Places, museums, monuments

During the second Empire, this neighbourhood, known as 'little Poland', underwent significant redevelopment following construction work by Haussmann – broad straight avenues were laid out and people flocked to live in the new houses built there, greatly increasing the population. A parish was therefore established and a church built, and great care was taken that […]

The national forest of Malmaison covers 500 acres and was bought by Josephine in 1800. Part of the estate of the Château de Malmaison, it extended as far as the forest of Celle-Saint-Cloud.The Empress particularly enjoyed her walks around the estate. And beside the pond at Saint-Cucufa, she had a sheepfold and a cow-shed built. […]

The decision to build the Trinité church was made in the Assemblée on the 22nd September 1855. The church, built in a neighbourhood turned upside-down by Haussmann's reconstruction of central Paris, was designed by the architect Théodore Ballu and building work lasted from 1861 to 1867. In fact, the clearing of the present-day place d'Estienne-d'Orves, […]

In 1806, Napoleon ordered the construction of a triumphal arch to glorify the Grand Army, and the first stone was laid on 6 August of the same year. Over 160 feet high, it outshone by far all of its predecessors. Designed after the Arch of Titus in Rome, it was meant to provide a majestic […]

It was on the immense 62.5-acre (25-hectare) stretch of wasteland between Belleville and La Villette that Haussmann and Alphand chose to construct one of the most extraordinary Parisian parks of the Second Empire, the “Parc de Buttes-Chaumont”. The name, derived from a contraction of the French words Monts chauves (bald hills), aptly describes the bare […]

On 29th September, 1860, Napoleon III ordered the construction of a new opera house to replace the one in rue Le Peletier, a temporary building both too narrow and situated in a congested area of Paris. A contest in which 171 applicants competed was launched in December. It was won by a young architect still unknown […]

Work on the construction of the Bois de Vincennes (the forest of Vincennes) from the last remains of the forest to the East of Paris known as the Silva Lanchonia began in 1860. It was Napoleon III's desire to offer a place of recreation to the working class inhabitants of the XIIth and XIIIth arrondissements […]

Conceived following a wish of Louis XV, Saint- Geneviève church was built by Soufflot then by Rondelet from 1764 to 1789. In 1791, the Constituent Assembly transformed the new church into a temple destined “to receive the great men of the epoch of French liberty.” Mirabeau, Voltaire, Le Peletier of Saint-Fargeau, Bara, Rousseau and Marat […]

Louis Bonaparte, future king of Holland, selected the small village of St-Leu in the Oise valley as the place to live with his young bride, Hortense de Beauharnais. With the generous gift of 600 000 francs from his famous brother, Napoleon, Louis bought the two chateaux of St-Leu. Louis then proceeded to demolish the old […]

The Château de Saint-Cloud was the scene of some of the significant moments in French 19th century history, and most notably in Napoleonic history in that it saw the rise and fall of both the First and Second Empires. Bonaparte seized power there in his coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire, and the Empire was proclaimed […]