IV.2. A MODERN ROYAL CITY

4.2. A modern royal city

 PLACE DE LA DÉFENSE, HEIR OF THE ROYAL PLACES

Claude Abron

Streets converge. Skyscrapers bring homogeneous architecture. The equestrian statue of the king, symbol of monarchy...

Zoom

Yields to the Grand Arch, symbol of capitalism:

Claude Abron

As well...

• The Grand Axis as model

• Perspectives, key to the city's grandeur

• "Places" stay royal

• The violent imagery of victors on horseback

• Detour: heroes on white horses  

*     *     *

Next,
The Grand Axis as model

THE GRAND AXIS AS MODEL

LOUIS XIV CREATES THE STRAIGHT LINE THAT MERGES WITH THE HORIZON AS A SYMBOL OF ENDLESS MIGHT

 It harks back to the space that leads to the royal tombs:

Claude Abron

Photo taken from the top of the Grand Arch, far to the west

Foreign cities adopt the model later, but only in capitals, and only to underscore the State:

In Washington, the point of focus emphasizes State grandeur

In New York, Fifth Avenue has no point of focus.

New York's three points of focus  — the Flatiron building, the MetLife building and the Public Library seen from W. 42nd Street —  are built on a layout that is practical only. 

Paris's unique grandeur 

comes from the innumerable streets

that lead the eye to a target

and hark back to the kings.

*      *     *

Next,
Perspectives, key to the city's grandeur

PERSPECTIVES, KEY TO THE CITY'S GRANDEUR

THEY ARE ANOTHER GIFT OF KINGS

The design comes from...

• The space that leads to the monarchs' tombs.

• The straight streets that lead to symbols of monarchy.

• A probable plan for an urban complex, which culminates with a statue of a king. 

• The straight lines that converge toward the dome of the Invalides, which was meant to harbor the Sun King's tomb.

• The Grand Axis.

It brings grandeur by... 

• Amplifying prestige:

Claude Abron

 Les Invalides

• Highlighting power:

The Senate

• Linking the secular and sacred:

The Chamber of Deputies seen from the church of the Madeleine

• Recalling palaces:

Carolyn Ristau

The Opera

Eurodisney website

Eurodisney

• Adding clout:

     The Bank of France in the 2nd / A branch of the BNP bank in the 9th

A church (Notre-Dame de Lorette, 9th)

Another church (Saint-Bernard, 18th)

The Saint-Lazare railway station

The Chamber of Commerce

• Making streets dramatic:

The immigrant neighborhood of Barbès

# # #

Those perspectives were due to one man (the Baron Haussmann, active 1854-1869):

The Baron Haussmann in 1860 / zoom

Emperor Napoleon III entrusted the city's transformation to a man who could stand up to him. When the emperor remarked that in London streets served only for traffic, Haussmann answered,

"Sire, Parisians are not English. 

They need something more."  

 -- Memoirs

 "Something more" 
is the memory of monarchy.

*     *     *
 
Next,
"Places" stay royal

"PLACES" STAY ROYAL

THE POWER SYMBOLS AT THE CENTER OF MAJOR PLACES

EVOLVE WITH CHANGING REGIMES

The equestrian statue of the king on pont Neuf bridge is their common origin.

# # #

At place de l'Étoile, the Arc de Triomphe exalts the victories of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies. Napoleon began it, the Restauration kings continued it to glorify an invasion of Spain, and Louis-Philippe finished and inaugurated it.

He hoped that making the Invalides the Emperor's sepulchre and completing the Arc (both in 1836) would connect him with Napoleon and so unite the people around his illegitimate rule (please click scroll down).

Internet, photographer not named

At place de l'Opéra the monument itself is the symbol, for it represents the regime (the Second Empire in the 1860's).

Claude Abron

An enclosed space, straight, converging streets and homogeneous architecture

# # #

At place Vendôme, La Commune destroys the column built to honor Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz (battle 1805, original column 1807) for its militarism (on May 16, 1871)...

"A monument to barbarity, a symbol of brute force and false glory, the victors' permanent insult to the vanquished [...]. The Vendôme column will be demolished." 

 -- Decree of Destruction 

Zoom

The painter Gustave Courbet said the figures, which of about the same size, look like "gingerbread men."

Preparation de la démolition, dernières mesures by Bruno Braquehais / zoom 

Souvenirs de la Commune: la colonne Vendôme démolie, anonymous, 1871 / zoom

La Colonne Vendôme démolie by Bruno Braquehais /zoom

It was supposed to have been made from cannons seized from the enemy, but Communards found only a thin layer of bronze.

Internet, photographer not named

We see a copy. 

# # #

Although set between the river and a street the Grand Courtyard of the Louvre cannot draw converging routes...

• The space is public, the architecture homogeneous...

Pinterest

And the Pyramid evokes the State:

Entrée to Black Paris

Faced with an outcry against putting the contemporary work in the ancestral setting, the "Sun King of Socialism" — President Mitterand —  said, "I want it!" and the opposition answered the equivalent of "Oui, Sire" (in 1984).

President Macron celebrated his electoral victory with the Pyramid in the background (in 2017):

Image from widely-seen video 

The royal imprint,

a current event.

*     *     *

Next,
Detour:

The violent imagery of victors on horseback

DETOUR: THE VIOLENT IMAGERY OF VICTORS ON HORSEBACK

ART THAT GLORIFIES WAR BEGAN WITH EQUESTRIAN  KINGS 

On the arch that dominated the Saint-Denis gate an exhausted lion evokes the defeat of the Habsbourg monarchy* and shows Louis XIV slaying the defeated: 

*The lion appears on its coat of arms.

The sculpture commemorates what was considered an exploit of Louis's army in 1674, the famous "Crossing of the Rhine." It was the prelude to two decades of massacres by the French armies in western Germany and to the French-German enmity that endured until the Cold War: Fuller explanation here.

 Same idea:

        The Battle of Poltava [in 1709], mosaic of M. Lomonosov,  Moscow Academy of Science, 2009 / zoom

La Bataille de Rocroy [en 1643]. Le duc d'Enghien salue le cadavre du comte de Fontaine par Maurice Leloir, 1931

          Napoleon at Eylau [in 1643] by Jean Gros, 1807-1808, Louvre / zoom

     Napoleon III Orders the Launch of the Imperial Guard at the Battle of Solferino [in 1859] by Adolphe Yvon 1861 / zoom

# # #

The Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies of World War I looks over the splendid perspective that leads to the Eiffel Tower.

It changes the subject from the carnage of that war, which provoked the 20th centuries' catastrophes:

Maréchal Foch by Raymond Martin and Robert Wlérick / Internet, photographer not named 

The arrow leads to the Eiffel Tower.

But de Gaulle is always on foot. 

In front of the Grand Palais

Because his generation of officers no longer rode horses? Because of his height, long legs and long paces? Because the film of his march down the Champs-Elysées at the Liberation is so famous? Or to set him apart? 

Whatever the reason, 

de Gaulle is always shown striding,

an image that coincides with peace in Europe.

*     *     * 

Next,

Detour: heroes on white horses