THE KING AMONG HIS PEOPLE

IN THOSE CRAMPED TOWNS BRIDGES WERE COVERED WITH HOUSES...   

   Jousting at Notre-Dame bridge by Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet, 1756 / zoom 

Except on pont Neuf.*

*Begun in 1578, stalled by civil war between 1588 and 1589, finished in 1607

          Pont Neuf et la pompe de la Samaritaine by Jean-Baptiste Raguenet, 1777, Musée Carnavalet

      A pump to provide water for the Louvre and Tuileries palaces is the only building

There Henri IV replaced them with the first sidewalks and their invented "balconies"...  

They were spaces for jugglers, snake-oil dealers, tooth pullers, anyone who could draw a public...

   Pont Neuf vu de l'entrée de la place Dauphine, anonymous, toward 1665, Musée Carnavalet

            Le Charlatan by Franz Anton Maulbertsch, 1795 / zoom

 L'Arracheur de dents du pont Neuf  ("The Touth-puller of pont Neuf") by Jean Brioché, toward 1650 / zoom

Notice the thief.

And actors.

The entry to place Dauphine, wide enough for a stage, is where French modern comedy began:

    Tabarin à la place Dauphine, eBay

Tabarin was the first French comic to tear away from the humor of medieval demons.

Pont Neuf by Hendrick Mommers, toward 1670 / zoom

# # #

Henri IV is France's most popular king, for his good humor and because life for the poor improved during his peaceful, well-run, stable reign:

• "Every French laborer should have a chicken in the pot on Sundays," he is supposed to have said, and "Poule au pot Henri IV" is standard bistro fare.

Zoom

• During the bridge's construction he jumped on horseback over the gap at its center to onlookers' delighted applause. Amiable cartoons recall the feat:

His statue hovers over the bridge, summoning up the monarchy...

            La Congestion de Paris, le pont Neuf à la rue Dauphine by Nicolas Guérard, 1715 / zoom

Zoom

At a time when powerful forces

try to erase it.

 More later.

End of this section. 

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Next section:

IV.1.3.

A design inconceivable elsewhere