A "MASTERLY LINE" CUTS THROUGH THE WORKING-CLASS EAST

"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

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

That line becomes the passage over part of the Saint-Martin 

canal, which in June hindered the army's march east: 

-- On the  canal  

My canal Saint-Martin by Pascal Payen-Appenzeller (1984 (in French)

Un jour de plus à Paris, without more information

Place de la Bastille before the canal was covered over.

History of the Révolution of 1848 by Daniel Stern

No soldiers, horses or cannons are crossing the bridge because it cannot carry their weight (look attentively to see the cannon just above the arrow.)

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The canal pierced through the 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, cited by Hazan

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

Musée Carnavalet, not exhibited

Covering it would remove the obstacle that kept troops from entering the industrializing east as a whole, which was correctly expected to become more turbulent still: 

Barricade in Ménilmontant, 1871 / zoom

So the "masterly line" was the covered-over canal, which let troops gathered at République pass over it to march through the Faubourg Saint-Antoine toward Bastille, or cross it to invade Belleville:

Adapted from a Google map

 

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Haussmann transformed the entire area to allow the overpass. 

• He demolished the "Boulevard of Crime," named after the melodramas produced in the theaters that lined the street...

The Faubourg du Temple by Adolphe Martial Potémont, 1862 / zoom

All that remains is the Théâtre Dejazet, on the other side of the street.

       The Children of Paradise by Marcel Carné (1943) with Arletty and Jean Marais / Trailer

• To let the army assemble he built a huge space. At its center was a fountain that lions, symbols suitable to the Second Empire, surrounded.

By Michel Charles Fichot, toward 1880 / zoom 

• When that regime imploded (in 1870) the Third Republic shakily appeared. An election finally ensconced it (in 1879), and the giant statue, Homage to the Republic, took the lion fountain's place (in 1883). 

.

# # #

As at Notre-Dame Cathedral and City Hall, space for the army is huge and the street for daily use insignificant:

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Today the "masterly line" is 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 Miserables, Fantine is a grisette whose lover, a student, takes 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 inconceivable.

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Next,
The grand voids of the blue-collar east