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00:09it's the collision the meeting between big ideas and big violence that have actually made france
00:17what it is today throughout its tumultuous history paris has been sacked occupied multiple times
00:23and endured a bloody revolution it's got this history of popular uprising from the middle ages
00:30right through the 16th century that the front in the in the 17th century and the French Revolution
00:37obviously then the revolution of 1830 1848 and 1871 there's a whole of that way through you've
00:47got these these explosions if you like of popular violence and and resistance egality fraternity
00:56liberty the spirit of the revolution lives on in the city of paris nearly 250 years later but despite
01:04this much remains of this most creative of cities what has survived is treasured and admired not
01:11just by parisians themselves but by people the world over harris as the fashion capital of the
01:19world is born in the 12th century and becomes known throughout europe in the 13th visually of course
01:26it has never been destroyed like that of the greeks in the ancient world the culture of france is
01:34regarded with prestige its language became one of international diplomacy it is a polished city
01:41it's it's the city of culture it dominates the country in a way that many other capital cities
01:47don't france's reputation for high culture has meant even its invaders have regarded its capital with
01:54fascination and awe its contents to be treasured and not destroyed throughout french history paris has
02:02been at the center of it all it's a city that's been very carefully designed to have a kind of
02:07unified
02:09architecture and often foreigners coming for the first time this is often called the japanese effect
02:14because it happens to japanese tourists they can't believe when they get here what they've seen on
02:18youtube or on instagram it's all real the feeling that france is a great power to be reckoned with is
02:24something that's something that never goes away
02:34previously from its beginnings as a roman settlement on the seine paris became a european medieval power
02:41under the zealot christian king louis the ninth four hundred years later the nation building louis the
02:49fourteenth the longest serving monarch in european history had equally grand visions for his capital
02:56and beyond as france became europe's superpower then at the end of the nineteenth century the
03:05ancien regime crumbled and the french revolution changed both europe's greatest city and the wider world
03:19before the revolution paris had this uh worldwide reputation as the most civilized uh city in the
03:26in the world essentially uh and it was politeness and um uh culture and civilization that one went to
03:34paris for sort of felt throughout much of the 18th century that they ought to be able to dominate europe
03:40the way that louis the fourteenth had even in the face of the of the rise of of new powers
03:46uh like
03:48great britain which is a rise to be a major power during the last uh decades of louis the fourteenth
03:55really uh and then in the 1740s prussia and and russia as well is is uh uh establishing a european
04:04presence
04:05uh during those first 20 years of the of the 18th century um but the french feel they should
04:10somehow they have a right to dominate europe philosophers and authors such as voltaire rousseau
04:18and diderot fostered the enlightenment creating a need for a socio-economic equality that led to the
04:26revolution and the decline of the divine right monarchy its military overstretch above all which triggers
04:34the collapse of the old regime the monarchy goes bankrupt uh it's it spend it spends uh the whole
04:41of the 1780s trying to stave off bankruptcy but the level of debt which it's incurred ever since the
04:48seven years war and then increased enormously in the american war of independence uh is such that
04:55they've got to keep thinking of new expedients ways in order to stave off bankruptcy maybe increase
05:01revenue one way or another and so on um and eventually uh the the the whole thing collapses
05:08because none of these schemes work and uh ultimately the markets desert them as well the the the people
05:15who normally lend money to louis the 16th um in six in 1788 eventually withhold the money and and that
05:24means that the government can no longer pay its way and and and it it it goes bankrupt in august
05:291788
05:30and uh once it goes bankrupt that's the end of the old regime
05:38ever since the era of louis the 14th the royal family had been based at the palace of versailles
05:45but the luxurious lifestyle of king louis the 16th courtier had made the royal family increasingly
05:51unpopular especially his famously spendthrift wife marie antoinette
05:57one of the many things that made her so unpopular was the outrageous amount of money that she was
06:03rumored to have spent on creating this fantasy model village in the grounds of versailles
06:11yet here accompanied by a few of her most favored courtiers
06:16marie antoinette indulged her fantasy of living like a normal villager
06:25this is seen as expensive you know fiddling while rome burns in some ways while the sort of problems of
06:31the country become more acute uh they're they're just sort of play acting this sort of uh artificial
06:37world of frivolity out of their side of course the way that marie antoinette louis the 16th and
06:45the rest of the french court was behaving wasn't that different to the frivolities and luxuries enjoyed
06:51by all european royal families over the past centuries but by the end of the 18th century in
06:58france public expectations had changed there's a growing intellectual movement linked to the
07:05enlightenment more rational much more critical a view of the way in which society and politics is
07:12organized so this sort of thing basically just doing what kings and queens have done forever
07:17in the past suddenly is looking very different and the sort of criticism that the king and queen are
07:24getting definitely reflects the change of perception if you like of what's going on as much as a change
07:29of what is actually going on isolated out here in tranquil versailles from the rebellious public mood in
07:37paris it was louis the 16th misjudged attempt to raise more money by introducing new taxes that finally
07:46sparked a full-scale uprising in 1789 the french revolution
07:55marie antoinette's dream world fell apart thousands of impoverished women marched to versailles and stormed
08:03the palace demanding that the monarchy move back to paris to address their poverty at close quarters
08:10initially the royal family lived fairly easily in paris under house arrest at the tuileries palace
08:17but on the 14th of july 1789 parisians stormed the bastille symbol of the royal authority setting off the
08:27revolution
08:30the wealthy parts of paris are the areas which are now around the champs elysées
08:35or the boulevard saint germain uh they still are the seventh arrondissement the 15th arrondissement
08:41the first arrondissement those areas but the others uh in in the eastern part of paris are still popular
08:49areas and this is the these are the areas where they the sans-culottes came from in the french revolution
08:55both north and south of the river the bastille sits there staring over the most populous parts of paris
09:02so it's quite easy or relatively easy to mobilize hostility to this symbol of royal power
09:14probably the biggest changes and in some ways they're changes which will only really be evident
09:20in the early 19th century uh that um you get the nationalization of much property belonging to
09:28the nobility and in particular a lot of property because there is a lot of property belonging to it
09:34uh belonging to the church these are nationalized and will will be sold off in the 1790s and thereafter
09:40and allow a sort of remodeling of the city uh afterwards
09:48of the royal family many of the grand aristocratic buildings of the era of the ancien regime would
09:56soon be taken over and occupied the national archives building today and the elise palace were just two
10:04of these former grand residences one of the key buildings though in the period would be the palais
10:11royal just behind the louvre and that was a really a hub of revolutionary activity it was a big
10:17publishing place people went there people stood on chairs or tables and did revolutionary orations
10:22crowds gathered there then they marched off to the the streets and everything like that when you go in
10:27there now you think it's one of the oases of calm and tranquility uh in in the center of paris
10:33but at
10:33the time it was a really important center of uh of change many many of the big um mansions the
10:39the city
10:40uh city mansions the urban mansions of the high aristocracy were actually turned into bureaucratic
10:45offices so there's an enormous uh growth of bureaucracy in the french revolution actually
10:49uh and many of those uh private dwellings are turned into uh government offices essentially for
10:55the different ministries by 1793 once the revolutionary mood had hardened louis the 16th was executed
11:04and marie antoinette was imprisoned awaiting trial in the revolutionaries most fearsome prison of all
11:17located on the ile de la cité in the middle of the seine the conciergerie had originally been the main
11:24royal palace of the medieval kings of france inside the conciergerie little remains of the original
11:31medieval palace except for the remarkable gothic vaults of the sal de gendarme constructed in 1302
11:40as a huge dining room for the king's 2 000 or more staff and servants ever since medieval times the
11:49palace had its own dungeons to imprison the king's enemies but its fame as a much feared prison rests on
11:56the leading role it played during the revolution apart from marie antoinette thousands of other
12:03political prisoners were incarcerated here while awaiting trial before the revolutionary tribunal
12:13in 1793 when she's there it's sort of extraordinary sort of human zoo of uh suffering and uh extremes
12:20really because you've got very very grim conditions for people uh psychological mood of just you know
12:27rock bottom morale you know people are expecting to uh not to survive essentially
12:35today one of the rooms in the conciergerie commemorates those who were imprisoned here
12:40during the so-called reign of terror that lasted from 1793 to 1795
12:48in these walls you have the name of the more four thousand people who have been judged by the
12:54revolutionary court in red are inscribed the names of people who have been sentenced to death and in
13:02black the names of people who have been condemned to prison or released most of them were ordinary people
13:10but of course former nobles of and former members of the clergy who didn't accept the constitution were targets
13:23at the beginning of the brain of terror the proceedings were quite just and democratic because
13:30the judges had to respect the laws even if hard ones but at the end these proceedings became less and
13:37less just because the people who were judged by this revolutionary court couldn't have any lawyers they
13:45couldn't they couldn't defend themselves so more and more have been sentenced to death
13:53before they were taken for trial at the revolutionary court the accused were imprisoned in tiny cells like
14:00this one which were often very overcrowded in this kind of cell you could get about 10 maybe 15
14:09persons at the same time you had to share it with rapists thefts or murderers so that was very
14:16uncomfortable for people in fact you had several cells the poor went to modest and small cells with a lot
14:28of
14:29uh diseases and it was very cold during the winter why the wealthy could uh pay for some furniture so
14:39a little bit of comfort
14:43the commanders of the prison profited hugely from this as the reign of terror escalated a prisoner might
14:50pay for a bed and be executed just a few days later freeing the bed for a new inmate who
14:56would then pay as
14:57well one person described the conciergerie at this time as the most lucrative furnished lodgings in paris
15:06surprisingly perhaps a significant proportion of those who were imprisoned in the conciergerie were women
15:13so we are now in the women's courtyard of the conciergerie this place hasn't much changed the since the
15:20end of the 18th century and at night women used to sleep in their cells but during the day they
15:27came here
15:28gathering walking talking washing their clothes and eating of course
15:40on the first floor wealthy women were kept because the cells were bigger while on the ground floor there
15:48were the poor women except for marie antoinette you can see the window of our last cell there
15:58when they were sentenced to death the women had to gather there at the bottom of this yard just before
16:07leaving for the guillotine so that was quite dramatic because they could see the other women
16:13were themselves waiting for being judged before the tribunal court
16:26so today marie antoinette's cell looks totally different to when she was imprisoned here
16:33so we are here now in the expiatory chapel which was built after the french revolution in honor
16:41of marie antoinette the queen of france 20 years or so after her death during a brief period when the
16:49french monarchy was temporarily restored her brother-in-law louis the 18th transformed the cell into a chapel
16:56in her memory behind me there was her bed and you can see on the walls that all is dark
17:05all is very sad you have some silver tears on the walls and her initials m and a to remember
17:14that she
17:15sacrificed herself for the french nation marie antoinette stayed a very long time compared to other
17:24prisoners here because she was a very special prisoner in her cell you had two guards who kept an eye
17:30on her
17:31her day and night which was very difficult for a queen
17:38finally after more than two months in prison on the 14th of october 1793
17:44marie antoinette was taken for trial before the revolutionary court
17:50the trial of mountain it lasted three days long which was very long compared to
17:56uh the other people's trial because she was a very special prisoner she was the former queen of france
18:03so fouquier-inville who was the atone of general state had to gather all the proofs to make sure that
18:11her trial would be all right and would respect the laws even if these laws during the reign of terror
18:18with were very special laws of course primarily marie antoinette was accused of high treason for
18:27conspiring against the revolution and collaborating with the rulers of her native land austria now france's
18:34enemy but she was also charged probably very unfairly with more domestic crimes
18:42she was accused of being a bad mother an incestuous mother too and in the french political culture it
18:50made sense at that time because the king and the queen were were considered as the father and the mother
18:57of french people so accusing her of being a bad mother uh was the equivalent of accusing her of being
19:07a bad
19:07created found guilty of treason marie antoinette was sentenced to death and almost immediately taken
19:17from the court in an open cart through the streets of paris amidst jeering crowds to be executed in the
19:24place de la concorde then known as the place de la revolution according to legend she was bravely stoic
19:33as she faced her death after accidentally stepping on the toe of her executioner she apparently said
19:40i'm sorry monsieur i didn't mean to do it her last words before the guillotine fell
19:54apart from marie antoinette around 17 000 people are believed to have been executed during the french
20:02revolution's reign of terror and another 20 000 or so are thought to have either died in prison
20:08or been killed without trial nonetheless the founding principles of the french revolution
20:14as outlined in the revolutionaries famous declaration of the rights of man had a massive
20:21inspirational effect on the subsequent development of constitutional democracies across europe and
20:27world worldwide even today the french revolutionary slogan of liberty equality and fraternity is still
20:35the french national motto the excesses of the revolution also meant the grand medieval cathedral of
20:45notre dame would be converted during the terror to a temple for the people
20:52the saint chapelle actually turned into a granary in this period it was disaffected as a church
20:59notre dame itself was disaffected as a catholic cathedral and uh was converted into a temple of
21:06reason uh because of the sort of emphasis on a more um deistic sort of former form of worship
21:13the acceptance by their subjects of their monarch's divine spiritual connection to roman catholicism
21:19the divine right of kings was over symbolized by the sacking of the cathedral of saint denis
21:29throughout the french revolution there was a lot of targeted iconoclasm not just of course at the
21:34aristocracy or members of the ancien regime but also at the buildings and the artworks and the artifacts
21:40that seemed to give power to those systems um so of course there were many organized instances of
21:47iconoclastic attack at the basilica church of saint denis this included the destruction of many royal
21:55tombs um dozens still survive and even the desecration of some royal bodies um for us art
22:01historians as well and this the destruction at saint denis includes the the ruination of the facade so
22:07that most of the sculpture you see when you visit the church exterior today has been restored in the
22:13nineteenth century um and like at notre dame cathedral where many attackers would cut off the heads of
22:20gothic statues in a way that resembled the guillotine of french kings and queens um they cut off the heads
22:28of these medieval statues of kings and queens at saint denis so aligning the symbolism in a really
22:34interesting way outside all of the public statues of the kings and queens were effectively beheaded
22:39they disinterred the the bodies and they were kicked around uh we we still have what is thought to be
22:47henry the fourth's head because that was rescued from use as a football but generally they were
22:53chucked into a common grave to to all rot together but there were attempts to recover the the bones
23:01after the revolution and to try to distinguish who was who after so much destruction a new king
23:12would emerge his name was napoleon bonaparte he would even crown himself emperor in notre dame which
23:20he would make a church once more located in the heart of paris the extremely grand louvre palace
23:36was the french monarchies main residence during much of the 16th and 17th centuries after 1682
23:43however once the royal family had moved out of paris in order to live in the even grander palace of
23:49versailles in the countryside the old palace of the louvre in paris was simply used to house the king's vast
23:57private art collection today of course the louvre is renowned as one of the world's greatest public
24:04museums displaying a remarkable 40 000 works of art including numerous world-famous treasures such as
24:13leonardo da vinci's mona lisa
24:21but now the great royal art collection in the louvre had been appropriated by the revolutionaries and opened for public
24:29appreciation
24:35initially the number of artworks on public display in the louvre was just 700 or so
24:42it wasn't long however before the museum's collections began to expand dramatically following the coup d'etat in 1799
24:50that led to napoleon now a great military leader being named consul or dictator of france for a period of
24:5910 years
25:03napoleon is a fantastic self-propagandist and quite early on he sees the potential of the louvre
25:12as the result of a succession of military triumphs abroad which brought him huge popularity and the
25:20title of consul or dictator for life napoleon began filling up the louvre with numerous world famous
25:27artworks that he'd seized as the spoils of war from egypt italy and elsewhere it was at this time
25:35the new director of the museum a man called vivant denon who was also a consummate courtier uh told
25:43napoleon wouldn't it be a good idea if we named this museum after you sir and of course good idea
25:51so at that point in 1803 the museum this musée central des arts central museum of arts became known as
25:58the musée napoleon by the following year napoleon had decided that the title of consul or dictator for
26:12life was no longer grand enough to match his exalted status so in december 1804 he had himself crowned
26:21emperor of the french amidst great splendor his coronation took place at notre dame
26:27where france's most famous painter of the era jacques louis david was on hand to paint the official
26:34visual record of the occasion napoleon loved this picture uh famously said oh look at this picture
26:43you walk in this picture it's fantastic and it is incredible you can see all of the individual faces
26:47people came in specially to be painted uh each one as a little portrait in itself david famously adds
26:54napoleon's mother napoleon's mother wasn't there she was with his brother lucien it's almost like
27:00napoleon has painted his mother in so you can say look at me ma and then right up at the
27:05very top of
27:05the painting you can see there's a man with a sketchbook and that's david painting himself into
27:09the picture which is very charming of course given that the french revolution had abolished the monarchy
27:19just 12 years before napoleon's grandiose coronation of himself as emperor was widely if secretly
27:27disparaged in france too a lot of his colleagues from revolutionary days are very disappointed
27:33because it looks a bit like the ancien regime looks like the old world coming back and fortunately for
27:39napoleon a year later to the very day the battle of austerlitz happens on the 2nd of december and then
27:45napoleon has another uh another coronation a military coronation this time the great battle the fantastic
27:51victory uh and so in the ceremonies that take place every year on the 2nd of december which is coronation
27:56day and austerlitz day it's austerlitz day which is also coronation day so austerlitz day takes over
28:03as the big uh memory symbol of napoleonic might and napoleonic power
28:11it was to celebrate his great victory in 1805 at the battle of austerlitz over the combined forces of
28:17russian and habsburg empires that napoleon ordered the building of the famous arc de triomphe on the
28:24avenue de champs elysées austerlitz was such an important victory however that one triumphal arch
28:30wasn't enough next to the louvre napoleon asked for a second one to be built known as the arc to
28:38triomphe
28:38du carousel in the first years of the 19th century as he was on the march throughout europe napoleon would
28:48soon go on to order other monuments commemorating the military glory of his grand army why do you know
28:55the thing about napoleon as he as everyone knows he's at war all the time and he's not in paris
29:00very
29:00much napoleon symbolically i think admires what louis the 14th particularly what jean baptiste colbert
29:09had tried to do with paris to make it the center of europe if not the center of the world
29:16napoleon's ambitions for making paris the center of the world are perhaps in the short to medium term
29:23less about great building projects although he does create a triumphal arch they're more about for example
29:29plundering the rest of europe of its great cultural treasures its great archival treasures
29:34and centralizing them quite literally physically in paris itself in the louvre and in the french
29:41state archives there is nothing more imperial than grabbing other people's possessions and taking
29:46it to your own capital city in 1806 napoleon signed a decree for the construction of a temple
29:55to the glory of the french armies the emperor personally chose a design modeled on the style
30:03of the temple of olympians use in athens
30:10later it narrowly escaped being turned into a railway station before later becoming the church of la
30:17madeleine in 1845 this imposing religious building featured monumental bronze doors and 52 majestic
30:27corinthian columns napoleon also had grand ambitions for another royal site the palace of the louvre he
30:35ensured any additions to the palace carried out while he was in power carried his signature just as
30:42previous emperors such as louis the 14th had done so by moving into that space using the model of
30:49architecture and that idiom of control which louis the 14th is so clearly established in paris the louvre
30:56of louis the 14th is almost like a fortress against the city they are saying we are the heirs of
31:04louis
31:04the 14th napoleon commissioned a number of infrastructure projects in paris and took great
31:11pride in french scientific and cultural achievements to connect the louvre then known as the palais
31:18des arts and the collège des quatre nations now the institute of france napoleon decreed the construction
31:26of a new kind of footbridge the first metallic bridge in france and the third in the world was inaugurated
31:34in november 1803 today it's frequented by musicians painters and walkers the view of the ile de la cité and
31:43the pont neuf on one side and the louvre and the orsay museums on the other is outstanding the biggest
31:51changes i think associated with him or most important changes in terms of the long-term development
31:57and indeed of the uh the life of the inhabitants is that he has this sense that the revolution
32:03has occurred because people were lacking in decent food and one of the first thing and cheap food
32:09well the first things he does is to improve circulation uh and uh uh particularly the building
32:16of canals or the use of canals to bring grain into paris cheaply and then he sets up and some
32:22of these are
32:23still in existence actually these um little markets local markets in the sort of neighborhood uh level
32:28and also water supply he puts a lot of fountains in so in some ways he wants to keep the
32:33parisian
32:33people happy because he doesn't want them to to revolt and in some ways that's more more important
32:38than anything else he does after the chaotic period following france's defeat in the napoleonic wars
32:45the overthrow of napoleon and the bourbon restoration
32:50it was this aristocrat louis philippe who emerged as the compromise candidate to lead france to
32:57rehabilitate napoleon into the collective memory of paris and bring warring factions together
33:04despite his bourbon lineage louis was originally a supporter of the revolution before fleeing to switzerland
33:12his father was guillotined during the terror louis philippe was in exile for more than 20 years before
33:21being made france's last king in 1830 a further nod to the restoration in the same year at the westernmost
33:31end of the champs elysées louis philippe completed and dedicated the arc de triomphe ordered by napoleon
33:40louis philippe also indulged napoleon's love of the cultural and architectural achievements of the
33:46ancient world particularly those of rome and egypt the place de la concorde was further embellished
33:53in 1836 by the placement of the luxor obelisk weighing 250 tons which was carried to france from
34:02egypt on a specially built ship then in 1840 on a bitterly cold december day much like today a barge
34:11carrying napoleon's body made its way up the river seine before a funeral procession through the streets
34:19which would be watched by a crowd of almost a million people to be buried here at les invalides the
34:26military's headquarters in paris napoleon's wish was always to be buried by the seine in the city he
34:33loved and which had always supported him napoleon had always taken great interest in les invalides
34:40as a place and institution organizing ceremonies here re-establishing it as a home for old soldiers
34:48and as a burial place for great military commanders ironically napoleon's final resting place was inside
34:57the vast church of the dome originally built by the sun king louis the 14th as a royal chapel napoleon's
35:05tomb here is a massive structure but it was nearly 20 years after his funeral before it was completed
35:12it's been here since 1861 the curator of the tomb napoleon is emil rob this is the place where standards
35:23taken from the enemy were brought and this is the place where napoleon himself made the ashes of
35:31uh very famous military commanders come back such as turen or vauban that you can see here and there so
35:38it's quite logical that napoleon finds himself here right now this script was uh constructed around
35:46a very simple idea all around in the corridor you will find reliefs describing what napoleon did for
35:54france there's ten of these reliefs each and every one of them explaining uh one of his great
36:00achievements uh such as uh the establishment of the legion d'honneur building uh and renovating
36:08great buildings throughout france uh reforming the economy uh trying to make a french education better
36:17etc inside the sarcophagus napoleon's body is encased in six coffins one of marble one of tin one of
36:27mahogany two of lead and one of ebony also buried here members of his family including his older
36:35brother joseph who'd lived the rest of his life in exile having reinvented himself in america before
36:41dying in rome in 1844. when you go closer to the tomb there are all these statues here
36:49which stand for victories and specifically the victories which names are written on the pavement
36:57reminding us of the greatest victories achieved by napoleon's army such as australis the battle of
37:05maringo battles of the pyramids etc long after his entombment the debate in france about napoleon's
37:12legacy raged on he may have been a self-proclaimed man of the people but napoleon was a divisive figure
37:20a legacy summed up in the treatment meted out to one of the many monuments erected in his honor at
37:27the
37:27place vendome in the center of paris this cast column depicting the emperor napoleon as a 19th century
37:36julius caesar was erected on the order of napoleon himself in 1810 after arguably his greatest military
37:44victory at the battle of austerlitz in czechoslovakia the shell of the column itself was constructed from
37:51metal salvaged from austrian cannons taken in the battle in 1814 after napoleon's first abdication
38:00and exile to elba the column was torn down it was erected again with a new napoleon on top in
38:081823
38:09soon after napoleon's death in the revolution of 1861 it was destroyed again only to be rebuilt for a
38:17third time in 1875 it's this version that survives to this day as for louis philippe who had attempted to
38:27bring the warring factions of paris together he is remembered for the invention in the city of a
38:34global symbol of street protest the barricade if there's a single type of building that i'd associate
38:42with louis philippe it would be actually the barricade the barricade is really built up as a
38:51defense in areas of working class uh militancy is really important in this period when we um uh when
38:59we look read victoria goes or see the film or the tv show or les miserables you see these barricades
39:06being built this is the moment that the barricade really enters uh world history as a structure
39:11associated with revolt and obviously you see them in 80 big one in 1832 which is big set of barricade
39:18building and riots in 1832 which is what victor hugo's les miserables starts with but then right
39:24through 1848 1871 and then picked up elsewhere where they were within europe and the wider world as well
39:31they want to stop it off to cavalry and preferably infantry as well and so you basically put everything
39:37you've got into it you draw up a cart and then you go into someone's shop and you pull out
39:42a few tables
39:43a few chairs and you chuck in a bath or something like that some of the pictures that we have
39:48are
39:48really very amusing in that respect and also you pull up the street the street is full of you know
39:54cobblestones you use these cobblestones as well so it's uh it becomes a extraordinary sort of uh
40:01spontaneous structure of the neighborhood after the overthrow and exile to england of louis philippe
40:09it was napoleon's nephew napoleon the third who would come to power next making himself like his uncle
40:17emperor not just king napoleon was an empire builder in the great french tradition but like napoleon before
40:26him suffered from grand ambition and ultimately overreach ill-advised adventures in mexico where he tried to
40:35install a european emperor in italy where he opposed italian unification and germany where he tried to
40:44squash a new german state sapped french power and prestige in europe but napoleon would also be
40:51remembered as a great builder and patron of paris leaving behind one of the greatest european world cities
40:59of the 19th century much copied across europe and the world napoleon the third is probably the most
41:07significant ruler of modern times for the way in which paris is built and the way it looks and even
41:14the way it way it looks now he works with his prefect of paris baron haussmann to totally recreate the
41:22city
41:24and the way in which he recreates it is basically the way in which we know paris now that very
41:30characteristic type of avenue of houses all relatively low you know five six stories um the big straight
41:38boulevards cutting through uh cutting through paris in fact the prefect of public works george haussmann
41:46had entire districts of old narrow streets in the city center demolished replacing them with the
41:52grand wide boulevards that give paris its distinctive appearance today one of the big ideas he has about
42:00paris is let's let's drive big boulevard right through the historic heart of paris he has very little
42:07um concern for history actually i mean he's he's sometimes called the the alzation he's houseman his
42:14his prefect rather sometimes called the alzation attila because comes through like a sort of a dose of salt
42:21through the city today houseman is simultaneously remembered as the man who destroyed the beautiful
42:27medieval paris and the man who created the beautiful modern paris when you look at paris and compare it
42:34with other big world cities is you think what a low place it is in that you don't have these
42:40uh huge
42:41skyscrapers or if they're one or two uh within the city they really stand out like a sore thumb and
42:47that's
42:47because over the years you know starting with haussmann there's been very strict regulation on on height
42:53and that gives a sort of homogeneity uh in in types of terms of building type uh to paris which
43:01you know
43:01the tourist remarks straight away the apartments created by haussmann are all at a certain you know
43:06eye level no apartment is allowed to go or no building is allowed to go from a certain eye level
43:10so everything hits you at the level of the street it's an easy city to walk around and not be
43:16alien
43:17you're not like in new york or you know with the skyscrapers or chicago the individual really counts
43:23here and the individual is not you know intimidated or oppressed by all that kind of thing so this visual
43:30democracy is an architectural phenomenon when we go to paris we think of those four to five story
43:36buildings in that lovely creamy parisian stone you know ground floor and then the piano noble a with
43:43a sort of balcony all said in the same way you know very very similar uh that's really the triumph
43:50of uh
43:50of napoleon third and and uh and his prefect of paris baron haussmann napoleon's redesign with its
43:57grand boulevards lined by apartment blocks became a signature look for many 19th century cities and was
44:05inspired by the city's layout in nearby london he spends a lot of time in london and actually in
44:11london one of the things which really he likes about london is the is green space uh and one of
44:17the things which he brings to um uh to paris is actually green space new parks he wants the city
44:23to
44:23breathe and indeed one of the ways in which he wants paris to breathe is building these boulevards
44:28letting air flow flow through the uh through the city the haussmann model is a model for export
44:35is for paris for the very specific reasons we've been talking about to turn uh what was a dirty
44:41unkempt unhygienic but also rebellious city into something that's calmer uh more beautiful but uh more
44:48hygienic uh will attract tourists and all those those sorts of things and that model just as i say is
44:55is
44:56the one to follow for the next 50 maybe even 100 years depending where you're talking about
45:00throughout the late 19th century you find it uh infiltrating its way into all the big provincial
45:06cities of france but it's also picked up uh across europe and of course also in the uh in the
45:13empire
45:14if you go into um a french former colonial big city now and you go into a british one what
45:21strikes you
45:21about britain is it's it's it's still a jumble you go into uh into one uh it could be marrakesh
45:27or or
45:28or one of the big moroccan cities or it could be actually saigon or whatever and you see these boulevards
45:33you think oh this is like provincial paris in some way so that parisian model the haussmann model
45:38napoleon the third model is a model for export which really changes the way in which the world thinks
45:42about its cities for the next couple of generations napoleon the third commissioned this grand opera
45:50house palais garnier in 1861 at the height of his powers but it wasn't completed until 1874
46:00three years after napoleon had been exiled like his uncle after a series of disastrous military
46:07adventures next time napoleon the third may have been a great builder of paris but his catastrophic
46:15wars led to the city being occupied by prussian troops in its aftermath his glorious creation was
46:22set on fire during the paris commune riots which set citizen against citizen another french republic
46:31would be born it would create a vastly different tone and would impact paris like never before
46:38paris would reinvent itself once more this time not as a religious city but as a secular one
46:48harwood board of paris would have been a great builder of paris
46:50in 1860 and he will be a great builder of paris
46:57the vifak of paris
46:57the vifak of paris
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