Pont Neuf
All through the 18th century, the "Pont Neuf" was the center of Paris, lively with both crime and commerce: Czar Peter the Great, who came to study French civilization under the regency of the Duke d'Orleans, declared that he had found nothing more curious in Paris than the pont Neuf; and, sixty years later, the philosopher Franklin wrote to his friends in America that he had not understood the Parisian character except in crossing the pont Neuf.