"THE CHOCOLAT FACADE"

THE MISERABLE 13TH BECAME ONE OF FRANCE'S

MAIN INDUSTRIAL SITES

A Rich Industrial Past: the subject of a special issue of the 13th's historical journal

It is near the river and the Austerlitz railway station. Like other stations in Paris and in contrast with those of London and New York, it was built on the outskirts to keep laborers far from the center. 

Adapted from a métro map 

The gare d'Orsay, the only station in the center of town, let visitors access the International Exhibition of 1900. A shuttle avoided the lugubrious outskirts.   

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Among the multitude of industries was the country's largest chocolate plant, "Chocolats Lombart."

Its owner pioneered using pictures in advertising to attract children.

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The 13th had been a Communard stronghold and its memory was powerful: "My childhood was in the 13th district behind the Panhard factory [...] that is, where the Paris Commune was part of the myths, the legends and the reality of my earliest memory.[...] The good one, which remains, it is said, when one has forgotten all the rest." 

  Alphonse Boudard, preface to

 Eléments pour une histoire de la Commune dans le 13e arrondissement 

by Gérard Comte, 1981

• Paintings made decades later are based on such memories: 

Reading "Le Père Duchesne" in 1871 by André Devambez (gone from web)

Une rue de Paris en 1871 (adapted from Meissonnier, Rue de la Mortellerie en 1848) by Maximilian Luce, toward 1905 / zoom

• For more examples of how artists viewed La Commune a generation later artists, please click here and here and scroll down.

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As for the plant's 800 workers, the tragedy of La Commune taught them to fight differently through unions and strikes:

Zoom

     The Beginning of the CGT Union, 1895 /zoom (please scroll down) 

Sainte-Anne was a short walk from the establishment, and Monsieur Lombart financed its facade: Residents dubbed it "the chocolate facade," ironically referring to the attempt to distract them from their new, less terrifying and much more effective action.

 

Zoom

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The site of his establishment at 76 rue de Choisy...

     Poster at an exhibit organized by the historical magazine shown above.

 

...is now in the heart of "Chinatown."

End of this section.

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The next section,

VI.2.5.
Mystification