at the occasion of the World Fair in 1867. It can be found at the station Square Victoria.
The 1920s saw the introduction of totem sign, first more elaborate
then simpler:
At Madeleine station, the totem signals a metro entrance that doubles as an underground passage.
A few stations have particular entrances, such as Vaneau.
The most easily visible sign, however, might be the unadorned yellow M, dating from the 1070s. Not to be confused with another yellow M, it is surrounded by a steel circle and illuminated from the inside at night.
And would you believe that this is a métro entrance? It is indeed, at the station Palais Royal. The kiosque des noctambules, the night-owls’ booth, was created by an artist and set up in the year 2000.
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
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.
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.
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.
If you have ever visited Paris during the month of August, you’ll have noticed many businesses are closed with signs like the ones above. You wonder why they would close in prime tourist season? Let’s go back in time, and you will understand.
Paid annual leave was established in France after the “Front Populaire” won the 1936 elections. From two weeks per year the duration rose to four weeks in 1968. (It’s now five weeks.) Coupled with a reduced-price “annual leave” train ticket, this extended the possibility to vacation by the sea beyond the upper classes who’d enjoyed this privilege since the 19th century.
School holidays were originally meant to leave children free to help their parents with the harvest and the vintage. However, with more and more parents working salaried job instead of the fields, and the rising prosperity level following World War II, the dates were gradually moved forward to start at the beginning of July.
Factories got into the habit of slowing production in August, the hottest month of the year, often obliging their workers to take their paid leave during that time, with a domino effect on suppliers and other businesses, as well as the workers’ spouses.
The long and short of it, and despite a recent tendency to fragment the annual leave into smaller parcels, August remains the favorite time for the French to go on vacation.
A few years back, my friend Sarah Elzas (check out her work) who works for the radio, did a piece on the subject titled “France is fermée” for which she interviewed me among others. Listen to it here:
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.
In the English-speaking world, the French national holiday on July14 is called Bastille Day. There’s the Place de la Bastille in Paris, too, but what exactly is or was the Bastille?
At first, the Bastille was a small two-towered châtelet built in the 14th century at the eastern city gate Porte Sainte Antoine, as part of the Charles V city wall. Later, King Charles V decided to enlarge it to an urban fortress by raising the two towers and adding six more. This fort was meant to defend the Porte Saint-Antoine and the eastern Paris city walls. It could also protect the king in the case of a popular revolt since it protected the road linking the king’s residence at the Hôtel Sant Pol to the château de Vincennes.
Château de Vincennes
Under later kings, the fortress served various purposes: Louis XI used it as prison, Francois 1er as a weapons depot, and Henri IV as a safe for the royal treasures. It was used more and more as a prison, especially during periods of unrest but it was Cardinal Richelieu who officially transformed it into a state prison. One of its famous inmates was the man in the iron mask (1698-1703). As prisons go, the Bastille was a more comfortable one, for people of the nobility and the bourgeoisie. They ate the same food as the governor, the prison cells had large rooms, they could bring a servant, correspond with people on the outside and receive visits. From the end of the 17th century on, the Bastille also included less comfortable premises for common prisoners. They lived off charity, were sometimes in chains, and slept on straw that was changed once a month. When a new prisoner arrived, a bell was rung. The neighboring shops closed and the guards covered their faces so as not to see the face of the new prisoner. Between 1661 and 1789, one out of six inmates was imprisoned for writing of some sort or other (printer, bookseller, peddler, or writer of satirical or defamatory books,). Given the number of prison cells, the Bastille could accommodate 45 prisoners at the most, but there were about 60 at one time under Louis XIV.
On July 14, 1789, the Bastille held only 7 prisoners whose incarceration conditions were quite loose. The people of Paris had taken the Invalides for weapons and cannons. They stormed the Bastille in search of powder and ammunition, and also freed the seven prisoners. The storming of the Bastille thus marked the beginning of the French Revolution and has become its symbol. Starting the very next day, the Bastille was knocked down by a private businessman who sold part of the Bastille stones as souvenirs (carved into the shape of the Bastille). One of them can be seen in the Musée Carnavalet, the museum of the city of Paris. The demolition lasted until 1806. Part of the material was used to build the Pont Louis XVI, now Pont de la Concorde, the bridge linking the Place de la Concorde to the Assemblée nationale (Lower House of Parliament).
Pont de la Concorde
Below Concorde Bridge – the stones from the Bastille
If you are looking for remains of the Bastille, there is one of the eight towers (the Tour de la Liberté, where the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned) in the nearby park square Henri-Galli.
remains of Bastille Tower at square Henri-Galli, Paris 4e
Part of the counterscarp wall can be found on the platform of the metro 5 in the station Bastille.
The Storming of the Bastille is commemorated on July 14 since 1880, day of the national holiday.
Today, in the place of the Bastille fortress, stands the July Column, commemorating the 1830 Revolution that saw the fall of King Charles X and the beginning of the Monarchie de Juillet, the July Monarchy. The marble base of the column contains a funerary gallery in which rest two large sarcophagi (13m x 2m) containing the remains of the martyrs of the 1830 Revolution and the 1848 Revolution. (Yes, France saw a lot of revolutions.) However, they are not alone! There are some Egyptian mummies in there, too. These mummies were brought back from Egypt 50 years earlier by scholars who had followed Napoleon during the Egyptian Campaign. They were deteriorating in a room of the National Library and were buried in the garden next to it, right where after the July 1830 revolts the bodies of the rioters were buried. That’s how the mummies got mixed up with the martyrs when they were exhumed in a hurry and ended up under the July Column with them.
Place de la Bastille with the July Column and the opera house in the background
