Baron Haussmann and the Planning of ParisAuthor(s): Brian ChapmanReviewed work(s):Source: The Town Planning Review, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Oct., 1953), pp. 177-192Published by: Liverpool University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40101527 .Accessed: 14/10/2012 12:57

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Liverpool University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The TownPlanning Review.

http://www.jstor.org

BARON HAUSSMANN AND

THE PLANNING OF PARIS

by BRIAN CHAPMAN

Lecturer in Government and Administration in the University of Manchester

Paris, the city of light, without air, sewers, drains, or pure water;

IMAGINE take away the great arteries of communication - the boulevards St. Germain, Sebastopol, St. Michel, Malesherbes and Haussmann, the great crossing places

of the Etoile, the Republique, the Trocadero and the Opera, together with the radial avenues of .which they are the centres. Erase very many smaller roads as important as the rue de Turbigo and the rue Caulaincourt ; return the Bois de Boulogne and the Buttes Chaumont to their former wild state and their sinister traditions, the Champs Elysees to an ordinary street and the parks of Monceau and Montsouris to private property. Remove nearly all the squares, and from the streets and squares and quais of Paris chop down fifty thousand trees. And after that abolish the churches of St. Augustin, the Trinite, St. Francois Xavier, half a dozen hospitals, many schools and barracks, the Theatres of the Chatelet, Gaite and Sarah Bernhardt, the bridges of Alma, Solferino, National and Auteuil, entire residential quarters, offices, public buildings and museums, and part of the Louvre. And then you are left with some idea of Paris, 1 8 £3, the year in which Georges Haussmann, Baron of the Empire, became Prefect of the Seine.

When he arrived Paris was still a picturesque mediaeval city, in which dens of thieves, escaped convicts and arrogant prostitutes held court, mockingly at ease, almost in the shadow of the Prefecture of Police, protected by tortuous and labyrinthine slums: a city in which two decades before Vidocq was at home. One which, furthermore, harboured exultant memories of the days of the revolutions, not only those of 1789 but also, much more recently, the insur- rections of 1830 and 1848.

When Haussmann left Paris in 1870, it had become the model of European town planning, and the envy of all capital cities.

Georges Haussmann

Georges Haussmann was born in 1809, the sonof a bourgeois family from Alsace which had achieved considerable commercial and political success during the Revolution and under Napoleon. From this sturdy protestant background he inherited a strong sense of personal dignity, mental discipline and useful

family connections. To them he added on his own behalf abundant intellectual

i78 THE PLANNING OF PARIS October

curiosity and a zest for living. His days at the college Henri IV and at the

University of Paris, where he studied law, were pleasing therefore both to himself and to his masters. Fencing and music - for which he developed an expert taste - philosophy and the arts, science and law, high life and low life, he tasted them all with insatiable appetite.

Haussmann's fame is as a Prefect of France, but his entry into the Prefectorial

Corps was unpremeditated - perhaps the only major decision in his active life that was so. Uncertain of what career to follow, he was caught up, while in his last months as a student, with the liberal opposition to the censorious and

oppressive regime of Charles X. His entry to this circle - through his father - could not have been better timed, for it coincided almost exactly with the outbreak of the insurrection against Charles which broke forth into the streets of Paris in the July days of 1830. Haussmann followed.

The energetic young man, uncertain of his destiny, fought by the barricades, helped storm the Theatre Fran9ais, acted as runner for Casimir Perier. He was noticed, his wound praised, his valour remembered. He learnt then that it was better to act in the forefront of victory or not at all, for only the leaders can

expect rewards from victory. His reward was to be appointed a member of the Prefectorial Corps as Secretary General of the Prefecture of Vienne at Poitiers.

The Prefectorial Corps which he joined had been created by the great Napoleon in 1800, and it was the basis of the State's civil administration through- out France. A Prefect and Secretary General in every Department, a Sub Prefect in every arrondissement, were appointed to execute the Government's orders, administer local affairs, supervise the communes, control the police, unofficially to *

arrange '

elections, and to act as the centre of provincial society. For a Prefect this was an absorbing task, but for a Sub Prefect the burden was much less onerous and frequently boring. Haussmann like all Sub Prefects in

popular mythology wrote verse in his spare time. He did not last long at Poitiers, for which he was thankful, but he learnt two things there: how to be tactful with a masterful superior, and how indiscreet it is to say aloud that a Deputy's wife is unlovely.

In the next seventeen years he became successively Sub Prefect at Yssingeaux, Nerac, St. Girons and Blaye. Free from the constant presence of a Prefect, Haussmann expanded his life, interests and personality. He developed a taste for local history, engineering, and at Nerac, a fascination for roads.

He also married while he was there, to his great ultimate advantage. His wife was a Protestant - like himself - from Bordeaux, and she combined most excellent qualities: she was an admirable hostess, a good mother, had family connections in Bordeaux, and was tolerant of her husband's pecadilloes. Once, in later years when they were in Paris, her patience deserted her for a while, and she left him for a few months after a particularly notorious affaire with the

opera singer Marie-Roze. But she returned, and one day confided wistfully to an intimate that i il vaudra mieux que je lui survive, car je suis plus que lui capable de regrets.9

1953 BRIAN CHAPMAN 179

The second big step in Haussmann' s career came when he was appointed Sub Prefect at Blaye, an arrondissement depending on Bordeaux. With an

appreciative Prefect as superior and a wife with family connections in the city, Haussmann rapidly became an influential member of Bordeaux society. His main objective at this time seems to have been to become himself Prefect of Bordeaux, a post which he then probably regarded as the

height of reasonable ambition. From now on he took every chance that came his way with an unscrupulous-

ness and full-bloodedness which would shame a modern administrator. His

opening came when, after the revolution of 1848, he recognised the rising star of the great Napoleon's nephew, Louis-Napoleon. When he was offered the

post of Prefect at La Rochelle by the new government, he refused it, much

daring, in order to be free to act in Bordeaux as Louis-Napoleon's agent in the first presidential elections of the new Second Republic. He chose wisely, for

Napoleon won. In January, 1849, Haussmann was called to Paris to meet his new master face to face.

He reckoned, with some justification, on now obtaining the Prefecture of Bordeaux, but Napoleon had different ideas, for he was already meditating plans to transform the Second Republic into the Second Empire with himself no longer a President but the Emperor. He needed emissaries to prepare public opinion, and for three years Haussmann filled this role as the Prefect in the

Departments of the Var and Yonne where democratic attachments were over-

strong. Haussmann routed out opponents, used the police ruthlessly to support government politics, and provided amenable parliamentary candidates. He also contributed by his reports to the fear of the bourgoisie of the Red Menace.

When finally, Louis-Napoleon overturned the Second Republic in December, 1 851, and became the Emperor Napoleon III, his faithful, energetic and

imaginative aide, Haussmann, at last achieved his wish and became Prefect of Bordeaux. With his immense energies at last freed from restrictions, he fell to work to transform Bordeaux into the real and worthy capital of the South West. Schemes and plans were worked out, promising violent upheavals, and lavish receptions were arranged when Napoleon visited the city on tour of his dominions. But in June, 1853, before any start could be made on his plans, Haussmann was called on by Napoleon to take up the greatest post in the Prefectoral Corps, the Prefecture of the Seine in Paris.

This was a very special post not because the Seine was the richest and most densely populated Department in France, and Paris the hub of national

political life, but also because on grounds of public policy, the Prefect of the Seine acted both as head of the Department and as municipal head of the city of Paris itself, two posts of immense influence and powers.

At this time the post was of even greater significance because Napoleon was by now in the midst of planning his great project, the transformation of Paris. Voltaire, a century before, had remarked that Paris could be made the most beautiful city in the world in ten years. In 1793 a plan was prepared by

i8o THE PLANNING OF PARIS October

an expert committee, called the Plan du Commission des Artistes, which

proposed principally a direct route from the Concorde to the Bastille, the

development of the areas round the Place de la Bastille and the Observatoire, and a road round Mont Ste. Genevieve. This plan1 was never fully executed but provided a basis for the work carried out in the next fifty years, and especially for the idea of the rue de Rivoli. The most notable work was done under the

July Monarchy when the Marquis de Rambuteau was Prefect of the Seine ; many houses were built, quais and roads were constructed, other roads were widened. The first steps towards more modern concepts of public hygiene were taken by covering in some of the open sewers and by the construction of '

vespasiennes.9 Many trees were planted to give Paris lungs. But Paris still remained an essentially mediaeval city, faced with the new and complex problems of modern society and the industrial age. Napoleon III undertook the task of creating modern Paris. Napoleon intended to try, although he did not limit himself to ten years.

He wished to do so for many reasons - glory, humanity, security, creativity. His was the spirit and motive force behind the rejuvenation of Paris, but the task was so great, the complexity was of such magnitude, and the administration so delicate, that Napoleon required a man of the most diverse capacities to see it through. The planning of Paris needed patience and ruthlessness, broad vision yet attention to all, the exactness of the administrator but the unscrupulous- ness of the politician. Napoleon needed someone who could picture the effect of trees in a square, but whose views on the disposition of barracks commanded

respect; who could understand the problems of hospital planning, but who would not be baulked by sentimental considerations over a cemetery; someone who could understand perspective, choose the right collaborators, exercise

diplomacy, and entertain royalty. He chose Haussmann. The appointment aroused some anger: in part pure

envy, in part because of Haussmann's record: his protestantism offended the

Empress, his private morals - one incident had been indiscreetly reported to Paris by an officious police inspector - the puritans. The Municipal Council of Paris over whom he would legally have great powers of control feared that he would be less amenable and more explosive than his amiable predecessor, Berger. Nevertheless the decree appointing him was confirmed on June 23, 185:3. He was Prefect of the Seine for the next seventeen years.

Haussmann in Paris

Haussmann soon gave Paris some measure of his character and intentions. He began by scrapping the budget of his predecessor, and wrote a new one in which he raised (by accounting devices) an extra ten million francs for capital

1 Historians of town planning may find this and other maps in a very finely produced Atlas entitled Les Travaux de Paris 1789-1889, published in 1889 during the administration of M. Poubelle, Prefect of the Seine. It contains a map of Paris 1789, four maps showing the gradual extension of the system of Eaux et Egouts, five maps showing the town planning and construction work in the city during these years, a map on joint transport services, and one marking the public buildings, university and school buildings constructed between 1 871-1889. This Atlas is in the Bibliotheque Administrative de la Ville de Paris. Catalogue No, $37$.

19^3 BRIAN CHAPMAN 181

expenditure. He then embarked on two important administrative campaigns which later in his term of office had considerable effects.

The most important of these did not come to fruition until i860, seven

years later; this was the extension of the legal boundaries of the city of Paris. The ' natural ' area of the city - the line of military fortifications round the

city - contained several other communes in addition to the city of Paris. This created serious administrative difficulties when it came to planning, made worse because each local authority had the right to impose levies on goods introduced into its area for consumption. In i860 Haussmann obtained satisfaction when a law sponsored by himself annexed to the city of Paris eleven neighbouring communes - amongst which were Montmartre, Belleville, and La Villette.

A year before, in 1859, Haussmann's second administrative campaign came to fruition, when his old rival in the city, the Prefect of Police who was

responsible for public safety, was dispossessed of his responsibility for the

highways of the city, except for their policing, and Haussmann, the Prefect of the Seine, obtained the virtual monopoly he had always wanted.

These administrative campaigns were of long duration, and did not in themselves arouse much public interest ; they serve merely to illustrate Hauss- mann's character and methods. What did upset the Parisians was the startling effect Haussmann produced in the city within a year of his arrival: he had no

patience with amiability or procrastination. For instance, when he arrived he found that the maps on which the existing schemes of planning had been drawn were not completely accurate. He therefore ordered a comprehensive survey of the city by means of triangulation. His surveyors found difficulty in obtaining an uninterrupted field of vision for measurement, so Haussmann startled Paris

by constructing enormous timber towers over- topping the highest houses, from the top of which his surveyors were able to plot and measure without hindrance. The map so compiled became the backcloth to Haussmann's study for the remainder of his term of office.

Because of this lack of accurate information, the final stages of an important highway project - the extension of the rue de Rivoli to the Hotel de Ville - were being seriously delayed. The difficulty was the Tour St. Jacques de la Boucherie and its surrounding quartier of Arcis. This area was on a small hill

flanking the new road, and the highway engineers were puzzled as to how to clear a way for the rue de Rivoli without either making it unapproachable from the south side or without destroying the Tour St. Jacques. They consulted Haussmann, who thus took his first decision of importance in town planning. The tower was placed on stilts, and the whole area of the Arcis was to be reduced

by demolition and excavation to the level of the surrounding parts of the city. This was done. The tower was preserved, and as the ground level went

down, the stilts under the tower were lowered by stages until the tower rested on its new foundations at the level of the rue de Rivoli. Some two hundred houses in Arcis were destroyed. The new arrangement also involved shifting the levels of the Pont Notre Dame, whose approach roads had now become too high.

182 THE PLANNING OF PARIS October

These draconian measures were, for the Parisians, a gauge of the measure of their new Prefect. There is a delightfully unconscious irony in Haussmann 's account of these operations in his mimoires. A dry summary of the steps taken to level Arcis to the ground is followed by a warm passage of reminiscence when Haussman recalls that he had a statue of Pascal placed at the base of the Tour St. Jacques, as a memorial to the fact that from it Pascal experimented with falling objects to discover the weight of air and bodies in flight.

The New Paris

Haussmann and the Emperor left so many permanent marks on Paris that it is difficult to know how to summarise their work. The first question is to know why a task of the magnitude of re-planning a whole city was undertaken. Once these reasons are appreciated it will be easier to illustrate the immense

diversity of the work, and to see how far they were successful in their

objectives. The first, and for many historians the most important, motive was that

the Second Empire, like previous governments in France, was aware of the menace which the city of Paris constituted to the regime in power, should the day again come when the Parisians decided to ' descend into the streets.'

Napoleon, unlike his predecessors, was prepared to take drastic steps to prevent such a situation. Thus, military considerations counselled widespread changes in the geography of Paris. Secondly, there were pressing economic reasons for

modernising Paris, not only by increasing the commercial and industrial facilities offered by the city, but also by totally re-organising the mediaeval arrangement of highways within, and leading into and out of, the city. Finally, Napoleon III was certainly moved by the wish - prompted in part no doubt by dynastic desires for prestige and self-preservation - to make Paris into a capital city worthy of France, a capital provided with the light, beauty and cleanliness essential to human dignity in cities. If we take these three motives in turn we shall understand how Haussmann and the Emperor approached the problem of

planning. First, the military considerations. From this point of view the successful

insurrections of the preceding sixty years had clearly demonstrated three major difficulties for the authorities. The narrow streets of the centre with their

teeming slums were areas in which agitators and others could easily work, human misery was acute, and where large bodies of people could assemble

rapidly ready for outrage and violence. This led to the second point. These narrow streets were easily blocked

by impromptu barricades that could be cleared neither by the artillery, which lacked a field of fire, nor by the cavalry, which could not charge. This left

loyal troops and police with the lengthy, expensive and often futile task of trying to storm each barricade in turn. Finally, the system of roads in Paris favoured

i9£3 BRIAN CHAPMAN 183

the insurrectionaries, for in the absence of roads which could be easily defended and patrolled and which led rapidly from one part of the town to the other, rapid action by the authorities was almost impossible.

To these three military problems Haussmann returned three answers. The first and most drastic was to destroy the slums of the centre : ' la destruction des vieux quarters enleverait un camp a Vemeute,' he said. Such destruction was

part of deliberate policy, but once done new construction, except for the

special case of the siting of barracks and police stations and the routeing of new

highways, ceased to be a military preoccupation, and entered the domain of constructive enterprise which I shall consider later. But the siting of barracks and the building of roads remained a preoccupation for Haussmann, pondering on the prevention of civil war.

His second answer to the ' mob * therefore was that barracks were to be constructed in a way and in places that would give the maximum protection to the centre of the city, and which would command all strategic communications. If you look at the present map of Paris you can see how he and his successors did this.

There is an outer ring of four barracks on the outskirts of the most heavily populated districts of Paris, the 18th, 19th, and 20th arrondissements in the north and east. These are placed within close striking distance of the main gateways into Paris and they are linked together by the outer boulevards of the fortifications.

They are also close to main routes into the city. Not only does this outer ring of barracks seal off, if necessary, the most dangerous parts of the city, but it

provides a strategic reserve which can be rapidly deployed in support of the centre of the city and can command the main highways out of Paris.

There is next an inner ring of barracks serving two purposes. These barracks are for the main part placed so as to form a close guard on strategic centres: two cover the Ministry of the Interior and the Etoile, four encircle the National Assembly and the Ministries in the 7th arrondissements others dominate the Place de la Bastille, and Place la Republique, and the Place de la Nation, and these also control access to the main railway centres. But in addition to guarding strategic centres these barracks together form a protective screen covering the whole of the centre of Paris, a kind of inner bastion. And, in the very heart, on the island of the Cite, Haussmann built the new Prefecture of Police, known also, and more accurately, as the Caserne de la Cite, the

headquarters of the security forces in the city. Next, a new highway system had to be worked out, and here Haussmann

was concerned not only with creating a net-work of roads that made good military sense, but also with opening up the city for economic purposes, and with developing new residential quarters which were the inevitable counterpart to the demolition of the old quarters in the centre of the city.

If we compare the maps of Paris in 18^0 and 19^0 we can appreciate how he set to work to reconcile these different considerations. In 1853 the highway system inside Paris was based on the line of inner boulevards running in a semi-

i84 THE PLANNING OF PARIS October

circle from the Bastille in the east to the Madeleine in the west of the city. You could go round the city but not through, for the main cardinal cross roads of Paris were still the rue St. Honore running east-west parallel to the Seine, and the rue St. Denis running north-south. Work was already in hand when Haussmann took up his post to provide a better alternative to these narrow and

inadequate roads. Parallel to the rue St. Honore, the rue de Rivoli was being extended from the Louvre to the Hotel de Ville. The rue St. Denis was being doubled by the building of the new Boulevard du Centre, now known as the Boulevard de Strasbourg. Haussmann accepted these projects, though with some criticisms, but he regarded them as half-hearted attempts to deal with an immense problem.

He therefore trebled in size these projects alone. Not content with the rue de Rivoli ending at the Hotel de Ville, he decided to push it right through the Faubourg St. Antoine to join the rue St. Antoine, thus completing the world famous highway that runs right across Paris, from Neuilly in the west, by the Etoile, the Champs Elysees, the rue de Rivoli, the Bastille to Vincennes in the east.

Next, he took the limited project for the Boulevard du Centre and trans- formed this into a north-south route right across the centre of Paris. He did this by means of the Boulevard Sebastopol (which was in the original plan) which he led across the island of the Cite, and there joined it up with his new

masterpiece, the Boulevard St. Michel. This was to be the southern arm of his trans-urban route. In the course of building the Boulevard St. Michel he tore the heart out of the Latin quarter, cleared the area surrounding the schools, and, as a sideways flick, took off part of the gardens of the Palais Luxembourg, to the great annoyance of the Senators. Once across the top of the Mont St. Genevieve by the University area, he linked this transurban route with a strategic ring road running east and west across the southern part of Paris.

With these two bold strokes Haussmann quartered Paris and solved one of the greatest highway problems of the city.

Having now linked the north and south and the east and west of Paris

together, Haussmann turned his attention to opening up the new gateways to the city from the outside world - the railway termini. The Boulevard Sebastopol already in part served the Gare de TEst (and after 1864 the Gare du Nord). The coal and iron fields of Lorraine and the east were brought to Paris 's back- door. But to open up these stations on all sides Haussmann extended the rue La Fayette south west from the stations to the business centre, and the Boulevard

Magenta south-eastwards to the Gare de Lyon, the terminus for the south. From the Gare de Lyon to the dock and warehouse area of Bercy and Charenton he constructed the Avenue Daumesnil, which also became the main road into the Bois de Vincennes. The station for the north west of France, the Gare St. Lazare, was linked to the centre of Paris by the rue Auber; and the station for the west, the Gare de l'Ouest (Montparnasse) was connected to the centre

by the rue de Rennes.

i9n BRIAN CHAPMAN i8$

With these roads Haussmann had given Paris a radial network of major highways: across the centre the main transurban routes; radiating out from the centre the new highways connecting the railway and industrial centres. Two more things remained to be done: to link these radial routes together by providing a circular system running round the top and bottom of the city, thus doubling the already existing ring of boulevards constructed in the eighteenth century. Secondly, to join the new suburbs with the city itself.

Both these projects were achieved with the greatest economy of effort

by means of Haussmann's master conception: the place-carrefour, the circular or multi-sided meeting place for roads radiating out to all parts of the city. The best known and finest inspiration is the Etoile in the west, where twelve avenues and boulevards from all parts of Paris meet round the Arc de Triomphe. The Etoile was matched in the north east by the great Place de la Republique, and in the east by the Place de la Nation: in the south, on a smaller scale, the Observatoire. These were the nodal points from which to open up the suburbs, lead them into the heart of the city, and, by means of connecting roads from one great arterial star to another, to provide a circular route running round the centre of the city, a route of the highest military, economic and com- mercial importance.

Hence the special geography of Paris with its concentric rings round the heart, its great transurban routes, its radial roads out to the surburbs, its

strategic nodal points, is directly the work of Haussmann, calculated to please industrialists, police and army chiefs, highway engineers, and the citizen about his work and pleasure.

In general, Haussmann had a poor opinion of the Parisians. He saw Paris as an immense market place and workshop, an arena for the ambitious and a rendezvous for the pleasure seeker. Many Parisians, he declared publicly, were

nothing more than nomads, absolutely devoid of any civic sentiment. This

opinion fortified him in his paternal authority to give Parisians what they ought to want. It also provided him with criteria for planning in Paris: to develop the facilities of the market place and workshop, to encourage the great Universal

Expositions held in the city, to provide Paris with the public services proper to a capital city, and to endow the Parisian with the open spaces, the theatres, the churches, the other appurtenances of civilised existence.

In this last field lists could be compiled to illustrate his work. From the Tribunal du Commerce, extensions to the Louvre, the Sorbonne, the Hotel Dieu, the best known Lycees in Paris, the prison of the Sante, asylums, hospitals, the Theatres of the Gaite, Sarah Bernhardt, the Chatelet, several of the best known churches in Paris like the Trinite, St. Augustin, and St. Francois Xavier. Then there are the new residential quarters of Passy and Chaillot and the workers'

quarters of the north east, all of which were developed under his influence. The list of Haussmann *s operations is immense, but this is not the place to give a catalogue of them. Indeed, their fundamental effects on the life of Paris were, for Haussmann, almost side issues.

186 THE PLANNING OF PARIS October

Much more significant and lasting in effect were Haussmann 's extensions to the public services of the city. But here again it is necessary to distinguish between the really- fundamental and the merely important. There was the

paving of streets, the construction of street refuges, gas lighting of the highways, mechanical street cleaning, bridges over the Seine both newly constructed and

repaired; there was the abattoir of La Villette. But over and above these in

lasting value were three major public services introduced under the Haussman

dispensation: the new Halles centrales, a drainage and sewage system and a

proper channelled supply of fresh water in the city. The construction of the Halles centrales was already in progress when

Haussmann took up his post in 18^3, but means of access to and from this immense market were entirely inadequate, and, furthermore, the buildings already put up had aroused the derision of the Parisian for their military appearance - the ' fort ' of the Halles they were called. Haussmann therefore set about the

proper planning of the whole market area, and to cut short further controversy about the buildings themselves, he blew them up. He cleared all the sites that hindered free access to the market, thus getting rid of more slums. With the

Emperor, a new type of market building was planned supported by iron girders and covered by an iron mesh work which drew its inspiration from the umbrella frame. The new Halles as now planned were rectangular in shape comprising ten blocks separated by streets: the roads leading from this central area con- tained the warehouses, business offices, stalls and wholesale shops. They linked

up with the main arteries of Paris life: the rue Montmartre, the rue du Louvre, the rue de Turbigo (which incidentally provide direct communication between the government and the barracks) and the rue Rambuteau led directly into the Boulevard Sebastopol, the transurban route from the railway centre. The rue de Halles led to the rue de Rivoli and the main east-west highway. Consequently the Halles, although most centrally situated for the convenience of commerce, are designed to cope with the pressure of traffic (although not perhaps on to-day's scale) and are rationally designed for easy internal administration.

It took Haussmann nearly fifteen years before he managed to push through his next major public service: to replace the antiquated and unhygienic methods of supplying Paris with water - from wells, from the Seine, by water pedlars -

by new sources of fresh water drawn from rivers far from the Paris basin.

During these years his talents for diplomacy stood him in good stead, for he

quietly went ahead with his plans for new aqueducts, his surveys and the buying up of sites, so that when finally permission was obtained he could immediately begin operations. The controversy that hummed round these new schemes offer one of the most curious memorials to nineteenth century shortsightedness. But when Haussmann was finally dismissed from office in 1870, work was far advanced on the two large aqueducts to which he had devoted so much attention, and the battle for which had strained his patience so much: one was of 114 kilometres in length from the river Dhuys in the Aisne, the other of 173 kilo- metres from the river Vanne in the Loire basin.

i9£3 BRIAN CHAPMAN 187

But the talents Haussmann deployed in this work pale before the magnitude of the third great public service he introduced, the sewage system of Paris. Under the supervision of the engineer Belgrand this work lasted thirty years in all, but a large part of it was done in Haussmann's administration and he was

responsible for the main lines of the plan. Paris is undermined by a vast system of underground canals, varying in

width from four to eighteen feet, and in height from seven to sixteen feet. Haussmann used his new highway system as the. basis of the sewage system because he constructed the principal collecting canals for the south bank beneath the Boulevard St. Michel, and for the north bank beneath the Boulevard

Sebastopol, and from the Etoile to the Pont d'Alma. Minor canals ran into these from all parts of the city, fed in their turn by many small drains beneath the streets of Paris. The principal collecting canals led into the general collector

running parallel to the Seine and the whole emptied into a giant reservoir beneath the Place de la Concorde. A main canal led from there to Asnieres three and a half miles away to the west of Paris where the load was finally deposited in the Seine. There is a whole subterranean world beneath the streets of Paris about six hundred miles in length, whose purpose is to keep Paris

healthy. And for a long time after Haussmann *s departure only Hamburg could rival Paris in the care taken to avoid pollution and foster public cleanliness.

Finally, I come to that part of Haussmann's work which is most immediately known and appreciated by the Parisians and by their visitors: his architecture, his great open spaces, his famous memorials to the Second Empire.

The architecture Haussmann fostered, which ran to considerable depths of

parody in the design of some of his churches, has become the distinctive and

lasting memorial to the atmosphere of the Second Empire, and its influence has spread over Europe so that there are few major European cities left untouched

by the design Haussmann made fashionable. He made great use of wide and sudden perspective, placing public buildings boldly in the angles of squares, or siting them so as to centralise vision along the sweep of broad avenues and

crossing places: for instance he put St. Augustin to lead round the bend in the Boulevard Malesherbes.

In general his architectural influence was to emphasise geometric harmony and formal relationships, and the most typical expression of his style are the

apartment blocks with which the majestic new boulevards were lined. They have a pleasing symmetry, and a noble, if bourgeois, dignity. A little turgid, somewhat pompous, a trifle monotonous, but solid and worthy residences which

grace and enhance the sweep and clarity of the avenues and boulevards of Paris. Softened by the lavish use of trees bordering the highways, the facades of these

great apartment houses have a character of their own, which to some is the essence of comfort, respectability and even beauty. The charm of Paris is an

open charm of wide streets, trees, perspective, ornamentation, clarity and open spaces ; not - although one can find innumerable examples to the contrary - the hidden charms of inner courts and odd side streets.

1 88 THE PLANNING OF PARIS October

And besides this distinctive architectural facade bequeathed by Haussmann, Paris also owes to him and the Emperor its great open spaces, the Bois de

Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes, the parks of Monceau and Montsouris, the Buttes Chaumont, and many of the pleasantest and most charming squares. Here the English have some small cause for satisfaction, since the Emperor brought with him from England a high regard for the green places of London, and especially its squares and Hyde Park. The Bois de Boulogne was originally conceived in terms of Hyde Park; but in the end the Bois bears the stamp of what happened to many of Napoleon's projects after they had passed through Haussmann's hands. Where the Emperor envisaged a single

* serpentine,'

Haussmann gave him the twin lakes. He also literally trebled the width of the

approach to the Bois conceived by Napoleon. The Avenue de l'lmperatrice, now Avenue Foch, was forty metres wide until Haussmann in collaboration with Hittorf, extended it to one hundred and twenty metres, added the sand tracks for horsemen at the side, endowed it with lawns, and lavishly sprinkled it with trees. Trees had been expressly forbidden in the Emperor's first plan. Haussmann made this into one of the most ' luxurious ' roads in Paris, or elsewhere.

The planning of the Bois de Boulogne had the genuine hallmark of the Second Empire. The intricate planning of roads through the park, the building of sweeping entries and exits and crossroads, the meticulous plotting of lakes and paths, glades and forests, and the racecourse at Longchamps, were all undertaken in the atmosphere of a military operation. It was the Emperor's pet scheme, and his staff and Haussmann were required to pass many hours

pouring over maps, projects and plans. But if the motives were the Emperor's, the execution was Haussmann's, whose knowledge of his master was profound enough to understand that what was significant to Napoleon must be done well or not at all.

The great open space in the east of Paris, the Bois de Vincennes, was Haussmann's counter-project, to give to the lower classes of eastern Paris what Napoleon had given to the bourgoisie of the west. He went to very great pains and considerable expense to create something comparable in value. Long feuds with the military authorities were only part of his burden. He had many difficulties in feeding the lake which he envisaged as the central point of the new park, and eventually he had to bring in water from the river Marne in order to maintain the level of the lake. As a result of these and other difficulties the Bois de Vincennes was one of the most costly projects Haussmann undertook.

And yet through the extravagance and the authoritarianism one can see an underlying principle: that if a job was to be undertaken at all, it should have its own glory, its own heart, its own raison d'etre. Although making part of a whole, and although subordinate to a greater conception, each detail and

every facet was to be an end in itself with an intrinsic value. And whatever lesson, if any, Haussmann has for the modern architect and town planner, he

i9£3 BRIAN CHAPMAN 189

can assert this principle boldly to modern administrators. This is above all, true of the great monument to the Second Empire, the

Opera, which was started in 1861 at the apogee of the Second Empire although not completed until 1 874. It was intended to be the lasting and most spectacular record of the greatness and liberality of the Empire. Nearly five hundred

dwellings were demolished to clear the three and a half acres on which the

Opera stands, and the site cost io£ million francs (420,000 sovereigns), while the actual cost of building was 3^,600,000 francs (1,424,000 sovereigns) - a sizeable sum even at present day building costs. In addition to this, there was the cost of driving through and constructing the Avenue de T Opera leading to it from the river, and the cost of the Place de TOpera which it dominates.

This lavish expenditure in men, property and money was successful in its

object. The Opera is the monument of the Second Empire, with all its vices as well as its virtues. Bad taste, magnificence and pomposity, ruthlessness in

conception and lack of discipline in execution ; bold by design yet uncertain in detail. Yet for all that a genuine tribute to the arts, a recognition of the

intangibles of a culture, a military salute to the dedication of the artist, a material fanfare to spiritual creation.

And here we come to the most curious and the most controversial part of Haussmann 's administration, the finance of all this work. His management of public funds was in part the cause of his downfall in 1870, though there is

precious little evidence that Haussmann himself personally benefited. Some of his relatives certainly did by speculation in property values, and the openings for corruption amongst Haussmann Js staff were also very large.

When Haussmann arrived at the Prefecture of the Seine, the budget for the city handed over to him by his predecessor, Berger, made provision barely sufficient to continue the work already in hand. Haussmann therefore adopted the cavalier procedure of completely revising the estimates for revenue, and

by over-evaluation discovered in them a surplus of ten million francs which he earmarked for public works. It was not wholly coincidence that Haussmann 's activity came at a point in French history when. there was unprecedented scope for large scale economic activity. The prestige and security offered by the Second Empire released much hitherto unused wealth of the country. This was the great period of boom and speculation in French economic history, and Haussmann knew how to exploit it. He devised a complicated system of incor- porated financial organisations with interlocking interests through which to raise loans, grant subventions, create uncovered credits, and finance entrepreneurs.1 During the course of his administration he tried all methods for raising capital, supplementary credits from the city, huge public loans, and subventions from the State - which greatly annoyed the provincial politicians.

To quieten opposition Haussmann propounded his famous doctrine of '

productive expenditure/ saying that the present cost was an investment that

1 For a very valuable study on the financial history of this period, in which Haussmann's financial operations are treated in considerable detail, see: Louis Girard, La Politique des Travaux Publics du Second Empire, Paris, 19^2.

190 THE PLANNING OF PARIS October

would be repaid tenfold by the increased value of property, by the impetus given to industry and commerce, by the returns received by the city in the form of taxes, and by the increased trade brought by visitors. This argument, although much more satisfactory to modern economists than to nineteenth century politicians, for a time helped him to resist public pressure. But when funds became too difficult to find, Haussmann resorted to financial devices of dubious legality. The re-construction of Paris was done in three parts, the first plan dating from 1849-18^3, the second part put forward and accepted by Parliament in 1 8$8, and the final portion in 1 86 £. He financed work belonging to the second part by funds earmarked for building the third part. He worked out various ingenious schemes for raising loans unauthorised by Parliament or the Ministry, and floated short term bonds on the future value of properties as yet undeveloped. The crisis of his administration came when, in 1868, he had to obtain permission from Parliament to convert a floating debt on call amounting to nearly 380 million francs into a long term loan to be paid back over sixty years.

The trouble lay in the fact that the estimated cost of these various projects was less than half the real amount the city finally had to face. In part this was a deliberate attempt by Haussmann to disguise from the public the burden he intended the city to bear. Haussmann well knew that the construction and demolition on the scale envisaged in his plans must involve a host of subsidiary changes in surrounding areas, so that the work to be done would be far in excess of the schemes put forward publicly. . Had he confessed his intentions at an early date public outcry might have prevented him fulfilling his and the Emperor's plans. The Parisians themselves were also partly to blame in that the compensation juries empowered to estimate the compensation due for compulsory purchases were extremely lavish in their assessments, believing no doubt that they were dealing with other people's money.

In 1868 after a series of violent personal attacks by Jules Ferry and others, Haussmann disclosed to Parliament that the total cost of his plans would be in the region of five milliard francs, 200 million sovereigns. For a time even this disclosure could not shake his position, for the Emperor well knew that Haussmann was the executor of his imagination. But the personality and the works of Haussmann had antagonised too many people. His administrative victories had offended Ministers and other administrators, his panache and glamour had outraged the small shopkeepers and the democrats, his devastations had infuriated the Parisians, the cost of building the provincials, his manners had shocked the catholics, his politics the republicans. He had mastered Ministers, politicians, the com des comptes, the conseil d'Etat sure in the support of the Emperor.

But the death of the Second Empire was at hand, and when Napoleon III had to widen the basis of his regime by calling in the opposition, the price of collaboration was Haussmann's head. Fate was catching up with Haussmann, for the new influence was Emile Ollivier, the politician from the Var with whom

19*3 BRIAN CHAPMAN 191

Haussmann had battled twenty years before. Haussmann, having refused to

resign - a gesture entirely in character - was dismissed from office in January, 1870, regretted not only by the Emperor, but, curious reflection, by the

Municipal Council of Paris. A few months later the Empire itself was swept away, and the Third Republic was born.

Haussmann lived on for another twenty-one years, never again finding a

post so in keeping with his character as that of Prefect of the Empire. He tried being a Deputy, and played at being a businessman. He wrote his memoires in three volumes, in which he gave an authentic picture of the man he was, though an unreliable account of his work. But his work is at everyone's hand to discover and appreciate. It is Paris. Since his time Paris has developed always within the cadre of the plans he elaborated, and many of the regulations in force to-day concerning the height and spatial relationships of buildings were originally promulgated by him.

For in Haussmann, in the Second Empire, in the planning of Paris there runs an identity, a melange of high and low motives, good and bad taste, vast

conception and trivial detail. The person, the epoch, the city, are run through with contradictions, and are fair game to the ironic fates of history. The man whom we now see as the designer of modern Paris was known to his own day as the monster of demolition. They coined the work ' haussmann isation ' to describe ruthless destruction and lack of scruple. They pilloried him with the title of Osman Pascha, and mocked him with vicious satire on the boulevards.

The city which Haussmann planned to be the stronghold and safe refuge of the bourgoisie was the scene of the Paris Commune a few short months after Haussmann 's dismissal from office, and the thousands of workmen he had brought to Paris to build the new city became the proletarian cadres for revolutionaries. And a new and insidious result of his planning was that the ' mob ' he had driven from the centre of Paris took up their lives again on the

slopes of Belleville and Montmartre, where they remained separated from the

city itself. And when, in this century, the industrial areas of the north and east reached saturation point, the workers spread round to the south east, to the south, to the south west of the city, always on the outskirts. The Red Belt of Paris was complete, and the middle class, comfortably ensconced in the new, pleasant and genteel arrondissements in the west of Paris felt the menace of revolution upon them as surely as did their predecessors living next door to Faubourg St. Antoine. The maps of social geography of Paris show the concentration of social evils, the incidence of disease, the criminal statistics, the infant mortality rates clearly defined as between west and east. Haussmann removed one physical menace, but replaced it by another, now exacerbated by moral hostility and psychological malaise.

But probably if action depended upon exact knowledge of the consequences, no administrator would ever act. Haussmann was too large a character to be deterred from his schemes by distant and problematical results. He epitomised the strength as well as the shortcomings of a Prefect of France - discipline,

i92 THE PLANNING OF PARIS

courage, devotion to duty, and the shoulders to bear without regret the responsibility of choosing for himself and others; but sometimes too supple to his superiors, too masterful with his subordinates, too prepared to com- promise his conscience, too prone to taint administration with politics.

And Georges Haussmann, Prefect of the Empire, was the very mould and incarnation of the Empire he served, with its crudities and its obsessions, its shortsightedness and its elan, its ruthlessness and its hazy wish for glory.

Fig. I - A view of the Hotel de Ville and the He St. Louis showing, at the left, the section of the rue de Rivoli constructed by Haussmann from the Hotel to the rue St. Antoine

Commissariat General au Tourisme, Editions Greff

Plate 42

Fig. 2 - The centre of Paris with the * cut ' of the Boulevard St. Germain at the right Commissariat General au Tourisme. Editions Greff

Fig. 3 - Paris in 1850, before the works of Haussmann were begun Service Technique d'Urbanisme de la Ville de Paris

Plate 43

Fig. A - Paris in 1870, showing the great changes made in two decades

Fig. 5 - The avenues and other improvements made by Haussmann and completed before 1870 are shown in black

Service Technique d'Urbanisme de la Ville de Paris

Plate 44

Fig. 6- This map shows, in addition to later improvements, a great deal of the work initiated under Haussmann but not completed until 1872-3. An example of this is the 'cut' of the Boulevard St. Germain on the Left Bank

Service Technique d'Urbanisme de la Ville de Paris