VIII. AN INDEX TO CLICK INTO

ZOOM INTO THE MAIN IDEAS

All drawings by Harald Wolff

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• 8.1. The importance of the economic base

• 8.2. Omissions by trusted authorities

• 8.3. Dramas that show how things work

• 8.4. Importance of anomolies and details

• 8.5. Priorities that urban designs reveal

• 8.6. Classic art as a social weapon

• 8.7. Outskirts, cauldrons of the arts

• 8.8. Visits based on observation

• 8.9. Recommendations

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The importance of the economic base

VIII.1. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ECONOMIC BASE

GRASPING IT CHANGES YOUR VIEW OF THE PAST. THAT LEADS TO APPLYING IT TO THE PRESENT

• Setting the scene:Tangible factors explain the city's structure.

• Small farms: ferocious repressions and art de vivre: The impact of sales of émigré and Church lands to peasants during the Revolution on French culture until the 1960's.

• Why nobles could rarely adjust to capitalism (please scroll down).

• Nobles, gods and heroes: When explorations and discoveries bring capitalists who are much more dynamic, nobles identify with mythological and Roman heroes to claim innate superiority.

• All aspects of the Old Regime reinforce the nobles: do all (or almost all) aspects of our society also intertwine to reinforce the ruling class? 

• Have the kings become subversive? Who does trivializing them favor? 

• "Objective history sticks to the facts:" which facts? History and journalism are inevitably subjective because one must choose from a huge amount of data, but views based on the economy make much more sense than others. 

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• "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder:" Why middle-class Western and traditional African views of corpulence differ.

Next: 

Omissions by trusted authorities

VIII.2. OMISSIONS BY TRUSTED AUTHORITIES

La Commune as shown by the City Museum: The very beautiful woman was the compagnon of the well-known Communard, Jules Vallès, but in the 1880's. She was 13 at the time of the upheaval, and had nothing to do with it.

Schoolbooks buttress the mindset that the ads seek to promote: Social forces are almost absent and individuals replace the group.

 

The City Museum

 

• A spectacular homage to the elites

• A French Revolution that is almost peaceful  

• Insurrections as shown before the museum's renovation.

• The Revolution of 1830: Capitalism wins and elegant fighters replace plebeians.

• The February Revolution of 1848: irrelevancies. 

• The June Days of 1848: A table at the back of the room and barricades shown as a game for kids.

• La Commune before the renovation... 

• And after it, via the link above.

Monuments

• Camouflage at the Louvre 

• Marie-Antoinette's cell replaced by a tablet (the Conciergerie)

• Napoleon's tomb: Straight streets lead to a sepulchre. Whose? 

• The Arc de Triumph's lame homage to the plebes

• The July Column, as evasive

• Ignoring the evidence and getting away with it (the Opéra)

Historical panels

 

• The Asian towers of the 13th

• Emblematic site, incompréhensible panel

• A place where the past is deleted

• La Commune is finally mentioned but...

• Vanished industry  

• For an exception, please scroll all the way down.

Establishment accounts

are more sophisticated than social media 

but their bias is often as misleading. 

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VIII.3.

Dramas that show how things work

VIII.3. DRAMAS THAT SHOW HOW THINGS WORK

 "AT LAST I AM KING!" CRIED LOUIS XIII FROM A PALACE WINDOW, AS THE CROWD CHEERED HIS THUGS ASSASSINATING A USURPER

"I played the child," Louis would say of pretending to be retarded. At age 15 he had absorbed the court's duplicity: "Everything becomes cleverness, design, false deference, boundless flattery and and bitterness at heart..."

-- Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV second wife, in dans Madame de Maintenon, "The Age of Conversation" by Benedetta Craveri, 2001, p. 236 (in French).

• The consequence of upstaging a king: A fête that brought a famous downfall (please scroll down).

• A prostitute who (almost) rose up from the street and became the most prolific French writer.

• Crime that shook the Sun King's court: a witch and a royal mistress.

• Catholic nobles become saints and heroes

• "If  your son marries my daughter I'll give you Palais-Royal"

• A tantrum changes the course of history... for awhile: the fall of queen Marie de Medici.

• Revolt at la Bastille: the swan song of the independent nobility.

• Love wins out —  unfortunately: Passion breaks caste barriers... .

• "Bonjour, Sire!" A greeting announces calamity

• Marie-Antoinette attains grandeur

• Louis XVII, a story that has no end

• An intelligent ogre checks in: Adolphe Thiers leads 40 years of repression.

• Empathy from a countess alone: Breaking the rules brings siding with rebels.

• An unaware general steps into the fray: La Commune begins.

• Escape by socializing with the enemy: how two Communards survive the repression.

• Love humanizes an icon: Louise Michel, heroine of La Commune.

• Catholic martyrs whom even the Church forgets

• The fate of a political painter: Gustave Courbet, target of revenge.

• How France became a republic

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VIII.4.

The importance of anomolies and details

VIII.4. THE IMPORTANCE OF ANOMALIES AND DETAILS

THEY SEEM AS IMPORTANT AS A FLY ON A STATUE, BUT CAN REVEAL UNFAMILIAR MENTALITIES OR UNSTATED AGENDAS 

Louis XVI tries to flee revolutionary Paris. Secrecy is essential but postillons' bright yellow liveries resemble those of the hated lord of the lands through which he passes...

 

• A métro station's face lift: Why the mega-budget at forgotten Château Rouge?

• A parade route changes course: Few remark the royal entries, much less the implications of altering their route. 

• A royal statue for a bridge: Why is the king's statue on the bridge instead of in the center of his square?

• The layout and architecture that gives Napoleon's tomb its majesty was created for Louis XIV. Why not say so? 

• The insurgents' discipline of February and June 1848 terrified the privileged.

• Emblematic site, odd marker: An impossible shooting and a comment that skips the essential. 

• Masking the Opéra's purpose: Why is the salon at the heart of the edifice decorated by an orgy? 

A detail now: no cigarette butts in the plant containers.

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VIII.5.

Priorities that urban designs reveal

VIII.5. PRIORITIES THAT URBAN DESIGNS REVEAL

STREET DESIGNS, VOIDS AND GIANT SPACES

In front of the Basilique Saint-Denis, the royal mausoleum (12th century)

Majesty on a human scale, forgotten gift of kings

• France's first straight street and point of focus: the space before the Saint-Denis Basilica, the royal mausoleum

• Paris's first straight street and point of focus: rue de Birague

• The path that links kings with their ancestors: rue Saint-Denis

• Straight streets and monarchy

• The place that is ancestor of all: place des Vosges, once place Royale

• Royal places multiply

• A design that was inconceivable elsewhere: the Grand Axis

• The Grand Axis as model

• Straight streets and points of focus, key to the city's grandeur

Fear, unlikely promoter of urban grandeur

The street that leads from the center to the church (Notre-Dame de la Gare, 13th, 1860)

• Rebel areas' sudden mutation

• Open the town to the army

• A military network crisscrosses town

• The new arteries' military purpose

• The "masterly line" that cuts through the working-class east

• Blue-collar neighborhoods' grand open spaces

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VIII.6.

Classic art as a social weapon

VIII.6. CLASSIC ART AS A SOCIAL WEAPON

 

IT CAN CARRY A MESSAGE THAT ALL UNDERSTAND

After a painting of the Fontainebleau school (toward 1550)

Diane de Poitiers, member of the top nobility and favorite of Henri II, as Diana, goddess of the hunt.

• Nobles, gods and heroes : Figures from Antiquity represent nobles

• Supermen: the décor of châteaux and churches 

• A queen's apotheosis: start of Rubens's series for Marie de Médicis.

• A plea for peace and a threat of revolt: a painting of the series

• An arc that heralds three centuries of calamity: the Saint-Denis gate

• The violent imagery of the victor on horseback

• Heroes on white horses

• The first great work of defiance: The Raft of the Medusa

• A goddess becomes a plebeian revolutionary: Liberty guides the people

• Freedom's great painting, fervent but ambiguous: same

• The goddess's descendants 

• Faceless poor and bourgeois heroes: the Revolution of 1830

• The City Museum's sole proletarian seen full face (please scroll down)

• Ballet, an art of the French court 

• Millionaires and ballerinas: the Opéra

• A ceiling decorated by an orgy: the Opéra

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 Outskirts, cauldrons of the arts

VIII.7. OUTSKIRTS, CAULDRONS OF THE ARTS

Art that immigrants invent 

• Looks, a sociable art

• Making oneself a composition

• Coiffures and beards that have become universal

•  Reinventing dandies

• African sources of inspiration

Making the street a prop

• Ménilmontant, where walls turn into art galleries

• Kids follow pictures: street art in the 13th 

• Banality that street art lights up: more street art in the 13th

• Theater that makes the street a stage: La Goutte d'Or

• Sculpture that hovers over a washroom: La Goutte d'Or

• A festival has just appeared: In the 13th

In the outskirts

• Kitsch with class: a jewelry maker in the east 

• "To feel the real pulse of the city go east" 

• Eastern bars and music

• Art known only to neighbors: La Goutte d'Or

• World and urban music for the planet? The 360 Music Factory

• A portal to the music of the suburbs: La Goutte d'Or

Unrecognized art 

• Spectres emerge from the cemetery

• "Art is anything done with passion:" small businesses that Communards would appreciate

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VIII.9.

Visits based on observation 

VIII.8. VISITS BASED ON OBSERVATION

Harold Wolff

Walks in historic Paris 

• Start with a spectral rampart : the left bank, from Odéon to the Seine.

• Saint-Germain-des-Prés, rampart heir

• Antiquarians on the way to Versailles: the 7th district near the Seine.

• Power takes off from the river: the Louvre and Palais-Royal

• Rue Saint-Denis, a trade route for pilgrims and kings: its different sections reveal the past.

• A parade route changes course: the royal imprint, from the Bastille to the Louvre.

• The Latin quarter after victory: a Communard describes.

• A Communard bastion erased and transformed: the 13th district.

 Visits of monuments and famous sites 

• A bastion of the Old Regime: the Institut de France

• Eternal France: river banks and booksellers

• The Palais-Gardens gardens, a world of their own, etc. 

• A cemetery that bewilders: the cemetery of the Holy Innocents.

• The "Court of Miracles"

• The huge open space at the city's heart (les Halles)

• Above and below the Halles now

• Specters emerge from the cemetery

• The place that is ancestor of all (place des Vosges)

• A royal statue for a bridge (pont Neuf)

• The arc that heralds three centuries of calamity (at the Saint-Denis gate)

• Napoleon's tomb: Straight streets lead to a sepulchre. Whose?

• The Obelisk announces a new era

• Les Champs-Élysées, challenged majesty

• The Arc de Triomphe's lame hommage to the plebes

• The July Column, as evasive

• Notre-Dame, from eternity to repression

• A fountain where the emperor crushes Socialism (at place Saint-Michel)

• What Opéra tours won't say (full chapter)

Exploring outskirts

East

• Crime that shook the Sun King's court (near the Saint-Denis gate)

• Eastern Paris, where new worlds emerge (full chapter)  

• The "masterly line" of the working-class east (the Saint Martin canal overpass)

• Blue-collar neighborhoods' vast open spaces (the huge eastern places)

North

• If you absolutely must buy globalized brands (a discount shopping center)

• "Barbès don't panic" 

• The unhailed energies of  La Goutte d'Or

• The "marché Saint-Pierre," textile hub

South (the 13th district)

• Europe's "Chinatown"

• A Communard bastion, erased and transformed 

• A market replaces the army

• A Communard bastion erased and transformed (the 13th)

Visiting churches

• The importance of the Saint-Denis basilica

• The church where "Gothic" architecture began

• A church that changes the way to salvation (Saint-Paul Saint-Louis, 4th)

• "An ounce of prevention:" churches and a park

• A church of vengeance: Montmartre's Sacré-Cœur

• The Sacre-Cœur scares, Sainte-Anne heals

Discovering parks and gardens

• Palais-Royal (and next pages)

• A wood where children play (20th)

• "Real Paris" and a park that flows through the eastern city

• Gardens replace an industrial site (13th)

• From gas-making to a giant park (13th)

• Gardens whose military origin seems hard to imagine (the canal overpass, 10th; please scroll down)

Suggestions for families

• To do with children (or without them)

• For adventurous families

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VIII.9. 

Recommendations