Bastille Storming and Bridge Building
I love a good bridge. Each arching structure uniquely its own. Bridges, in themselves, are metaphors that impart valuable lessons graspable and intangible. At their most basic, bridges serve the practical purpose of connecting two plotted points. However, at a much deeper level, they bring people and cultures that at one time suffered from physical separation, together.
There is a reason why one of the first targets in wartime lands on bridges. While strategically important in transporting artillery and goods, it is also highly symbolic and demoralizing to reduce a people’s means of moving freely to limit-imposing rubble. Whether driving or walking a bridge is part of our daily routine, it is what a bridge represents that is most important — the freedom to move where once it was burdensome to do so.
Few continents can rival Europe for notable spans per square kilometer: the Charles Bridge in Prague, London’s Tower Bridge, the fabled Ponte Vecchio in Florence, and the Luís I Bridge in Porto to name just a handful. Each as visually unique as the architectural stylings of the cities they call home. These overpasses gift fresh perspectives of Europe’s iconic waterways and frequently reward with stunning landscapes of skyline and streetscape alike.
The first European bridge to capture my heart, Paris’ Pont de la Concorde, has a backstory many do not realize or appreciate. Frequent visitors to the City of Light react with surprise upon hearing this is my memorable muse. After all, the city has no shortage of more iconic and frequently recalled structures. Among them, the Pont des Arts and its (now mostly removed) “love locks,” the ornate Pont Alexandre III and the Instagram-worthy columns of Pont de Bir-Hakeim made famous in Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Perhaps it is the Pont de la Concorde’s understated slabs of sturdy grey and ivory that appeal to me?
More likely, its importance begins with the distinction it will forever hold as my initial sunset view over the Seine my first evening in the city. Until then, I was a virgin to the Paris’ charms as sunlight descended and allowed the landscape to glow anew. Entirely naive was I to the way the streets hold sway once the lamps light the way.
No trip to Paris is complete unless one engages in an iconic evening stroll around the amber-lit city. Outside of a sidewalk accordion busker crafting a personalized film score, few elements are as much a hallmark for such a walk as the quintessential views from the over thirty-five bridges stretching end-to-end over the Seine. The soft ambient light of well-placed streetlights reflects and bounces along the rippling Seine like suspended orbs. Unobstructed views of locals Parisians engaged in riverside picnics of baguette, cheese, and wine — feet dangling in unison from the built-up embankments.
The history of the Pont de la Concorde is rooted in France’s most violent and, ultimately, rewarding episodes in its modern formation — the French Revolution. On July 14, 1789, the Bastille would succumb to a citizen and military uprising that served to kickstart upheaval that would ultimately topple the monarchy. The building’s first stones laid in 1370 with the original intent of protecting the city from the English. However, with the reign of Louis XIII and backstage maneuvers of Cardinal de Richelieu, the Bastille was effectively repurposed as a state-sponsored prison with a gruesome reputation for torture and death.
At one time, the Bastille housed prominent names of dissent and scholarship in the city. Among those imprisoned were the Marquis de Sade, Voltaire (twice), the Count de Belle-Isle, and Eustache Dauger — otherwise knows as “the Man in the Iron Mask.” By the time the prison fell, there remained only seven prisoners. However, the symbolic nature of its destruction and dismantlement is hard to overstate.
Pieces of the torn down structure were sent across the countryside to serve as reminders and patriotic keepsakes of a bygone time of oppressive rule. The structure had been massive, and the excess rubble left in the aftermath of its demise would prove useful in the construction of an in-progress bridge in what now borders the 7th and 8th arrondissements — the unfinished Ponte Louis XVI.
Renowned architect Jean-Rodolphe Perronet oversaw the bridge project, and he envisioned using the stones of the hated prison structure for both practical and highly emblematic means. The supply of new stonework was timely for the project and would serve as critical supply in its completion. Perronet also became enamored with the idea of the tyrannical tons laying a foundation for all Parian classes to tread over during their daily activities — a constant reminder underfoot of the power of the people to overcome.
Although initially slated to be named Ponte Louis XVI, it was instead given the name Pont de la Révolution around the time of its completion in 1791. Eventually, the name would be updated a few years later to the “less aggressive” Pont de la Concorde that it still bears today. As Perronet likely hoped, the bridge is one of Paris’ most trafficked spans to this day, and renovations have been mindful not to interrupt the neoclassical style and original materials.
Hence, one of the city’s most pedestrian looking bridges bears one of its most remarkable foundational stories. The meaning behind the construction only builds upon the very reason we erect and maintain these passages — as an outstretched hand to the other side. Bridges fasten, couple and pave a path to progress. By their very nature, these are impermanent edifices that require continual upkeep to maintain their structural fortitude. Tend to your metaphorical bridges of friendship, openness, and inclusiveness — lest, as they say, they all fall down.
