A FOUNTAIN WHERE THE EMPEROR CRUSHES SOCIALISM

PLACE SAINT-MICHEL LETS AN ARMY GATHER, TO REPRESS THE TURBULENT LATIN QUARTER OR MARCH TO THE WORKING-CLASS SOUTH

The void is much larger than traffic demands:   

Dividing at the monumental fountain frames its message of Socialism's defeat:

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Saint Michael* represents the Second Empire, Satan Socialism and the monsters its false doctrines, now tamed and inoffensive.

-- La place Saint-Michel by Grégoire Allessandri, 2012

* The angel in the Book of Revelations who defends God’s people in battle becomes Jesus trampling on a lion and snake, then Saint Michael killing the dragon: that is, the combat of Good against Evil. 

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Pamela Spurdon

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It celebrates crushing the workers' insurrection of 1848 and is inaugurated on Napoleon III's saint's day (of 1860).

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A public that has not heard of that upheaval

cannot grasp the reason for the void

or understand the fountain's message.

But while it should be easy to notice

 that the space is much too large for traffic,

almost no one does.

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Next,

The new arteries' military purpose