French urban space in nineteenth century literature

French Novels in Literary Tourism

The classic novels of France have a central theme that repeatedly deals with modern urban culture in a serious way.  This theme is expressed through the development of the French novel in the nineteenth century in a way which is quite different from English literature in the same period.  The realist writer, Balzac (1799-1850), for example presents a series of novels that chart life in Paris after the fall of Napoleon in 1815 which is very different in approach from the writing of Charles Dickens (1812-70). 

Ultimately, this does have an effect on literary tourism associated with these writers today.  Even though Dickens is examining London life in the nineteenth century their literary styles are very different; Dickens uses humour and irony whereas Balzac tackles the issues of class in a more direct, unforgiving manner.  Using a non-comedic approach, like Balzac, Zola (1840-1902) embarks on a self-declared, serious scientific project in his series of novels to investigate human nature in nineteenth century Paris, where the railway and the rapid re-building of the inner city were throwing people into new ways of living together.  Zola's novels highlight the public building works and the development of new department stores, which were exploiting new technologies in steel production and transport, as framing devices and realistic backdrops to his presentation of the psychology of his characters. But these public building works had sprung from something far more disturbing than the new technologies of transport and building:

The Sheer Size of Paris

The sheer size of Paris, coupled with strong class divisions and the presence of the national government, was conducive to political mobilisation, and the results were frequently explosive: after the traumas of the first Revolution and its imperial aftermath, ending in Napoleon's fall in 1815, the nineteenth-century city was wracked by three bouts of social conflict which grew progressively more violent: the July Revolution of 1830, the February Revolution of 1848 and the Commune in 1871.

(Lodge 2004, 199)

 

Under Napoleon III's Second Empire (1852-70) Paris was undergoing a huge rebuilding programme to widen the boulevards, wipe away the medieval streets and integrate the railway stations. The rebuilding was led by Georges Eugène (Baron) Haussmann (1809-1891), who was préfet of the Seine from 1853-1870.  Haussmann's use of the axial straight line in town-planning, his culte de l'axe, led to the further development of the Grands Boulevards of Paris, by adding, amongst other streets, Boulevard Haussmann, where, incidentally Proust lived at number 102 from 1906 to 1919.  A key aim of Haussmann's urbanism was the rapid deployment of troops from out of town via the railways to crush rebellion in the inner city. After all, Paris had witnessed three revolutions and military coups in eighty years and was heading for the 1871 Paris Commune and its subsequent brutal repression. Consider, for example, Haussmann's Boulevard de Strasbourg opening from the front of the Gare de l'Est, a major railway station which had operated since 1849.  The new road displays Haussmann's characteristic straight axis driving south into the 2nd and 3rd arrondissements carving through Les Halles to reduce the urban friction for troop movement.  Commerce, too, needed this type of free movement to develop at the time.  Produce and labour from the hinterland of Paris could now be easily transported via rail into the heart of the city.  Places of work changed, commuting practices changed and the use of city centre property changed, in ways that were a huge upheaval in the everyday lives of people in the city, as David Harvey writes:

When, for example, a planner-architect like Le Corbusier, or an administrator, like Haussmann, creates a built environment in which the tyranny of the straight line predominates, then we must perforce adjust our daily practices.

(Harvey 1991, 204)

   

Upheaval in the French Novel

This upheaval is both documented by the French novel but also constitutes the root of much of the anxiety that the novelists attempt to resolve; all this creates a specific type of literature. The novel L'Assommoir (1877) by Zola, the title is rarely translated but refers to a drinking den where cheap spirits are made on the premises, examines daily working practices just before Haussmann.  Arguably, Zola includes these working practices in his literature because he wants to deal with the social problem through his writing and publishing; the net result is a novel which is read today as a serious social critique, and thus creates a specific type of enthusiast for this French literature, and potential literary tourists, very different from those who read detective fiction purely for pleasure.  Although at other points in his fiction Zola does telescope events, this part of the story can be dated quite accurately, as if it were a real history.  For example, the suffrage law of 31 May 1850, which required three-year residence in Paris to win voting rights, is mentioned in the story; this sets the action of the novel in 1850, with the coup of 2^nd December 1851 by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, to create the Second Empire, close at hand.  Zola presents realist characters, for example Lorilleux, a goldsmith, who works with his family at home in a dilapidated apartment block manufacturing gold chain for necklaces.  Small-scale manufacturing, which is dirty and dangerous, is going on as close to the centre of Paris as the 10^th arrondissement.  

Literary Landmarks

In fact, the fictional space where the drinking den of the title may have stood is celebrated with a street sign today: Place de l'Assommoir, such is Zola's attention to factual dates, laws and, more importantly for potential literary tourism, the use of real street names and a coherent map of Paris.  The main building there now is a post office and cash-point which appear to take no advantage of the potential for literary tourism, please see photographic plate below. 

Place de l'Assommoir, north of the Gare du Nord, Paris. Photograph: C. Mansfield, Author's own fieldwork in Literary Landmarks, 11 May 2006.

 

Zola's attention to detail and his Naturalist approach mean that his literary sites can be identified today, yet here the city council of Paris has made no attempt as a DMO to exploit this place beyond the simple street sign. As you can see from the caption, I went to explore this city square in 2006, after completing my Masters in French literature with the University of Newcastle. I was beginning to collect ideas for my PhD. 

1095 words.

Part 2 Flaubert's use of real locations in Paris, please click the url below https://travelwritersonline.blogspot.com/2022/12/flauberts-use-of-real-locations-in.html