How Paris Became Paris by Joan DeJean

Author:Joan DeJean
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

This view of an elegant Parisian café promoted another advantage of street lighting: men and women from across the social spectrum spending an evening socializing in a public venue.

French scientists also continued to try to find ways to improve the quality of the city service widely considered the glory of “the century of inventions.” In 1703, the French Royal Academy of Sciences awarded one of their members named Favre a patent for the most ambitious street-lighting project yet conceived, a tower to be positioned on “the highest point in the city” and topped by four huge light sources—deep paraboloidal receptacles, each of them equipped with a reservoir containing oil and pipes for the evacuation of smoke. Favre contended that this gigantic tower of light—conceived nearly two centuries before Gustave Eiffel planned his structure—would be sufficient “to light an entire city throughout the night.”

As Louis XIV’s “grand design” was implemented and the cityscape was expanded, the original system of street lighting was also extended to keep the new streets safe and to help Parisians navigate new territory in their city. By 1702, 5,470 lanterns were positioned all through the city’s streets. By 1729, that number had grown to 5,772; and by 1740, to 6,408. And when in the early eighteenth century the original boulevard on the Right Bank was at last complete, lighting was added there, too. The boulevard, the place where, in Balzac’s words, Paris became “most fully itself,” remained brightly lit until four or five in the morning. In his account of the ideal visit to Paris, Louis Liger encouraged visitors to become part of another of the original manifestations of Parisian nightlife, “the prodigious crowd of all ages and all ranks that came there to walk and to dance.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.