Paris, City of Dreams

by Mary McAuliffe

  Not surprisingly, the Sorbonne’s theologians did not adapt well to the increasingly secular and scientific world of the Enlightenment, and by the time of the Revolution, its Faculty of Theology had earned a well-deserved reputation for flint-hard conservatism. This conservatism did not sit well with the Revolutionaries, who shut down the entire university, including the Sorbonne. They had only just begun to set up their own secular and scientifically oriented educational system when Bonaparte came to power—bringing the university under his own imperial supervision, kicking out all references to the Enlightenment, and restoring the Faculty of Theology. But this was not the same as restoring the Sorbonne, which for a time was occupied by a group of artists who had just been evicted from their residence in the Louvre.

  Soon after returning to power, the Bourbon monarchs expelled these artists once again, and the Sorbonne now became the seat of the Faculties of Letters and Sciences as well as the Faculty of Theology. But the goal of the hidebound Bourbons was not simply to restore the Sorbonne, or even to expand its mission, but to bring the Faculties of Letters and Sciences under the influence of the Sorbonne’s conservative Faculty of Theology. In this, it was only partly successful, and by the time Louis-Napoleon surveyed the scene, resistance to clericalism in the Sorbonne was rising.

  But what especially drew Louis-Napoleon’s attention to the Sorbonne was its location, in the heart of a tangle of dark and tiny streets occupied not only by students but by a dense jungle of Paris’s poor. This was one of those Paris quarters that had erupted with the most violence during the bloody days of June 1848, and it remained a hotbed of sullen anger and bitterness, prone to insurrection. Louis-Napoleon viewed the entire area as a blight that needed to be eradicated, and from the outset, he prepared for major demolition, not only to aerate the quarter and improve sightlines and traffic flow but to prevent future barricades from going up.

  Specifically, his plan—on which he embarked in 1852—was to pierce through the Rue des Ecoles, to make it a grand east-west thoroughfare on the Left Bank parallel to the Rue de Rivoli on the Right Bank. As a bonus, this urban cleanup would also isolate the Sorbonne, making it “a monumental independent island, with easily controlled access” in case of future turmoil nearby.22

  It would be a major undertaking, but Louis-Napoleon had no qualms about what he was doing. After all, he already was exercising the powers of an absolute monarch, and he expected that soon he would hold the imperial title as well.

  In preparation for his final power grab, Louis-Napoleon decided to visit southern France, where Bonapartism had never been popular and where the population needed some careful persuading. Proceeding along a ceremonial route lined with troops shouting “Long live the Emperor!” and brightened with entertainment and festivals, the prince-president made a series of important speeches in which he assured his audiences that he had only their welfare in mind and that under his rule France would always remain a bastion of peace and prosperity. With a significant nod to the Church, he also placed religion and morality in the same praiseworthy category.

  In Bordeaux, Louis-Napoleon received an especially regal welcome, engineered by its prefect, Georges Haussmann, who made exactly the kind of impression on the prince-president that he had hoped for. Clearly, those around Haussmann knowingly nodded, this particular prefect could anticipate reaping great benefit from the red carpet he had so magnificently unfurled.

  But now, eyes were riveted on the prince-president, who had almost reached his long-sought-for imperial crown. With all potential opposition quashed, Louis-Napoleon took this final step upon his return to Paris that autumn, revising the constitution to take the title of Emperor—as Napoleon III, out of respect for his deceased cousin, Bonaparte’s son, who had been known in certain quarters as Napoleon II.

  Presenting this momentous (but hardly unexpected) event before the voting public for its ratification, the new emperor was gratified to receive an overwhelming vote of approval. With this in hand, he proceeded to make his official proclamation of the Second Empire on December 2, 1852, the anniversary of his coup as well as of the duo of dates recalling the first Bonaparte.

  Napoleon III’s Second Empire was about to begin.

  Baron Georges Haussmann. Photograph by Pierre Pepetit, circa 1850. © Selva / Bridgeman Images

  CHAPTER THREE

  Enter Haussmann

  (1853)

  Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who was about to become the second most powerful man in the empire, was French, despite his Germanic name. Born in 1809 in Paris, not far from l’Etoile (now Place Charles-de-Gaulle), he came from a family that, many years before, had relocated from the Rhineland to France, where at that time they found the freedom to practice their Protestant religion. The Haussmanns kept their Lutheran faith throughout the years, even after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 led to widespread religious persecution in France. Despite his minority status, Georges Haussmann remained a Protestant throughout his life.

  Haussmann followed in the family footsteps in his career as well as his religion—his grandfather had been a public administrator before becoming commissar to the revolutionary armies of the Rhine, and his father had become a war commissar and quartermaster during the Napoleonic wars. Haussmann’s maternal grandfather, also of German Protestant origins, fought in the American Revolution before serving on Bonaparte’s general staff, where he was made a baron of the empire. He was in the service of Prince Eugène de Beauharnais (son of Empress Josephine) when his grandson Georges-Eugène was born. “Eugène” was added to the child’s name in honor of the prince, who agreed to serve as his godfather.

  Raised in the home of his paternal grandparents, Haussmann later recalled that it was his grandfather who brought him up. “Thanks to a great aptitude for impressions common to all children,” he wrote in his memoirs, “I was influenced by the methodical habits and orderly principles that reigned in the house of that truly wise man, much as in his clear, sensible, and well-ordered mind.” It was to this upbringing that Haussmann attributed “the sense of duty, the calm firmness, and the indefatigable perseverance that have given me the ability to deal with so many obstacles.”1

  Clearly a serious young man, Haussmann focused on his studies at Paris’s prestigious Collège Henri-IV, where he was top in his class, and then attended the Collège Bourbon (now the Lycée Condorcet), where he passed the baccalaureate with flying colors. Still, life was not always easy for him. Not only did he suffer from delicate health, but he also endured taunts and snubs for his Germanic name as well as for his religion. Years later, he confessed in his memoirs that, “coming as I did from a family that had had to endure many trials to keep its faith, and having been brought up in a dissident community surrounded by an often intolerant Catholic majority, I learned from childhood to detest persecution . . . and to respect . . . all sincere beliefs, whether religious or political.”2

  By the age of seventeen, young Haussmann was ready to enter law studies at the Ecole de Droit, where he kept up the hard work. But he took his nose out of the law books long enough to broaden his horizons by attending lectures at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France—lectures in philosophy, mathematics, and physics, as well as in geology and music. This rigorous schedule prepared him well for the diverse challenges in the career of his choice, in public administration, and during the reign of Louis-Philippe, he methodically climbed the administrative ladder, moving from one administrative post to another, honing his organizational and management skills along the way.

  By the time of Haussmann’s impressive welcome for Louis-Napoleon in Bordeaux in 1852, he had married wealthily, had fathered two daughters, and was living comfortably in the Bordeaux area, where he was prefect. He had earned a reputation for tirelessly exploring the geographical areas for which he was responsible and for introducing many improvements—whether draining swamps or building roads, canals, and suspension bridges. He had learned to organize parties and balls (a skill that would serve him wel
l in the future) and had made important connections, with an ever-constant eye on advancement. He had also earned a reputation for being curt, inconsiderate, and arrogant, and he was not shy about pulling strings or letting his ambition show.

  Admired but not loved, Haussmann had been promoted to the rank of officer in the Legion of Honor just before the 1848 revolution broke out. There was talk of a high-level prefect appointment, but the revolution put all that temporarily on hold, even as the Assembly became increasingly wary of Parisian autonomy and restored the old system, in which the prefect of the Seine, rather than a mayor, served as chief executive of the capital.

  Soon after Louis-Napoleon’s election in 1848, Haussmann met with the prince-president, during which he expressed his idolization of Prince Eugène and his long-held Bonapartism, which had been a fundamental part of his upbringing. Louis-Napoleon assured him that he would indeed be rewarded, and two appointments quickly followed, neither of which was to Haussmann’s liking but in which he once again proved his loyalty and his worth. Then, immediately following the coup d’état, he met with the Count de Morny, who did not waste words but asked him, “Monsieur Haussmann, are you with us?” Haussmann promptly replied: “My life belongs to the Prince; use me without reservation.”3

  Still another appointment followed, this time to Bordeaux and the Gironde, where there was serous unrest following the 1851 coup. Acting with characteristic firmness, Haussmann issued strict orders, including the threat to shoot any rebel who carried a weapon. Having thus repressed insurgence, Haussmann now delivered the vote for his prince-president, who received the presidency for an extended ten-year term. Haussmann then prepared a royal welcome for Louis-Napoleon in Bordeaux, as the prince-president prepared to seize the imperial crown.

  Following Louis-Napoleon’s proclamation of empire in 1852, Haussmann once again delivered the vote for his master—under circumstances that understandably favored the incumbent. Haussmann’s reward came shortly after, in June 1853, when the emperor appointed him prefect of the Seine.

  There remained one more major job opening for the newly proclaimed Napoleon III to fill, and that was for empress. An emperor clearly needed an empress—of that, few were in doubt. Even Louis-Napoleon, who thoroughly enjoyed his bachelor status, was reluctantly inclined to agree. His regime was a personal one, and he already was forty-four years old; if he should disappear without a direct heir, his empire would likely collapse. With this in mind, Louis-Napoleon’s entourage went about with perhaps unseemly haste to secure a bride for the new emperor—a task complicated by the fact that none of the leading royal houses of Europe were interested in an alliance with the heir of their old enemy Bonaparte.

  Lizzie Howard, Louis-Napoleon’s faithful and supportive mistress, seems to have dreamed of marriage, but clearly she would not do: a mistress, especially one of insignificant birth, could not make the leap to such an exalted position. And so it was that Eugenia de Montijo, a beautiful twenty-six-year-old Spanish countess, entered the competition for the new emperor’s hand.

  Eugenia, daughter of the late Count of Montijo, arrived at the imperial court with her mother in October 1852, shortly before the proclamation of empire. She immediately turned heads, not the least that of Louis-Napoleon. Eugenia was a striking auburn-haired beauty, whose mother—herself a beautiful woman, with a history of many lovers—was determined to find good marriages for both of her daughters. The older had already married wealthily in Spain; now the mother, Maria Manuela, had her eye on Louis-Napoleon for her second daughter.

  But this daughter was hardly a pushover and, on an earlier visit to Paris, had coolly brushed off Louis-Napoleon’s advances. Now, she was determined to hold out for marriage. Louis-Napoleon, judging that, at the advanced age of twenty-six, Eugenia was getting too old for husband-hunting, at least at the rarified level on which she was operating, renewed his stratagems but without success. One story, of an overheard conversation between the two at the château of Compiègne, had Louis asking, “What is the way to your heart?” To which she replied, “By the church, Sire.”

  By this time, most of the court and a good part of Paris knew that Louis-Napoleon was mad for Eugenia and that she was holding out. Adding to the difficulties, Louis’s ministers and close associates were opposed to the match. As the Count de Morny put it, “If [the emperor] couldn’t find a royal princess, why couldn’t he at least have chosen a French countess, not a Spanish one!” Similarly, the Count de Persigny did his best to derail the match, circulating pamphlets smearing both Eugenia and her mother.

  Desperate to bring Louis-Napoleon to a decision, Eugenia and her mother decided that they would inform the emperor that they intended to leave Paris. Arriving at a court ball on the arm of the Baron James de Rothschild, Eugenia was brought to a table reserved for the wives of Louis Napoleon’s ministers, one of whom angrily told her that there was no room at the table for a foreign adventuress. Overhearing this fracas, Louis-Napoleon rescued Eugenia and her mother by inviting them to join him on the imperial dais. He then led Eugenia to the dance floor, after which they left the ballroom for his study. There, she told him that she was prepared to live dangerously by his side, but she would no longer stay at the court to be insulted. At this, the emperor at last proposed.

  Writing her sister with the news, Eugenia (soon to be known as Eugenie) confided that the Emperor “has been so noble, so generous with me, he has shown me so much affection that I am still overcome.” She then added, “He has struggled with the Ministers and conquered.” For his part, Louis-Napoleon announced the news to a packed assembly of his Senate, Legislature, and Council of State. “I have chosen a woman I love and respect,” he told them, “rather than one unknown to me or an alliance which would involve sacrifices as well as advantages. In a word, I put independence of mind, a warm heart and domestic happiness above dynastic interests.”

  They married within two weeks, on January 30, 1853, at the great cathedral of Notre-Dame. Eugenie, wearing white velvet and a diamond crown, curtseyed low to the crowd at the door when she arrived—a surprising action but a brilliant one, which immediately won them over. Upon the couple’s emergence from the cathedral, the crowd cheered.

  Empress Eugenie, portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. © Bridgeman Images

  But not everyone was persuaded. “We are living in a society of adventurers,” reported the British ambassador, Lord Cowley, to London. “The great one of all,” he continued, “has been captured by an adventuress.”4

  Napoleon III, the recently wedded adventurer, now embarked on what would become an era of stunning prosperity and expansion. Unquestionably authoritarian, he nonetheless seemed genuinely concerned for the well-being of his people: as he said in his December 2, 1851, proclamation, he aimed to “bring the age of revolutions to a close by satisfying the legitimate needs of the people.” Not that it was ever easy to see into Louis-Napoleon’s mind: Zola referred to him as “the enigma, the sphinx,” and the emperor’s cousin, Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, who had been briefly engaged to him in their youth, remarked to the Goncourts that, “if I had married him, I would have broken open his head to discover what was inside it.”5

  Genial and charming to all, Louis-Napoleon was rarely roused to anger and, given his reputation as an inveterate womanizer, had been brushed off by many as a lightweight in the course of his somewhat erratic career. But this particular lightweight was politically adroit and remarkably nimble. By successfully navigating the dangerous shoals of the 1848 revolution and Second Republic, he had at last established himself as emperor—over a restored empire, as he was careful to point out. And now he was determined to fulfill France’s greatness—not by foreign conquest, like his uncle, but by pushing and propelling his nation into the modern age.

  Napoleon III’s Second Empire gave pride of place to economic development, on the assumption that a booming economy would provide wealth and well-being for all. And at the heart of this grand vision was the emperor’s plan to remake Paris
. Even before his declaration of empire, he had dreamed dreams, creating that color-coded map of the city with his priorities for change and demolition arranged by hue. Choosing what he viewed as a middle course between reaction and revolution, he took command of the ship of state and began to remake the city even before he claimed the imperial title.

  Over the centuries, other rulers had undertaken massive building projects, largely as a means of accommodating Paris’s growth while providing for its security. This meant an ever-larger series of defensive walls, going back to the third-century Gallo-Romans, who walled what now is the Ile de la Cité, and twelfth-century King Philip Augustus, whose wall, anchored by the Louvre fortress, girdled both sides of the Seine. By the late fourteenth century, the burgeoning city was pushing hard against the confines of Philip’s outdated wall, even as English enemies were pressing from without. A new wall then went up, encircling a far larger portion of the Right Bank, which had emerged as the commercial center of Paris (the students on the Left Bank were left to fend for themselves). This was anchored at its easternmost point by a new fortress, the Bastille. Two centuries later, as civil warfare engulfed France, Louis XIII extended this wall, creating a new and larger shell for the prospering Right Bank city within.

  The Sun King, Louis XIV, demolished these walls, declaring that they no longer were necessary in the wake of his decisive defeat of all his enemies. This left what became the Grands Boulevards on the traces of the former bulwarks, stretching in a semicircle from what now is the Place de la Madeleine in the west to the Place de la Bastille in the east. But the defensive walls were much missed by royal tax collectors, as they had served to stop smugglers from evading the traditionally steep royal tariffs on incoming goods. The royal solution was a new wall around Paris, one whose sole purpose was to buttress the royal tax collectors—also known as tax farmers, or the Farmers-General. This wall, known as the Farmers-General wall, went up in a hurry in the 1780s, ringing Paris with more than sixty tollhouses linked by a substantial wall, roughly circular in shape and more than fifteen miles in circumference.