4.3.4. EFFECT ON EUROPE: AN ANNOUNCMENT OF FRENCH HEGEMONY

 

DESTROYING THE CITY WALL MEANT THAT ATTACKING PARIS WAS UNTHINKABLE, TRUMPETING FRENCH DOMINATION OF THE CONTINENT

(VICTORIES 1672, RAMPART DEMOLISHED 1674)

Protective walls were universal:  

The Second Fall of Constantinople, by Tintoretto, towards 1600 / zoom

Constantinople 

Rome

                By Apollinary Vasnetsov, 1922 / zoom

Moscow toward 1350

Du Niger au golfe de Guinée by Louis Gustave Binger, 1892 / zoom

Sikasso (Mali), end 19th century

     View of Vienna from Josephat, official commission, 1690 / zoom

            Getty Images/Vernon Lewis Gallery / Stocktrek Images

New Orleans in 1812

    Anonymous engraving / zoom

   Marrakech toward 1840

Or so it seemed.

*    *    *

Next,

4.3.5. 

That arc at the Saint-Denis gate

heralds three centuries of calamity