OVERVIEW - CultureShock! A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette - page 14

Napoléon III. It is true that Napoléon III's reign only lasted
for 18 years—until war and another revolution terminated
monarchy in France for good—but it was important, for
much of the Paris that we see today was created during
this period.
Imagine Paris then: workers from the countryside were
streaming into the city and living conditions were untenable—
the city simply couldn't be sustained. The Emperor knew
something had to be done and asked his prefect, Baron
Georges Haussmann to remake Paris into a 'new Rome'.
Baron Haussmann went to work, demolishing the slums
by relegating the poor to the eastern edges of the city and
replacing the dark little alleyways with straight streets and
broad avenues (so police could control any future uprisings
of the masses). Gracious apartment buildings that adhered
to safety standards were constructed, as well as modern
glass-and-iron public edifices. Open squares were created and
landscaped, streets were paved with asphalt, and he brought
Parisians into the sun with 5,000 acres of parks including
the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes. He built
hospitals and schools, dug an efficient 600-km underground
sewer system and also constructed aqueducts and reservoirs
that brought fresh water to all. Gas mains fuelled 15,000 street
lamps, making the city safer after dark, thus transforming
Paris into La Ville Lumière —the city of light.
But if Paris was beautiful and if sophistication and fashion
ruled, the poor people had made few gains. There were also the
wars. France had enough military successes under Napoléon III
to erase the humiliation of Waterloo, but in 1870, a disastrous
war was declared against Prussia, and that was the end of the
Emperor, who abdicated into exile. Prussians were besieging
the city, the people were hungry, cutting down trees on the
Champs-Elysées for firewood just to keep warm. In the midst
of this bombardment of Paris, revolution once again took hold,
perhaps the bloodiest the Paris streets had ever seen.
The Paris Commune
The Paris workers had had enough. After the elected
government had capitulated to the Prussians, they angrily