HAUSSMANN ❘ IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF


Clockwise from above: The Palais Garnier; Charles Marville’s photograph of Rue Tirechape taken during the time of Haussmann’s renovations; Adolphe Yvon’s painting of Haussmann presenting his plans to Napoleon III; the symmetrical layout of the streets; Les Halles; Château Haussman in Cestas; a portrait of Haussmann by Henri Lehmann


unfathomable 17 years, Parisians lived under clouds of dust and manoeuvred around mountainous rubble. The result, eventually, was 45,000 new buildings, pleasantly situated on wide, tree-lined arteries; their design strictly dictated by height, setback and architectural design, now referred to as the Haussmann style. Fresh air, water and light reached into previously dingy neighbourhoods. Haussmann punned that he might consider the title ‘aqueduc’ because he had multiplied the sewer infrastructure fivefold, creating a buried system of underground channels and aqueducts that remain a tourist attraction to this day.


subdivisions in southern towns such as Cannes. He repeated the same task in the Burgundian department of Yonne. As Prefect, Haussmann, returned to Bordeaux in 1851.The house he and Octavie built in Cestas is today known as the Château Haussmann. True to family tradition, Louis- Napoleon seized power in 1851, and it wasn’t long before he offered Haussmann the chance of a lifetime. On June 23, 1853, Napoleon III, as he was now known, picked Haussmann to run the most prized prefecture in the country – the Seine. He could ask for no more and, bedecked in a uniform encrusted with blue and silver, he was sworn in. The administration saw Haussmann as “a tall, tigerish animal”, one who was wily, resourceful, audacious and brutally cynical. Ferocity was needed to deal with the backlash Napoleon III’s plans would have. At their first meeting, the monarch


flourished a large map of Paris, crisscrossed with colourful lines demonstrating what he wanted to be built and what he wanted to be gone. The radical reshaping of Paris rested on the questions of defence and hygiene. Not only were chaotic and winding streets easily barricaded during the frequent civil insurrections but they were a hindrance to Haussmann’s goal of improving the circulation of goods, people, water and sewage. Some of Paris’s historic quarters, malingering as insalubrious slums, were destroyed. Haussmann jokingly called himself “the demolition artist”, and among the staggering 20,000 buildings he dispassionately demolished, was his family home. His own lush apartment at 12 rue Boissy d’Anglas now too is gone. The urban makeover evicted more than 100,000 Parisians but employed one fifth of the city’s workforce. For an


LIGHT IN THE CITY On Haussmann’s grand avenues, a flâneur was never out of touch with the splendid monuments that defined Paris, and by extension, French culture. The Arc de Triomphe sat like a spider spinning Haussmann’s web of streets into the world’s most beautiful traffic circle. The Opéra de Paris, commissioned from architect Charles Garnier and today known as the Palais Garnier, was a jewel at the terminus of the Avenue de l’Opéra. The Théâtre du Châtelet and the Théâtre de la Ville still sit like opposing twins on the Right Bank. The enlarged Hôtel Dieu replaced several medieval streets on the Île de la Cité. Novelist George Sand and poet and flâneur Baudelaire enjoyed strolling down the bright, broad new avenues, although Victor Hugo, ever the Romantic, insisted Haussmann’s improvements bordered on vandalism. The Gare de l’Est, and Gare de Lyon were necessities, as were architect Victor Baltard’s iron and glass pavilions protecting Les Halles market. Bridges joined the left bank with the right, while parks at the city’s four corners provided citizens with much-needed green space. Georges Haussmann earned nicknames such as ‘Vice Emperor’ and ‘Haussmann the First’. As a convenient scapegoat for everything that was wrong with the Empire, Napoleon III sacked him. Haussmann’s documents and maps were incinerated during the Paris Commune of 1871, the same insurrection that would ironically spell the end of the road for Louis-Napoleon. Haussmann died in 1891 and was buried in Père Lachaise. His teenage footsteps through the city’s squalid streets were the foundation for his new Paris, which remains one of the modern wonders of the world. FT


Jun/Jul 2023 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 51


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