“The Bois de Boulogne was an important part of the life of the people of Paris, providing a theater and a daily exhibition,” said Jean-Michel Derex, author of a book on the history of the park. It was a great inspiration to Baudelaire, Zola, Maupassant, Balzac, Proust and many others.
Officially established by French Emperor Napoleon III by filling its man-made lakes in 1854, the Bois caused a social revolution. It was the first large public green space in the crowded, dirty and diseased metropolis, and it expanded the range of leisure available to Parisians and brought a mix of group channel.
Denizens flocked there, strolling along its winding paths, paddling in the ponds, taking in concerts, enjoying the panoramic view of the Longchamp racetrack, exploring the new zoo , and eat in the chalet’s beautiful restaurants. But the main attraction was going around its lakes and gardens, displaying haute-couture fashions, beautiful horses and livestock carriages.
“It was the a place where you can see and be seen,” Derex said.
The daily procession of horse-drawn carriages was such a sight to behold that it caused massive traffic jams in the park and topped the tour guide’s list. Every afternoon, thousands of spectators took in the fun of royals, bankers, sportswriters, celebrities and visiting VIPs. Even the emperor used to hang around.
The Dublin Times newspaper wrote: “Entering Bois is a very interesting thing.
“It’s a series of open carriages, full of gay people [outfits]conquered the forests of Paris today,” reported London’s Penny Illustrated Paper, marveling at the “global world” Paris had become.
Inspired by London’s Hyde Park, Bois went through it beautifully. A British writer for the Glasgow Evening Citizen complained: “The French beat us in the parks.
Artists including Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot set up their easels to capture racetracks, footbridges, airplanes and grottoes, while the stunning scenery inspired Mark Twain to write “The Innocents Abroad: “I can’t describe it. It’s just a beautiful, endless, amazing place.”
The establishment of this park was also a good PR move by the new emperor of France, Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The criminal who tried twice to overthrow the king – after the second attempt, he was sentenced to life in prison, from which he escaped after six years – Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte went became the first president of France elected in 1848, when King Louis-Philippe. they fled the country after the revolution that year.
However, still thwarted in his plans to greatly improve Paris, President Bonaparte abandoned his government in December 1851, announcing the following year that, like his uncle, he would be crowned king. . He promised to bring order and prosperity to his subjects and to make Paris “the capital of all great cities” during this Second French Empire. Napoleon III’s first major move was to grant the Bois de Boulogne – a walled, private forest that for centuries had been the hunting ground of the kings of France. – to the city, with the condition that officials use municipal funds to renovate it.
And they innovated, achieving feats of engineering and landscaping that were unknown at the time. They have created two artificial lakes connected by waterfalls, many ponds and winding paths, as well as glass pavilions, gazebos, parks and enclosed botanical gardens. Even those who protested Napoleon III’s usurpation of power, dubious financial practices and mock wars – as well as his destruction of old Paris to create the grand gardens designed by Georges-Eugène Haussmann – were very -they all cheered the opening of Bois.
“At that time Paris was a medieval city, gloomy, without light, and there was no air circulation,” said French urban planner Stéphane Malek, pointing to the epidemics which he used to wear. After a cholera epidemic killed 19,000 people in six months in 1832, public health experts called for the cramped city to be opened, but until Napoleon III, nothing has been achieved yet. The Bois de Boulogne, along with the adjacent Bois de Vincennes, Malek said, gave residents access to fresh, clean air. The two parks changed known as the lungs of Paris.
Despite the picnics, boats, flowers, children’s cars and sports products, however, not all of the Bois de Boulogne was good.
For one thing, daily advertisements brought leaders closer to the people – as evidenced in 1867, when a disgruntled Polish immigrant shot Russian emperor Alexander II while He traveled in a royal carriage next to the French emperor.
For one, the Bois was a favorite place for nobles and statesmen, armed with swords or guns, to meet for duels, which, despite being forbidden, were remained a common way of settling disputes throughout the 19th century. Even women were known to participate in the dangerous Bois de Boulogne project.
In addition, the isolated forests throughout the park attracted prostitutes – as mentioned in Manet’s painting “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe.” Art historian Peter Gärtner writes in his book “Art and Architecture: Musée D’Orsay” that the painting “is not a picnic in the urban forest, as the French title suggests. Rather, it highlights the prostitution which was widespread in the Bois de Boulogne, which was a common thing in Paris, but it was a scandalous thing.”
However, for three out of three years, the Bois remained one of the best star spots in Paris. The joy of the daily commute is long gone, erased by the car. But the lush parkland that opened Paris to society is still loved for its beauty, restaurants, horse racing, jogging and cycling paths, and the Shakespeare Garden, which renews the paintings. of the Bard’s plays.
Bois has preserved almost all of its natural features, except for the 21-hectare area where the Roland Garros Stadium was built in 1928. In 2019, the stadium was expanded to include the Simonne Mathieu Court with 5,000 seats, stretching Serres d’ Auteuil botanical garden of the Bois de Boulogne. The first move was met with anger, until the designer included greenhouses, covering the new court on all four sides.
The stadium will feature Olympian tennis from Saturday to Aug. 4. The boxing finals will be played there from Aug. 6 to Aug. 10. And the wheelchair tennis event for the disabled will take place from 30 Aug to 7 September.
Melissa Rossi is the author of six books on geopolitics. He has written for platforms such as Yahoo News, Outrider, AARP, Rolling Stone and Newsweek, and often discusses the oddities of history for his Substack, Rossi’s records.
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