Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [199]
The nineteenth century saw some twenty-one bridges built or reconstructed, many as a result of Haussmann’s sweeping reconfiguration of the city. Today there are thirty-one ponts routiers and three passerelles, or footbridges (not counting Métro and railroad bridges), giving Paris one of the greatest densities of bridges in the world.
Every bridge in Paris has its own special charm. But some of my favorites are those that encircle the city’s historic heart. Linking the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis to the rest of Paris, each one offers views worth stopping for. A walk around the islands, an easy and enjoyable promenade, is a perfect way to make their acquaintance.
Anyone who has opened a guidebook knows that the Pont Neuf (New Bridge) is the city’s oldest. But when Henri IV inaugurated it in 1607, it was new in more ways than one. Its size was remarkable: the first bridge to straddle both branches of the Seine, it is still one of Paris’s largest bridges. It was also the only stone bridge from which you could actually see the water, since it was never lined with houses. And it delighted Parisians by giving them the city’s first sidewalks, separating them from the carriages and horsemen of the muddy roadway.
From the very beginning, the bridge became the heart of the city and the center of Paris street life. Part marketplace and part circus, it was the place to go to buy the latest ballad or bestseller, watch a medicine show, have a tooth pulled, or join the army. Each of the semicircular alcoves held a boutique; roving peddlers hawked their wares, musicians played and passed the hat, and purse-snatchers stalked the unwary in the noisy, colorful throng. Every so often, a royal procession would pass on the way from the Louvre to Saint-Germain.
Henri IV, who still reigns over the bridge in the form of a bronze equestrian statue facing the Place Dauphine, would doubtless be pleased to see the attention his bridge is getting today. A massive project to repair and strengthen it is at the same time artistically restoring this architectural treasure. It started with a nationwide search for materials, since the original sixteenth-century quarries are now closed. Once matching stones were found, master stonemasons began shaping and placing each stone, replacing worn and damaged sections. The 384 grotesque masks, nineteenth-century replacements for the originals, are also being cleaned and restored—no easy task, since no two mascarons are alike.
The result is resplendent. Now that the petit bras, or Left Bank segment, has been renovated, its gleaming white stone contrasts dramatically with the unfinished part, and the bridge looks new again. No wonder the bridge’s name has entered the French language as a simile for ageless vigor (How is your father these days? Solide comme le Pont Neuf!)
Crossing the bridge to the Right Bank and turning right on the Quai de la Mégisserie, you pass the spot where the original Grand Pont once stood. Its exact site is unclear: some historians place it at the site of the Pont au Change, others at the Pont Notre-Dame. Both bridges may have been called the Grand Pont at different times. But the name Grand Pont had disappeared by the fifteenth century.
The Pont au Change is named for the moneychangers of Paris, ordered by Louis VII in 1441 to conduct business on this bridge. On Sundays, the fowlers of Paris held their live-bird market on the bridge, and to pay for the privilege, released flocks of white pigeons to celebrate royal entries into the city.
By the fifteenth century, the Pont Notre-Dame was known for its booksellers and armorers. Here, the spirit of the Italian Re-naissance arrived when an architect from Verona built Paris’s first stone-arch bridge, an elegant affair