5.7.9.ii. A CANAL IS COVERED OVER

APPLYING THE FORMULA WAS HARDER IN THE NORTHEAST, WHERE A CANAL* BLOCKED TROOOPS' ADVANCE

*Canal Saint-Martin is described in Mon canal Saint-Martin by Pascal Payen-Appenzeller (1984)

Un jour de plus à Paris, without more information

Place de Bastille before the canal was covered over 

The canal obstructs troops' entry into working-class territory 

in June 1848:

Histoire de la Révolution de 1848 par Daniel Stern

The bridge could not bear the weight of soldiers, horses and cannon (the arrow shows a cannon). 

 June 25 1848, dedicated to the National Assembly / zoom

The army finally crosses the bridge. Drawings on the bottom show the stages.

*    *

So Haussmann imagined covering over the canal, from the bridge to its termination at Bastille. Two goals:

• The army could march into working-class territory by the overpass. 

The canal flows under the overpass.

 

• The army would use the overpass to cut through faubourg* Saint-Antoine, the artisans' territory that was the traditional epicenter of revolt: a Balzacien character springs up "like an insurrection in the faubourg Saint-Antoine." 

-- César Birotteau,1837

*"Faubourg" or "false burg," that is, suburb.  

     Attack on a Barricade of rue Saint-Antoine and the Death of General Négrier on June 25 1848 by Gaspard Gobaut / zoom

"I rarely saw my august sovereign so enthusiastic, so much did he value the masterly line that could take the Faubourg* Saint-Antoine from behind" 

-- The baron Haussmann in Éric Hazan, The Invention of Paris, 2001

Adapted from a Google map

*     *

To let the army assemble, Haussmann greatly enlarged what is now place de la République. As at Notre-Dame Cathedral and City Hall, the street for the army is huge and that for daily use insignificant:

Adapted from Mappy

 

*     *

The "masterly line" is the covered-over canal. Today it has become a series of gardens, with the July Column at one end and the statue "The Grisette* of 1830" at the other:

 

*Grisette: a working-class girl, who wore "gris" (gray) because gray cloth was cheapest. 

By Jean Descamps, 1911

In Les Misérables, Fantine is a grisette whose lover, a student, invites her to a luxurious déjeuner. He promises a surprise to follow, which turns out to be leaving without paying the bill. He returns to his province, makes a useful marriage and never thinks of her again. She is pregnant... .

The statue charmingly reminds patriarchs

of the girlfriends of their youth,

while gardens make the violence

 that led to the passage almost unimaginable.

End of this section.

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Next section,

 5.8. 

Gifts of the repression