Parisian Boulevards

The boulevards constitute a big part of the urban and social identity of Paris . Built in several phases on the initiative it central capacity, they are associated in a certain made frame of mind of dawdling and lightness.

The Parisian Boulevard S, like the Which occurred S and contrary with the streets, are bordered in theory by one or two lines of trees on each course.

Grands Boulevards

The Grands Boulevards are the boulevards par excellence. They correspond to the “New Course” built of 1668 to 1705 on the site of the Enceinte of Louis XIII. The boulevards of Louis XIV, designed by the architect Pierre Bullet, then connected the Saint-Anthony door, on current the Place of the Bastille, with the door Saint-Honore (place of the Madeleine). The Parisian ones made of it a place of walk whose success was never contradicted through the centuries and the urban transformations. The Beautiful-Friend of Maupassant sauntered on the boulevards in search of pleasures and, in the years 1950, it is still on the boulevards that Fred Astaire felt best the pleasure of being in Paris in Funny Face.

The boring of other axes of great capacity (Richard-Lenoir boulevard, Haussmann boulevard, avenue of the Republic…) however reduced legibility in Parisian topography of the old enclosure of Louis XIII. The concept of “Grands Boulevards” became a little fuzzier. Many Parisian will undoubtedly inclueront there spontaneously the Boulevard Haussmann, because the windows of the department stores which attract the walkers are appropriate well for the boulevardier spirit. In a strict sense, the Grands Boulevards are today made up by the axis of the Beaumarchais boulevards, the Girl-of-Martyrdom, of the Temple, Saint Martin's day, Saint-Denis, of Good-News, Poissonnière, Montmartre, of the Italians, the Nasturtiums and the Madeleine.

Boulevard du Crime and light comedies

The vocation of the boulevards to the pleasure continues at the 18th century with the installation of many theaters around the carries Saint Martin's day. The Boulevard of the Temple receives thus the nickname of Boulevard of the Crime at the time of the Restauration, allusion to the innumerable fixed prices made not in the street but on the scenes of theater. According to the Almanac of the Spectacles, “Tautin was stabbed 16.302 times, Marti underwent 11.000 poisonings, Fresnoy was immolé various ways… 27.000 times, Miss Adèle Dupuis were 75.000 times innocent allured, removed or drowned”.

The Boulevard of the Crime is victim of work of Haussmann, but the spirit “boulevardier” remains in the “Light comedies”.

It is as on the Grands Boulevards as besides the first public representation of Cinématographe will take place.

The wall walling Paris

New line of fortification, news girdles boulevards: as from 1784, Ledoux builds the Mur of the Farmers general, bordered of a line of boulevards on the external side. This wall of Granting, hated the Parisian ones, will disappear during the construction of the following enclosure, but the boulevards, them, remained. The town-plannings of years 1950 will try, without reaching that point, to transform them into expressway.

The boulevards haussmanniens

The great work of the Second Empire impose the boulevard in the middle same of Paris, whereas it was built up to that point only in zones little or not inhabited. The boulevard, which was used before only to circumvent the capital, then becomes the structuring axis of circulation.

It is in the field of architecture that the period haussmannienne, in the old boulevards as in the new ones, contributes to the image of Paris: alignments of buildings controlled by the payments, with their balconies spinning all along a small island, make Parisian boulevard an immediately recognizable axis.

Boulevards of the Marshals

In the years 1920, the destruction of the Enceinte of Thiers makes it possible to create a third belt of boulevards making the full rotation of Paris. One will give to these new ways names of marshals of Empire. They constitute the border of Paris today. The article on the Boulevards of the Marshals presents these boulevards in detail more.

Finally the ring road, expressway which makes the turn of Paris on the site of the old fortifications of Thiers, which is strictly speaking an expressway than a Parisian boulevard.

See too

For a list of Parisian ways: Ways of Paris.

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