Wall of the Farmers-General

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The politically disastrous Wall of the Farmers-General was built between 1784 and 1791 by the Ferme générale, the corporation of tax farmers. It was one of several walls built around Paris between the early Middle Ages and the mid 19th century. It was 24 kilometers long and roughly followed the route now occupied by the line 2 and line 6 of the metro. It crossed the districts of the Place de l'Étoile, Batignolles, Pigalle, Belleville, Nation, the Place d'Italie, Denfert-Rochereau, Montparnasse and the Trocadéro.

[edit] History

Unlike earlier walls, the Farmers-General Wall was not aimed at defending Paris from invaders but intended to ensure the payment of a toll on goods entering Paris to the Ferme générale. The wall's tax-collection function made it very unpopular: "Le mur murant Paris rend Paris murmurant...":

The wall walling Paris keeps Paris murmuring:
To increase its cash
And to shorten our horizon,
The Ferme judges it necessary
To put Paris in prison.

The architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux designed its 62 toll barriers in a neo-classic or even classical style. The architectural value of these buildings, "dens of the Tax Department metamorphosed into palaces with columns" according to Louis-Sebastien Mercier, highlighted the oppression which the wall represented for Parisians. The wall was bordered by a boulevard outside and a chemin de ronde (a raised protected walkway) inside, except between the barrière d'Italie (now the Place d'Italie) and the barrière d'Enfer (now the Place Denfert-Rochereau) where the Boulevards of Gobelins, Saint-Jacques and d'Enfer replaced the chemin de ronde inside the wall.

In 1787, Loménie de Brienne, Minister for Finance, worried about the very high cost of the work and considered stopping construction but never actually stopped it because the work was too far advanced.

The toll on goods was removed on 1 May 1791 in the early stages of the French Revolution, but was restored in 1798 by the Directory and was perfected by Napoleon I. The majority of the toll barriers were destroyed at the time of the Revolution.

[edit] Current remains

Some portions of the wall still exist, such as the rotunda of the barrier of La Villette (now Place de Stalingrad), the barrière du Trône (now Place de la Nation), the barrière d'Enfer, and the rotunda of Parc Monceau. The wall itself was replaced by the route of the Boulevards of Courcelles, Batignolles, Clichy, Rochechouart, la Chapelle, la Villette, Belleville, Ménilmontant, Charonne, Picpus, Reuilly, Bercy, Vincent-Auriol, Auguste-Blanqui, Saint-Jacob, Edgar-Quinet, of Vaugirard, Pasteur, Garibaldi, of Grenelle and the Avenue Kléber.