Diébolt, and a
skirmisher and an artilleryman, both sculpted by Arnaud.Sunday: May 16
Pont de Alma & Flame of Liberty and the Hotel de Ville
No tourist that I'm aware goes to see the Pont de Alma. Instead they used to go there to see the Flame of Liberty; a life size replica of the flame on the Statue of Liberty in NY. This was given to the city by the US on the Centenial of the gift of the Statue to the US. It sits at the end of the pont, over the lower roadway tunnel. It was in this tunnel that Princess Diana was killed in a car crash, and the flame has become the unofficial memorial to Diana. You will often see flowers and wreaths laid out in memory of Diana.
The Hotel de Ville is a marvelous building that is the City Hall of Paris. It is massive and beautiful and has a marvelous history. Take a peek.....
Pont de Alma (Flame of Liberty)
The initial construction of the bridge took place between 1854 and 1856. It was
inaugurated by Napoleon III on 2 April 1856. At the time, each of the four piers
of the bridge was decorated with a statue of military nature: a zouave and a
grenadier, by Georges
Diébolt, and a
skirmisher and an artilleryman, both sculpted by Arnaud.
For Parisians, the bridge serves as a measuring instrument for water levels and
a dam in times of flooding on the Seine, due to its statue of a Zouave soldier.
Access to the footpaths by the river embankments usually is closed when the
Seine's level reaches the feet of the Zouave, and when the water hits the
statue's thighs, the river becomes unnavigable. During the great flood of the
Seine in 1910, the level reached to the shoulders of the Zouave. The French
Civil Service, however, officially uses the Pont de la Tournelle to gauge the
flood levels — not the Pont de l'Alma.
The bridge underwent complete reconstruction between 1970 and 1974, as it had
been too narrow to accommodate the increasing traffic both on and below it;
moreover, the structure had subsided some 80 centimeters over time. After the
reconstruction, only the statue of the Zouave was preserved. T
Flame of Liberty
Not too many go to see the bridge itself, but instead would go to see the Flame
of Liberty, an exact replica of the flame on the Statue of Liberty given to the
French by the US. This life-size copy of the torch, Flame of Liberty, can be
seen above the entrance to the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. It was given to the city
as a return gift in honor of the Centennial Celebration of the statue's
dedication. Since it is above the Pont de l'Alma car tunnel in which Princess
Diana died, the torch became an unofficial memorial to the Princess. You will
often see flowers and other gifts laid in memory of Diana and the tragic
accident that occurred below.
Hôtel de Ville
The Hôtel de Ville (French for "City Hall") in Paris, France, is the building
housing the City of Paris's administration. Standing on the place de l'Hôtel de
Ville (formerly the place de Grève) in the city's IVe arrondissement, it has
been the location of the municipality of Paris since 1357.
Built in 1882 the Hôtel de Ville is Paris's city hall by a death square. The
building has hundreds of statues representing famous Parisians and thirty
statues representing French cities.
The square (Place de Greve) is of bloody interest as most of the executions in
Paris took place here. Beheading, quartering, cooked alive or burned at the
stake. These were gruesome times. In 1792 a more civilised process was a adopted
for the French Revolution. La guillotine. The executions were given the chop in
1830 and Place de Greve was renamed Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. Maybe they should
have called it Red Square.
History
In July 1357, Étienne Marcel, provost of the merchants (i.e. mayor) of Paris,
bought the so-called maison aux piliers ("House of Pillars") in the name of the
municipality on the gently sloping shingle beach which served as a river port
for unloading wheat and wood and later merged into a square, the Place de Grève
(French for "Square of the Strand"), a place where Parisians often gathered,
particularly for public executions. Ever since 1357, the City of Paris's
administration has been located on the same location where the Hôtel de Ville
stands today.
In 1533, King Francis I decided to endow the city with a city hall which would
be worthy of Paris, then the largest city of Europe and Christendom. He
appointed two architects: Italian Dominique de Cortone, nicknamed Boccador
because of his red beard, and Frenchman Pierre Chambiges. The House of Pillars
was torn down and Boccador, steeped in the spirit of the Renaissance, drew up
the plans of a building which was at the same time tall, spacious, full of light
and refined. Building work was not finished until 1628 during the reign of Louis
XIII.
During the next two centuries, no changes were made to the edifice which was the
stage for several famous events during the French Revolution. Eventually, in
1835, on the initiative of Rambuteau, préfet of the Seine département, two wings
were added to the main building and were linked to the facade by a gallery, to
provide more space for the expanded city government.
During the Franco-Prussian War, the building played a key role in several
political events. On 30 October 1870, revolutionaries broke into the building
and captured the Government of National Defence, while making repeated demands
for the establishment of a communard government. The existing government was
rescued by soldiers who broke into the Hôtel de Ville via an underground tunnel
built in 1807, which still connects the Hôtel de Ville with a nearby barracks.
On 18 January 1871, crowds gathered outside the building to protest against
speculated surrender to the Prussians, and were dispersed by soldiers firing
from the building, who inflicted several casualties. The Paris Commune chose the
Hôtel de Ville as its headquarters, and as anti-Commune troops approached the
building, Commune extremists set fire to the Hôtel de Ville destroying almost
all extant public records from the French Revolutionary period. The blaze gutted
the building, leaving only a stone shell.
Reconstruction
Reconstruction of the hall lasted from 1873 through 1892 and was directed by
architects Théodore Ballu and Édouard Deperthes following an architectural
contest.
The architects rebuilt the interior of the Hôtel de Ville within the stone shell
that had survived the fire. While the rebuilt Hôtel de Ville is, from the
outside, a copy of the 16th-century French Renaissance building that stood
before 1871, the new interior was based on an entirely new design, with
ceremonial rooms lavishly decorated in the 1880s style.
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