The Men Who Built Paris

The next time you’re in Paris, blowing too much money at the massive department stores Au Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, or just prowling the aisles and indulging in wishful thinking, step outside a moment and contemplate the street on which the two stores stand nearly side by side. It is called Boulevard Haussmann, as it was christened in 1864 in tribute to Georges-Eugene Haussmann. “This street,” Stephane Kirkland writes in his fine account of the reconstruction of Paris, “of which only the first portion had been built at the time, has kept its name to this day, while many other Parisian streets named after prominent figures of the Second Empire have been renamed. The name of [Emperor] Napoleon III himself is only carried by a small square in front of the gare du Nord that hardly anyone knows has a name at all.”