Baron Haussmann

As I promised, here is the scoop on Georges-Eugene Haussmann, better known as Baron Haussmann, part of the tag-team duo with Emperor Napoleon III who completely remade Paris in the third quarter of the nineteenth century between 1852 and 1870.  My source is Haussmann: His Life and Times, and the Making of Modern Paris, by Michel Carmona.  It’s a fairly long and detailed book on his life and how he managed to remake Paris, but certainly an excellent source of information on France from his birth to death.

 Several generations before him, the Haussmanns moved from what is now Germany to France and became French.  From a relative with a noble title, GEH earned the title of Baron, though in practice his vocation was as a prefect (governor) of different parts of France before becoming prefect of Paris.  This was at a time when Paris had no mayor, the role essentially being filled by the prefect.

 The Haussmann story cannot be told without mentioning Napoleon III, also known as Louis Napoleon.   Nowadays it seems N3 is more known as an unsuccessful dictator who messed around in the Crimea, Italy, Mexico, and Southeast Asia (French Indochina) and lost France to the Prussians in 1870 – he was even captured at Sedan.  But I believe this overshadows his far more significant achievement: rebuilding Paris with the help of his prefect, Haussmann.

 1848 was a busy and interesting time in Europe.  Several countries experienced revolutions; Marx and Engels published their Communist Manifesto.  N3 came back from exile to win the election in late 1848 and become president of France; in December 1852 he succeeded in a bloodless coup to become its emperor, establishing the Second Empire; the first was obviously Napoleon Bonaparte’s.  The latter was actually his uncle; N3 was the son of NB’s older brother Louis.  “Napoleon II”, NB’s actual son, never achieved power, dying in “captivity” in Austria.   Remarkably, N3 spent almost no time in Paris before becoming President.  Most of his life had been spent in exile in Switzerland and England plotting his return to France. 

Upon his return, N3 had brought with him a marked up map of Paris which described his plans.  At that time Paris was still a densely populated city with very few large, wide avenues, more medieval in nature than modern.  N3 had the idea of decompressing the city, allowing it to breathe with more park space and wide avenues cutting across the city and linking up the rail stations with each other; without this it was difficult to cross the city with any speed.  Critics argued the purpose of the wider avenues was to discourage and hamper the use of barricades, but the aesthetic and practical convenience alone of these changes reduces the force of such arguments.  As it was, N3’s colored map went up in flames when the Hotel de Ville was torched by the Communards (aka the Congressional Progressive Caucus) in May 1871.

 If N3 had the basic vision, it was the prefect, Haussmann, who figured out how to turn that vision into reality.  Haussmann was an expert administrator, a clever bureaucrat who know “how to get things done”.  He used eminent domain to condemn huge sections of town – though the owners were compensated – so the demolition and rebuilding could occur.  He managed the financial chicanery necessary to finance the construction, by bonds and finance companies.  He even threw in a few ideas of his own (e.g. the Etoile).  The Opera building itself and the district around it, the Bois de Boulogne, and Les Halles also date from this period under Haussmann’s direction.

 To be honest, I found this “political sausage-making” part of the story fairly dull.  What intrigued me was the way in which Paris changed.  Most of the work was done in the 1850s-1860s, mostly wrapped up in time for the World’s Fair in 1867 and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.  Another big issue is sanitation:  Haussmann was responsible for installing the sewer system.  This, combined with the larger avenues, dramatically improved the hygiene of the city.  Of course, this meant razing large areas formerly inhabited by less wealthy elements of Parisian society; the new buildings were much nicer and out of the price range of the former residents.  Part of the “financing” was that not only were the new blocks sold at a profit, the improved property values beefed up the real estate tax income of the city.  But this pushed the riff-raff further out.

 In fact, Haussmann presided over a substantial expansion of the city itself.  What had been immediate suburbs were urbanized and the city’s current 20 arrondissement size dates from this time.  With the major exceptions of the Eiffel Tower (1889) and the Paris Metro (1900), most of what we know of today as “Paris” was shaped and formed during Haussmann’s tenure.  This includes Blvd. Malesherbes, which opened in 1861.  This was the street I lived on from 1984 to 1990.  Considerable work was done in this part of town and around Gare St. Lazare, which was only minutes from where I lived, and the station I used most often (mainly to commute to school from spring 1984 to June 1986).

 Downfall.  By now we take Paris in its present form for granted, but back then these “grand travaux” (major works) involved destruction of much of “Old Paris”, which some misguided dolts treasured in its own right.  Moreover, the methods themselves opened up the arrogant and aggressive Haussmann to not merely aesthetic criticism, but outright allegations of corruption and self-dealing.  By mid-1870 this opposition had reached a critical mass so strong that even Napoleon III couldn’t protect his subordinate – and he was out.  But by then they soon had a far more urgent concern than urban renewal and shady real estate deals:  the Prussians had defeated the French Army at Sedan and were soon besieging Paris itself.  

 Modern impressions.  I’ve been to NYC several times over the last few years, and I’ve noticed a major contrast with Paris.  Below First Street, Manhattan has the more irregular streets we associate with European cities, but the buildings are still all different styles and heights.  Above First Street, the avenues are completely straight.  Looking south simply hits the brick wall of oddly-angled streets, but west you can see straight to New Jersey, east to Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx, and north uptown with Central Park in the middle.  But despite the regularity of the streets, the buildings are completely different. 

 Paris, on the other hand, has consistent heights of the blocks, block after block across the whole city.  It’s like it has a crew cut.  Moreover, the facades are consistent in style, none of the dramatic heterogeneity which American cities have.   The latter element was actually established in the late eighteenth century, but Haussmann can take credit for the former.  But the ultimate credit for Paris as we know it now goes to both Haussmann and Napoleon III.  None of the latter’s political and foreign policy failures mean nearly so much in 2012 as his impact on Paris today.