Talk:Haussmann's renovation of Paris

[edit] Other Criticisms

Politicians and intellectuals sued the préfet over speculation and corruption surrounding these renovations. In La Curée (1871-72), Emile Zola described a common scheme of the time, where investors managed to get information on the buildings to be destroyed with the help of corrupt city officials, bought them for what they were worth, usually a very low price, and made profits from the expropriation compensations. Haussmann himself was accused of corruption, which resulted in his dismissal on January 5, 1870. The opera play Les Comptes fantastiques de Haussmann, in 1867, criticized this speculation period — the title is a play on words between contes, stories or tales - as in Les contes d'Hoffmann or Tales of Hoffmann, and comptes, accounts.

Artists and architects, (Charles Garnier among others) condemned the suffocating monotony of this monumental architecture. The Haussmann-type buildings were often seen as ugly. Many Parisians were troubled by the destruction of "old roots". Historian Robert Herbert says that "the impressionist movement depicted this loss of connection in such paintings as Manet's Bar at Folies (1882)." The subject of the painting is talking to a man, seen in the mirror behind her, but seems unengaged. According to Herbert, this is a symptom of living in Paris at this time: the citizens became detached from one another. "The continuous destruction of physical Paris led to a destruction of social Paris as well."

Haussmann's works, such as linking the four main train stations to large boulevards, were later seen as much as military engineering than as "civil planning". Indeed, this tied together the countryside and their garnisons to Paris, which at the time rarely saw a year without some type of disturbs or another (the July Revolution, the 1848 Revolution and the 1871 Paris Commune camouflage the smaller, daily, uprisings). Thus, this improved system of circulation allowed Adolphe Thiers' artillery to move in Paris, while the large boulevards made it difficult to create any long-standing barricade. The Commune was thus crushed in May 1871 by Adolphe Thiers, who since the 1848 Revolution and Haussman's renovation, had prepared his military plan: retreat from Paris to better crush the insurgents with military help (in part provided by the Prussians, who released war prisoners, etc.).

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