New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1868-08-04
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RUIIDING GREATER.

BUILDING GREATER.
We will do Frenchmen the justice to say
that few of them greatly groan over the
Imperial improvements" and find no pleas
ure in the still frightening boulevards. Some
of them by way of protest, put out timid little
pamphlets, but with an army OF workmen to
support, the work of demolition goes on,
and there is little pause in the rehabilitation
of Paris. The nephew has something OF the
building propensities of the uncle. The first
thing the exile Of Elba did upon taking pos
session of this Liliputian domain, was to pull
down the palace and to plan far finer struc-
ture which all the world knows he did not
stay to finish. At present, the poor house
holders of Paris, who never know when the
Prefect of the Seine may knock at the door, with
orders to raze the homes of their hearts, have
invented new verb to express this remorseless
creation of new streets and the cruel war
waged upon the picturesque-they call 1t ito
speak Anglice) HaussmaDnizng. Years ago the
late Mr.. Thackeray, in writing OF Paris, said:
"My darling city improves, too, with each
" visit, and has some new palace, or church,
8" or statue, OF other gimcrack to greet your
"eyes withal. / have scarcely been twelve
"montlls absent, and behold they have gilded
all the Naiads and Tritons, and clapped
"huge fountain in the very midst of the
Champs Elysees, that to the Poetic eye looks
" like an enormous shaving-brush." 1t is all
very well to speak of this presto change bust
ness-these pantomime transformations lightly,
but if the building business goes on, men are
asking with some irritation what Will become of
historical Paris-the Paris which we read of in
the novels of Victor Hugo, and gaze upon in
the illustrations of Gustave Dore. Pretty soon
they will have made such q vulgar fine town of
it that even Mad. de Stael would not care to
come back from Heaven to reside there once
more. 1t will all be as bad there as it is here
in New-YOrk, where we have quite erased an
tiquity from the scheme of Jour picturesque;
where our eyes grow sore at the sight OF an
edifce aged twenty-five years. where we are
all as fine rs a rich mans baby decked for its
aqueous reception into the Christian church,
with the congenital silver spoon protruding
from its innocent mouth.
There are various considerations which make
even Frenchmen, so they happen not to be very
French indeed, consider the rejuvenation of
Paris with little dash of melancholy. They
may possibly get over the rude violence done
to the historical associations which cluster
thickly about one of the Oldest cities III Europe,
for that is an affair of the feelings
which, perhaps, are not oyer-earnest anywhere
in France, but it is quite another matter when
thousands upon thousands of mechanics are
driven by the Improvement" to seek for shell
ter outside the barriers and are forced to ride
to and from their daily work; while rents for
househoders in the city itself have risen fright
fully, with a scarcity of good houses at any
rent. This is only the first item in the sum
total of the price to be paid for the beautiful
whistle. Then again is it not evident that all
these fine streets and boulevards can hardly be
laid out and built for a trife 2 According to NJ
Leon Say not less than 67,2G0,0O0 francs have
been expended on the Rue TurbigO. So we go
on. The Rue Reaumur stands at 63,6O0,0O0
francs; the Boulevard Haussmann at 53,5O9,053
francs; while the others vary from 36,500,0O0
francs down to 100000 francs. The impress
sive total is 453033,005 francs. These
figures, it must be understood, merely rep
resent the amount due at this moment for
works complete or yet to be completed. The
Rue Turbigo had, in addition, cost 100000
francs up TO December, 1866, so that, ex-
elusive Oh Tue expenditure VI lcOdt III las CosV
the sum of 74,s00OO0 francs.
The poor Parisians who will have all this
money to pay, unless they escape by two or
three slightly sanguinary revolutions, complain
that NJ. Haussmann has not even left them the
old familiar and favOrite names of their streets.
The Project of the Seine is vandal in whom
there is no mercy and very little poetry. He
considers old Paris to be a nuisance, of which
all traces, vestiges, titles, and "reminiscences
whatever are to be swept away. One droll in
stance is related: There was an old street
called the Rue Culture Sainte Catherine. 1t
had been called so since the 18th century,
and NJ. Haussmann ruthlessly changes it
to Rue de Madame de Sevigne. The
Rue de Ia AIadelane has become Rue
Boissy dAnglas; the Rue de la Vile
Eveque is now Rue Cambaceres; and, most
ludicrous of all, the Rue dAngoulame is-what
think you Rue de Mornyl 1t isn't strange
that tho Parisians born are by all these changes
almost as badly bewildered as if they were
strangers. "The Project" writes French
man, "little by little effaces from the walls of
"our city tho last vestiges which still spoke OF
the graceful or the terrible poetry of past
"ages.n What of thatf There is novelty to
| keep the Parisans in good humor, and how
| could they remain so il somebody was not pull