Birth of Modern Europe
Mr. Meyers
Charlie Decker
3/12/04
The Physical Manifestation of Paris
Paris is a city that possesses and always has possessed an undeniable aura. For centuries, people have been inexplicably drawn to the French capital city. Paris has an air of romance, mystery, historical significance, and sheer, absolute beauty. The Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame are two of the most recognizable structures in the world. Why does Paris have such an atmosphere of mystique? Throughout her history, Paris has always embodied the image of the ideal city. While the Bourbon Monarchy exaggerated this image, the gap between the wealthy and the poor under the dynasty was more pronounced than at any point in history. The Bourbon Monarchs used their nearly limitless wealth to erect a number of extravagant places and monuments; the most excessive of them being the palace at Versailles. It is because of the extravagant power of the Bourbon Dynasty, which transformed the face of the city forever, that Paris is so fantasized and revered.
Even in her primitive years as a Roman colony, Paris embodied the representation of the ideal city that helps sustain her today. The city of Paris was first developed as a Roman fishing colony around 250 B.C.E. At this point, the city was confined to the Ile de la Cite, an island in the middle of the Seine River. In the ninth century, the city expanded outward. The Right Bank became a grand marketplace, and the Left Bank became agricultural land. When the city was being developed, it was originally envisioned as a fortress city on the Seine. However, these plans were eventually scrapped, as Paris population kept rising and the city kept outgrowing its walls.
During
the Bourbon Dynasty (1589-1792), the physical and architectural differences
between the areas of Paris intended for the rich and those intended for the
poor became more pronounced than at any point in any city in history. The
Bourbons were several lines of monarchs. They are most famous for their French
kings, but lines of the Bourbon Dynasty also ruled Spain and parts of Italy. The
Bourbons tended to be unconditional kings. As Louis XIV famously stated, One King, One Law, and One Faith.[1]
This quote shows how this line of monarchs ruled with absolute centralized
power. The kings that ruled Paris before the Bourbons were also total
dictators. Before the Bourbons, living conditions in Paris for the general
public were deplorable. The congested streets collected almost unfathomable
amounts of filth. With so much filth inevitably comes terrible, easily spread
disease. When the Bourbons took control, starting with Henry IV, the city was
significantly transformed physically. However, these transformations did little
or nothing to improve living conditions for the public. While the kings should
have been focusing on making life bearable for their subjects, king after king
instead created extravagant places and monuments in his own honor.
The
legacy left by the Bourbon Dynasty on Paris stems from these extravagant places and monuments, which were without
exception built as testaments to their own power. Amoung the most famous is the
Louvre. The Louvre was originally built as a fortress around 1200 CE, and was
near the city limits at the time. Fortresses were usually on the outskirts not
only for protection from hostile foriegners, but also to provide an exit
strategy for nobles if there were an uprising in the city itself. The fortress
was cheifly used as a prison, and as the most extravagant structure for miles,
was a symbol of the growing power of the royal class. In the 1500s, Charles V
installed a library in the Louvre, and the use of the former fortress varied
throughout the century, as it was constantly being reconstructed. By the late
1600s, the Louvre had been built to four times its previous size, and it became
a royal palace. At the same time, it became a haven for artists and
intellectuals, setting the stage for it to become the world famous museum it is
today.
While
in many ways the Louvre was a coup de grce, the places and grand avenues were just as important for
showing royal power. The Champs lyses was a grand avenue extending westward
from the Tuileries palace and garden. The construction of the avenue began a
general westward expansion of extravagance using the avenue itself as an axis.
The places built along this avenue include the Place des Vosges, the Place Vendome, and the most famous, the Place de
Victoires. All three were
built in the 1600s. The places are geometric shapes surrounded by common streets with elaborate private
residential buildings surrounding the edges. These places required an enourmous
amount of power to build; each design required the destruction of large,
preexisting sections of the city, the rerouting of infrastructure, etc. While
these places technically accessable to all, only the wealthy had the lesuire
time to take advantage of these beautiful outdoor spaces. The beautification of
Paris continued after the revolution of 1789, when Napolean came to power.
Napolean continued the contruction of beautiful avenues and places, but more than any French ruler before
him, he owed his position to the will of the people. Perhaps due to his
knowledge of this, Napolean made much progress in improving general living
conditions. He completely overhauled the infrastructure, making the city much
less congested (while making the city less hospitable for revolutionaries).
Of
course, one cannot speak of the extravagance of Paris without mentioning the
proverbial jewel in the crown, the palace at Versialles. Versialles was an area
southwest of Paris that transformed from a modest hunting abode to the most
extravagant palace that history has ever known. In 1624, Louis XIII pruchased a
large area of land near the villiage of Versailles. He built a royal hunting-box,
designed by Salomon de Brosse. It followed the standard French patternthere
was a main central block flanked by lower wings, those wings being joined by an
arcade to form an entrance courtyard. Louis XIII fell in love with his
hunting-box, and he stayed there frequently. Eventually, the villiage had be be
expanded to accomadate all of the kings guests. Only in the France of the
Seventeenth and early Eighteenth centuries could the subsequent developments
have taken place.[2] Only in a
city with such rich architectual resources and egotistical kings fixated with
building testaments to themselves could a project like Versailles be built and
sustained. Louis XIV, inspired by the palace and landscaped park built by
Nicholas Fouquet at Vaux-le-Vicomte, decided to turn Versailles into a similar
structure. So Louis decided to imprison Fouquet and steal his design team. This
really shows how drunk with power Louis XIV really was. Fouquets design team
consisted of some of the best known architects in history; Andre Le-Notre,
Louis Le Vau, and Charles Le Brun. Le Notre was in charge of designing and
building a grand park. The park was flanked by shrubbery, following the central
axis of the palace. The axis was flanked by symmetrical arrangements of flowers
and lawns on either side. The park was also filled with statues, and a
menagerie for rare animals. Le Vau and Le Brun constantly had to improve and
extend the palace to match Le Notres almost ridiculously excessive park. In
1678, Louis XIV further expanded the town and palace to accomidate the court
and government departments on a permanent basis. Versailles can be compared to
New Yorks Tweed Courthouse, an extravagant building that drained New York
Citys resources in the 1800s and built by the famous crook Boss Tweed.
Versailles is similar to the Tweed Courthouse, but on a scale a thousand times
grander. Versailles was a symbol of government excess and extravagance unlike
anything Europe had ever seen or likely will ever see again.
As evident from the places and especially Versailles, Paris was often used as a canvas for absolute monarchs who loved nothing more than to flex their political muscle. Before and throughout the Bourbon monarchy, Paris was not a sanitary, safe, or practical place to live for the common man. Yet the population only grew. Considering the quality of life, this population growth is very difficult to comprehend. However, it is clear that while celebrating their own power, the great Monarchs added more to Paris than some beautiful buildings and outdoor spaces. They created an aura of power, of wonder, of mystery; an aura that to this day still draws people to Paris.