IV.2.1. TRANSFORMING THE CITY

DREAD OF ANOTHER JUNE BRINGS THE AUTOCRATIC SECOND EMPIRE, WHICH FORBIDS UNIONS AND TO CRUSH THE NEXT INSURRECTION, TRANSFORMS THE CITY*   

* Coup d'état, December 1851; changes get seriously underway in June 1853, when the Emperor replaces a timid administrator with the Baron Haussmann and forces financing.

Historians emphasize the inevitable modernization and downplay or omit the military emphasis.

* Two studies that do alude to it: Paris, Bivouac of Révolutions by Robert Tombs (1999) and The Invention of Paris by Éric Hazan (2001). But Tombs alludes to it only in passing (p.56) and Hazan does not call it overriding. 

The City Museum grants the Baron Haussmann a room to himself and relegates June 1848 to a table at the back of the floor.

The next pages examine that mutation.

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Next,
IV.2.a.
The metamorphosis seen up close