Paris During the Belle Époque (1853-1914)

Most historians mark “the beautiful era” (La Belle Époque) as the span between the crushing of the Paris Commune (1871) and the outbreak of World War I (1914). I agree that the Belle Époque ended with the start of the war, but in my view it began earlier, with the rise to power of Napoleon III (1852-1870). The reason is that much of his reign was marked by cultural and urban growth, alongside a significant rise in living standards for a large share of the French population.

No regime left its mark on Paris more than Napoleon III’s did. When he seized power by force in December 1851, Paris was still largely a medieval city, with narrow streets, foul sewers, traffic jams and hardly any green spaces.

Louis-Napoléon, who had spent part of his life in London as a political exile, was deeply impressed by the wide boulevards and parks of the English capital. While there, he made up his mind that if he ever became the ruler of France, he would make Paris more like London (the shame of it!).

In practice, the result exceeded every plan. By the end of his reign, Paris was more beautiful and impressive than London, thanks to its stunning architecture, its joie de vivre and a charm London never had and never will.

Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann rebuild Paris

Shortly after taking power, Napoleon III appointed Baron Haussmann (1809-1891) as prefect of the Seine (Préfet de la Seine), a post that made him, in practice, the governor of Paris with nearly unlimited authority. Their shared goal was to turn Paris into a modern, open and airy city, and along the way, to make it harder for the public to revolt and raise barricades.

To that end, the pair launched the construction of wide boulevards, such as Boulevard de Sébastopol and Avenue de l’Impératrice (later Avenue Foch) on the Right Bank, and at the same time, Boulevard Saint-Germain, Boulevard Saint-Michel and Boulevard des Gobelins on the Left Bank.

These boulevards brought with them a distinctive building style that became the mandatory standard for decades. This is the “Haussmannian” style: five- or six-story buildings with uniform facades, with shops on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors (before the invention of the elevator, the wealthy lived on the lower, more spacious floors, while the poor crowded into the upper floors and attics).

The Haussmannian boulevards completely transformed the face of the city, a transformation that came with the widespread destruction of old neighborhoods. The clearest example is Île de la Cité, where an entire neighborhood next to Notre-Dame Cathedral was wiped out and replaced with wide boulevards and public buildings. Alongside the construction in the city center, Haussmann annexed nearby villages and towns to Paris in 1860, such as Belleville, Montmartre, Passy and Auteuil, significantly expanding the city’s area. This is how modern Paris was created, divided into twenty arrondissements, arranged in a spiral.

Beyond the boulevards and the building style, Baron Haussmann gave Paris several more essential pieces of infrastructure. First, his era saw the construction of the modern sewer system, which solved once and for all the problem of epidemics and foul odors that had plagued the city (don’t believe me? Read “Perfume” by Patrick Süskind).

His era also saw the creation of several of the most important gardens in Paris, including Parc des Buttes-Chaumont and Parc Montsouris. Older gardens, like the Luxembourg Gardens and Parc Monceau, got a facelift and were upgraded. Within the limited scope of this article, let’s mention two more important developments from the era: the construction of the Palais Garnier and the avenue leading to it, and the completion of the north wing of the Louvre Palace.

The first development was the rise of the great department stores, which completely transformed consumer culture (you can read about them in the novel by Émile Zola (1840-1902), “The Ladies’ Paradise”). The second development was the World’s Fairs, which began in London but were warmly embraced in Paris. The first fair was held in 1855, and others followed roughly every eleven years (with a few gaps) until 1937. These fairs left Paris with some of its most famous attractions, chief among them the Bateaux Mouches on the Seine (1867), the Eiffel Tower (1889) and the metro (1900).

And sometimes the party stops: the siege of Paris and the Commune

While Napoleon III excelled at domestic policy and created modern Paris, his foreign policy was a disaster. During his reign, he managed to alienate nearly every possible ally. As a result, when he declared war on Prussia in 1870, France found itself isolated.

The pretext for the war was a dispute over the succession to the Spanish throne. The Prussian chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), who sought to unite Germany under his leadership through a military victory over France, exploited the dispute and maneuvered Napoleon III into declaring war in the summer of 1870. The French army stood no chance against the well-trained, well-equipped Prussian forces, and the result was a string of quick defeats.

Napoleon III, who hadn’t inherited an ounce of his uncle’s military genius, surrendered and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Sedan, and with him fell the Second Empire. While his wife, Empress Eugénie (1826-1920), fled Paris with the help of her dentist, the Third Republic was declared in the City of Light.

As the Republic was being declared, the Prussian armies kept advancing, and in September they laid siege to Paris. At first, the besieged Parisians stayed optimistic and even used hot air balloons to send messages out of the city. But after several failed attempts to break the siege, morale began to crack. On top of that came a severe food shortage, leading to widespread hunger (at its worst, Parisians were forced to eat the zoo’s animals, and even rats).

In the end, Paris surrendered to the Prussians. Under the peace treaty, France was forced to cede the territories of Alsace and Lorraine, pay enormous war reparations, and watch the German Empire proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The humiliating terms of the treaty were met with rage among radical circles in Paris, who saw the Republican government as a government of traitors. As a result, when government soldiers were sent to confiscate cannons stationed in Montmartre that had been funded by the city’s residents, a revolt broke out and the “Paris Commune” was declared (not before the mob murdered the generals sent on the mission).

The Commune lasted a little over two months in Paris (March 26 to May 30, 1871), but it left a deep mark on France and the world. It’s hard to speak of the Commune as a single unified body, since it was made up of various groups that sometimes disagreed sharply with one another. As a result, its actions ranged from progressive and positive steps (like proposals to grant women the right to vote) to acts of destruction and brutality.

As time went on, the Communards grew more radical, and figures like the sadistic Raoul Rigault (1846-1871) took over the leadership. The Commune was crushed in rivers of blood and fire during the “Bloody Week” at the end of May, as government forces broke into Paris from the west and captured it gradually, neighborhood by neighborhood.

The final days of the Commune saw terrible killing and destruction. The Communards executed the hostages they were holding, including the Archbishop of Paris, and set fire to many public buildings. In response, government soldiers massacred anyone suspected of supporting the Commune. The result was thousands of dead (not counting those executed afterward).

On May 30, the occupation of the city ended, with the elimination of the last pockets of resistance at Père Lachaise Cemetery. Paris was burning, the Tuileries Palace was destroyed completely, and yet, it was from this very low point that one of the most beautiful periods in the city’s history began.

Paris rises again: the Belle Époque continues

Many were surprised by how quickly France recovered after the devastating war. The war reparations were paid off within a few years, and the Third Republic, which managed to establish itself despite grim predictions, held on for 70 years.

In Paris, it was decided to tear down the ruins of the Tuileries Palace and create the monumental axis we know today, running from the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel to the Arc de Triomphe at Place de l’Étoile. At the same time, the city hall was rebuilt, and the result was a magnificent building that could rival royal palaces. The Republic also continued Napoleon III’s building projects, the most important of which was the opera house, inaugurated in 1875 (for the opening ceremony, they forgot to invite the architect, Charles Garnier (1825-1898), who had to buy himself a ticket like anyone else).

Alongside the building boom, Paris became the world capital of art. First came the Impressionists, who had begun working back in the Second Empire but gained recognition only during the Third Republic.

Painters like Monet, Manet (1832-1883), Pissarro, Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) and others took their work from the studio to the streets of Paris, and thanks to them, we can enjoy wonderful depictions of everyday life in the city. Later, they were joined by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), one of the first artists to settle in Montmartre and turn it into the center of Parisian bohemia.

At the start of the 20th century, as the Impressionists became part of the establishment, Picasso, Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958) and Georges Braque (1882-1963) arrived in Montmartre, and together with Henri Matisse, they laid the foundations of modern art. The artistic and bohemian ferment in Montmartre led to a flourishing of cafés and cabarets, like “Le Chat Noir” and the Moulin Rouge, and turned the neighborhood into the entertainment capital of Paris as well.

At the same time, the “Grands Boulevards” in the 9th arrondissement became a magnet for the cream of French society, thanks to its lavish restaurants, cafés and theaters. The boulevards became the center of Parisian life, and remained the liveliest spot in the City of Light until the outbreak of World War I.

But Paris at the turn of the 20th century saw not only artistic and entertainment flourishing, but also polarization and political tension. In the 1890s, a wave of anarchist terror swept through Paris, culminating in the assassination of French President Sadi Carnot (1837-1894) in 1894. But as this wave faded, another affair began to stir France and split it into two rival camps.

Of course, I mean the Dreyfus affair, which began in 1894 with the arrest of a Jewish officer named Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), on suspicion of passing military secrets to Germany. I won’t go into detail on the affair here, but there’s no doubt it shaped the character of France for generations and turned Paris into a battlefield between Dreyfus’s supporters and his opponents.

And so, as Paris enjoyed revolutionary art, danced and sang in cabarets, argued and buzzed with politics, and experienced tremendous economic growth, July 1914 arrived, and the party was cut short all at once. The lights of the City of Light went out, and World War I began.

Videos about the Belle Époque

Episodes about the era

The episode about “the beautiful era” does a great job describing what happened in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries:

Films about the era

One of the writers who best captured the Second Empire era was Émile Zola, in his series of novels known as the Rougon-Macquart. One of the best-known film adaptations of his books is “Germinal,” starring Gérard Depardieu (b. 1948):

And speaking of the Third Republic, we can’t skip its biggest scandal, the Dreyfus affair. Here’s a documentary that sums up the affair well:

Of course, you can’t talk about the late 19th century without the Moulin Rouge. Here’s the famous film by director Baz Luhrmann (b. 1962):

One of the most famous literary characters of the era is the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. The following film, based on the character, offers an entertaining, action-packed glimpse into the era:

And speaking of fictional characters, we can’t end this discussion of the era without mentioning The Phantom of the Opera, right?

Want to read more about the history of Paris?

Feel free to move on to the next chapter in the history of Paris series and learn about other eras in the history of the City of Light.

Related reading

• The Time Paris Almost Burned Down (Twice)
• Amedeo Modigliani and Chaïm Soutine: Montparnasse’s Last Bohemians
• A Day Out of Paris: Attractions Up to 3 Hours from the French Capital