A MILITARY NETWORK CRISSCROSSES TOWN

 

THREE GIANT SPACES DOMINATE THE HEART OF TOWN

(AMONG THE FIRST TRANSFORMATIONS, IN 1852-1853)

On reaching the river at the city's center, troops would cross a new bridge... 

      Originally pont [bridge] Napoleon III; after the Emperor's downfall, pont National

...to enter hugely enlarged place Saint-Michel:

"Walls of Medieval Paris Discovered during Demolitions for Place Saint-Michel, engraving 1860 / zoom

Adapted from an Internet photo, no photographer named

There they might take either...

• The prolonged artery toward the working-class south...

Boulevard Saint-Michel

• ...or ordinary but widened streets toward the parvis of Notre-Dame Cathedral:

View from a tower of Notre-Dame

 Notice the insignificance of the street for normal traffic.

At the end of the parvis the soldiers might take an ordinary but enlarged street and a reinforced bridge...

"Taking City Hall" (cut) by Amédée Bourgeois, 1831 / zoom

The earlier bridge

 ...to City Hall's greatly enlarged esplanade:

Model at the City Museum

In 1830

Drawn by T. J.H. Hoffbayer toward 1880 after archival records / zoom

In 1855 

# # #

The City Hall esplanade becomes heart of a right-bank network...

• To the left is the relatively straight trade route that had been enlarged for tournaments and was the route that Louis XIV had taken for his cortège made building an artery toward the working-class east unnecessary:

The trade route (rue Saint-Antoine), wide and straight enough for marching troops. 

  

• To the right, as at Notre-Dame, an insignificant street lies alongside the expanse. It leads to...

...another wide, straight street (avenue Victoria) from which the army could reach Châtelet, the center of the right bank, five minutes away:

# # # 

 Behind City Hall were the Lobau barracks. More later.

# # #

 Of course such changes allowed 

infinitely more fluid circulation and let in light and air.

But the three huge voids, two of which are dead ends,

have no tie with those objectives.

They were for assembling soldiers, horses and cannons. 

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 A fountain where the Emperor crushes Socialism