Artemis Cooper

Between the Iron Lady and the Wedding Cake: conflict in Belle Époque Paris

Two 19th-century buildings perfectly symbolised the growing friction between the capital’s progressives and traditionalists – the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre’s Sacré Coeur

‘Boulevard de Clichy’ by Pierre Bonnard, c.1911 – with the Sacré Coeur in the background. [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 18 May 2024

Between 1789 and 1871 Paris went through five kings, two Bonapartist empires, two republics, several revolutions and a Commune. Each had been an attempt to accommodate or neutralise one of two visions of France. The oldest was traditional and conventional; it mourned the ancien régime, and preferred the safety of autocracy over the chaos of democracy and God over science.

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