BEAUTY WHOSE BRUTAL ORIGIN HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN

MUCH THAT WAS BUILT IN THE MID-19TH CENTURY SHOWS DREAD OF ANOTHER WORKING-CLASS UPRISING

That too is almost never said.

• The emphatically secular French population does not think of the neo-Gothic churches as meant to inculcate docility, and appreciates them as neighborhood symbols and settings for daily life:

Sculpture at Notre-Dame de la Gare (built in 1858)

•  Homogeneous architecture gives the city its harmonious unity: Few remember that it comes from razing rebel neighborhoods.

Zoom

• Covering over a canal to let troops invade the radicalized east brought an overpass that is now two kilometers of gardens...

• And although the statue that introduces them suppresses the tragic lives of many underclass grisettes, in itself it is delightful:

• Preparing to bombard the Latin Quarter led to a left-bank panorama, and to a hospital that was beautifully rebuilt:

• The fountain at place Saint-Michel that celebrates Socialism's defeat is a site for festivity:

# # #

Imagining the violent origin

of much of what makes Paris splendid

is almost impossible.

But without the revolts and repressions

that are now carefully erased,

it would look like any other city.

*     *     *

Next,

Progressives hijack streets and spaces