AN IDYLLIC SPOT ON THE BANKS OF THE BIÈVRE IS
TRANSFORMED WHEN INDUSTRIALIZATION UNLEASHES
UNBRIDLED CAPITALISM
Painting at the Auberge Ethchegorry (detail), the inn that occupies the site today
Reasons for the intense industrialization: The outskirt is...
The Gare d'Austerlitz railroad station,
enlarged in 1867...
was one of the city's five stations that were deliberately built on the outskirts, to keep industry and its workers away from the center. The sixth station, the Gare d'Orsay, was linked to Gare d'Austerlitz, to spare wealthy travellers coming to the International Exhibit of 1900 from being deposited in the 13th.
Making misfortune worse: The Bièvre River, used for tanning,
was a stinking open sewer that was fully covered over only in the 1950's:
Zoom (please scroll down)
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Today, all that is left is...
- A street name where the underground river runs into the Seine:
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Rue de Bièvre, in the central 5th, is built over the river.
- A historical journal's attention:
- Two paintings at City Hall, that on the page above and this one of tanners:
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The Tanners of rue Croulebarbe by Henri Coelas, no date, at City Hall |
Evoking the gloom has made this detective story a classic:
Fog on Tolbiac bridge by Léo Malet (first published 1956), illustrated by Jacques Tardi (Castermann, 1988)
"Get out of here, Belita.
Go dump your flowers wherever you like,
but get out of this place.
but get out of this place.
It will crush you, as it has others.
It stinks too much of misery, shit and misfortune."
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