Paris Illustré et Ses Fortifications

1855

Special Collections DC707 L65 1855

Paris: Publié par [Auguste] Logerot, éditeur, Quai des Augustin, 55

‘A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.’ So wrote Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), who stayed in the City of Lights between 1784 and 1789. He enjoyed his Parisian experience: meeting artists like Jacques-Louis David, enjoying the architecture, the salons, attending plays by Racine and Molière, and perusing the bookstores. This map is dated 1855, the year Paris had a population of over a million people, and it experienced the great Exposition Universelle. It was also a period of reconstruction. Napoléon III (1808–1873), assisted by Georges-Eugene Haussmann, created a new Paris: wider boulevards, improved sewage and water systems, reduced slum areas, and new bridges.