Paris History: La Seine

Paris is small: no corner is farther than six miles from the square in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral. The city has a total area of 41 square miles (105 square kilometres), if the two big parks at either extremity are included, and 34 square miles without them. The city occupies a bowl hollowed out by the Seine in its prehistoric vigour, and the surrounding heights have been respected as the limits of the city. The river arches through the center of town, visiting 10 of the 20 arrondissements. Entering the city at the southeast corner, it arcs northward and bends out of Paris at the southwest corner. As a result, what starts out as the streams east bank becomes its north bank and ends as the west bank, and the Parisians therefore adopted the simple, unchanging designation of Right and Left Bank (when facing downstream). These terms are not much used in conversation, as specific places are usually indicated by arrondissement (e.g., quinzième) or by quartier (e.g., Observatoire). Un travail domicile intéressant peut devenir un hobby.

At water level, some 30 feet below street level, the river is bordered--at least on those portions not transformed into expressways--by cobbled quays graced with trees and shrubs. From street level another line of trees leans towards the water. Between the two levels, the retaining walls, usually made of massive stone blocks, are decorated with the great iron rings of a past ages commerce and sometimes pierced by mysterious openings (water gates for old palaces or inspection ports for subways, sewers and underpasses). Here and there the wall is shawled in ivy.

The old buildings, the riverboats, the changes of colour reflected by the water, the gardens, and the 32 bridges (many of them handsome) compose one of the worlds grandest, yet most endearing cityscapes. Along the river are two of the great set pieces of urban spectacle in the contemporary world. The first sweeps down from the Palais de Chaillot on the Right Bank, crosses the river to the Eiffel Tower, and continues through the gardens of the Champ-de-Mars to the 18th-century Ecole Militaire; the other begins at the Seine and marches up a broad esplanade to the golden dome of the Invalides.

Paris History: La Tour Eiffel

The Palais de Chaillot dates from the International Exposition of 1937 and is a period piece of between wars, timid-modern style. It replaces a structure of tepid Moorish sympathies left over from the 1878 International Exposition. Earlier in the 19th century, after demolition of the Convent of the Visitation, the top of this 230-foot (65 metre) hill had been leveled for the construction of a palace (never built) for the King of Rome, son of the emperor Napoleon.

The Palais is made of two separate pavilions, each of which sprouts a curved wing. The Musée de l'Homme (Museum of Man), the Musée de la Marine, and the Musée des Monuments Français (Museum of French Monuments) are located there. Under the terrace which separates the two sections are two theatres, the variable-formation (1,500 to 3,000 seats) National Popular Theatre (TNP) and a small hall that serves as one of the two cinemas of the National Film Library (Cinémathèque Française).

The statue-guarded terrace gives a splendid view across Paris and makes an enduring travel-poster setting for photographs of visitors and fashion models. The hill descending to the river has been made into a terraced park, the center of which is adance with mighty fountains, cascades, and pools. The Paris aquarium is in a grotto to the left.

One of the enchantments of the view--and some others in Paris--is that is has all the qualities of a trompe-loeil (literally, deceive the eye) painting into which, extraordinarily, one can walk. From the bottom of the hill the five-arched Pont d'Iéna springs across the river. It was built for Napoleon I in 1814, although the imperial "N"s with which it is decorated were in fact put there by Napoleon III. After the bridge comes the unclad metal truss tower of Gustave Eiffel. It was built for the International Exposition of 1889, against the strident opposition of national figures who believed it to be unsafe or ugly, or both. When the exposition concession expired in 1909, demolition of the 989-foot (300 metres) tower was averted by demonstration of its value as an antenna for the newly developed radio. Additions made for television transmission have added 56 feet (20.75 metres) to the height. From the topmost of the three platforms the view extends for 50 miles--when air pollution is low and the sun is near the horizon.

From the two-acre base of the tower the Champ-de-Mars stretches inland to the Ecole Militaire (built 1769-72) and still used by the Ecole Supérieure de Guerre (War College), where the 15-year-old cadet Napoleon Bonaparte was enrolled in 1784. Originally the schools parade ground, the field was the scene of two vast revolutionary rallies, that of the Federation (1790) and that of the Supreme Being (1794). From 1798 there were annual national expositions of crafts and manufactures, followed by worlds fairs between 1855 and 1900. The International Exposition of 1937 spread around it, for between 1908 and 1928 the field had been made into a formal park.

Behind the Ecole Militaire, which was designed by Gabriel, architect of the Place de la Concorde, stands the Y-shaped headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The building, erected in 1958, was designed by an international trio of architects and decorated by artists of member nations.

Paris History: Les Invalides

Just one street away to the northeast is the Hôtel des Invalides, founded by Louis XIV to shelter 7,000 aged or crippled formed soldiers. The enormous range of buildings was completed in five years (1671-76). The gold-plated dome (six kilograms of gold leaf were involved) that rises above the hospital buildings belong to the Church of Saint-Louis (1675-1706), designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart. The architect employed a style known in France as Jesuit, since it derives from the Jesuits first church in Rome, built in 1568. The churches of the Académie Française (French Academy), the Val-de-Grâce Hospital, the Sorbonne, as well as three others in Paris, all of the 17th century, followed this style. By a freer user of the classical elements, the French made it something recognizably Parisian.

In the chapels of Saint-Louis are the tombs of Napoleons brothers Joseph and Jérôme, of his son (whose body was returned from Vienna in 1940 by Adolf Hitler), and of the marshals of France. Immediately beneath the cupola is a red porphyry sarcophagus that covers the six coffins enclosing the body of Napoleon I, which was returned from Saint-Helena in 1840 through the efforts of King Louis-Philippe. Napoleons uniforms, personal arms, and death bed are displayed in the rich Musée de l'Armée (Army Museum) at the front of the Invalides. Fewer than 100 pensioners now live at the hospital, which is used as a paraplegic centre.

The grassy, tree-lined Esplanade des Invalides (810 feet wide) slopes gently for 1,410 feet to the Quai d'Orsay and the Pont Alexandre III. The first stone for the bridge was laid in 1897 by Alexanders son, Tsar Nicholas II. A steel span with upper works of stone, it embodies the Gay Nineties, la Belle Epoque, solid, sumptuous, and luxuriant, with its pomposity mocked by its own gaiety. Finished in time for the International Exposition of 1900, it leads to two faded souvenirs of that years fair, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. Both are still used for seasonal painting salons and major visiting art exhibits, and the Grand Palais also shelters overflow classes from the Sorbonne and a science museum.

For millions around the world the name Paris connotes an image of a mile-long stretch of the Seine between the Pont du Carrousel and the Pont Sully. The citys most celebrated bridge, its most famous museum, its most admired Gothic churches are all found here in the ancient heart of the capital. Here, too, are the quayside bookstalls, the bird and flower markets, and the sempiternal anglers of the Seine.