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he says: “Since the beginning of the century only one original building has been erected, only one that is not a copy from somewhere else but has sprung naturally out of the soil of our times, and that is Les Halles. Do you see it, Florent? A brilliant work that is a shy foretaste of the twentieth century. That is why it frames Saint-Eustache. There stands the church with its rosette window, empty of the faithful, while Les Halles spreads out around it, buzzing with life.” Saint-Eustache is also known for its strong musical tradition due to its outstanding acoustics, and the church has one of the most prestigious organs in Paris. According to Thirza Valois, the organ’s case was designed by Victor Baltard, and as it is “equipped with both a mechanical and an electronic transmission system, [it] is the biggest double transmission organ in the world.”

Besides the Ecoute sculpture by Henri de Miller in front of Saint-Eustache, my favorite feature of this wonderful church is the haut-relief in resin and acrylic gouache entitled The Departure of the Fruits and Vegetables from the Heart of Paris, February 28, 1969, by Raymond Mason. It is entirely fitting that this artist’s tribute to Les Halles is here, in the church that, despite its association with elite names of the past, served the working-class merchants of the market.

Baron Haussmann

Georges-Eugène Haussmann could trace his lineage back to Cologne, Germany, and Alsace, but history has made his name nearly synonymous with Paris. In fact, as David Jordan notes in his excellent Transforming Paris: The Life and Labors of Baron Haussmann, “No name is so attached to a city as is Haussmann’s to Paris. The great founders of cities in antiquity, both mythological and actual, even Alexander the Great or the Emperor Constantine, who gave their names to their creations, have not left so indelible an urban imprint.” The French (as is their wont) even created an adjective from his name, haussmannisé.

Baron Haussmann was named prefect of the Seine under Napoléon III, and the city of Paris as we know it today is the direct result of Haussmann’s plans, which included the creation of the city’s grands boulevards, the continuation of the rue de Rivoli, the redesign of the Bois de Boulogne and Les Halles, the addition of more parks, the blue and white plaques bearing street names, and apartment buildings that even today are coveted for their solid walls, good structural foundations, high ceilings, and well-lit rooms. Haussmann oversaw nothing less than the most extensive urban renewal project ever attempted. The elegance and even the sense of grandeur that Haussmann brought to Paris are undeniable, but in the mid-1800s his ideas were met with virulent criticism. In creating the boulevards, huge numbers of impoverished people were swept aside, unable to afford the new rents, and nothing was done to help them relocate elsewhere or to alleviate their conditions in the neighborhoods they were forced into, such as Belleville and Vaugirard.

In his preface to Transforming Paris, Jordan writes that initially even he had no affinity for Haussmann. “Hadn’t he destroyed Paris so the army could deploy rapidly and shoot down demonstrators? My sympathies were on the other side of the barricades that Haussmann—so the cliché ran—had made obsolete.” It’s true that Napoléon III wanted a capital city that would never again allow protesters to so successfully fight against his troops as they had during the creation of his Second Empire, which was born out of a street battle that left four thousand Parisians dead. Haussmann proposed a modern and clean city, as opposed to the medieval city Paris was, with squalid living conditions, a lack of clean water, few trees, no plumbing, and narrow, dark streets. He especially admired the Marquis de Tourny, who under Louis XV had transformed Bordeaux, where Haussmann had lived for more than twelve years (if you’ve visited Bordeaux you may fondly recall the wide and beautiful Allées de Tourny). Tourny’s Bordeaux also had some striking similarities to Haussmann’s Paris,