Chapter 1154 The Story of Paris (7)

If a war breaks out one day, where will you flee?

For the residents of Neuilly who lived during the Franco-Prussian War, Paris was their last choice.

After the Paris Commune took over Paris, bread and flour were strictly controlled. Everyone was distributed according to bread rolls, and refugees were given refugee rolls to solve the problem of accommodation and meals in Paris.

These refugees were fleeing Prussian artillery shells, but after hiding in Paris, they were bombarded by "our own people."

There are many old photos left after the Paris Commune movement, and many once beautiful buildings were reduced to ruins. However, this was not all caused by looting and arson.

Most of the damaged buildings were caused by "Versaillesist" artillery shells outside the city.

Nowadays, many tourists, even French people, confuse the difference between Paris and Grand Paris.

Paris once had an ancient city wall. The earliest builder of this city wall was Philip II. After him, almost every new French king ordered the city walls of Paris to be heightened when he came to the throne. The reason why this happened

This is not because the walls built by Philip II were not high enough.

In the Middle Ages, when hygiene was poor, many residents would dump feces directly into the streets.

Later, after the city wall was repaired, the residents became "citizen-conscious". Because the smell of feces would affect the cleanliness of the city, citizens began to run to the city wall in groups, stand on the city wall and dump feces on the city wall.

outside.

Over time, the residents of Paris have accumulated piles of feces outside the city. The moat outside the city wall is also full of feces. The fish and shrimp in the river have long since died, and the water has begun to become thicker. The original purpose of protecting Paris residents from foreign enemies was

The city wall lost its original function due to the accumulation of excrement. Later, during a war to resist the invasion of foreign enemies, the residents of the city actually discovered that the enemies could stand on the "dung mountain" and directly climb up the city wall.

If you want to completely clean up the excrement outside the city, you may have to use all the strong labor in the city. The king's soldiers alone cannot completely clean up the excrement outside the city wall.

It was not until the early 19th century that the dung mountain outside the city wall was cleared. It is said that more than 10,000 strong laborers were used at that time.

For this reason, each king continued to raise the city walls, but these walls were not all made of stone. During the reign of Charles IX of the Valois Dynasty and his mother Catherine de' Medici, Cardinal Richelieu

A section of the earth wall was built and the city gate was reinforced.

By the time of Louis XIV, Louis XIV, who liked to fight in the north and south, expanded the territory of France, and Paris was no longer a border city. The success of successive foreign campaigns inflated Louis XIV's confidence, and the fortifications on the border also increased.

It was enough to defend Paris, so he ordered the earth walls built by Charles V and Louis XIII to be demolished. The stone walls built by Philip were too difficult to demolish, and it took ten years to demolish them intermittently. Paris became a city without walls.

A completely open city.

Louis XIV built many roads, expanded a circle based on the old medieval city wall, built new trails to replace the original patrol channels of soldiers, and linked the Ring Road to these roads.

This circle of trails is the predecessor of the Paris Ring Road, and this ring road has also become the boundary between the urban area and the suburbs of Paris.

In order to demonstrate the power of the "Sun King"'s rule, Louis XIV ordered architects to design several city gates for the new Paris.

Only four of these city gates have been preserved to this day. Unlike the main fortification gates in the Middle Ages, the new city gates are designed to show grandeur and grandeur. The triumphal arch of ancient Rome was the one that best met the needs of Louis XIV.

Since then, the students trained by the Royal School of Architecture have had an extra course. Architects at that time believed that in an era when there were not many wars and there was no need to use city gates as fortifications, city gates were more

Serves as the boundary between urban and rural areas.

Architects believe that although the ordinary city gate is also made of stone, it should be different from the triumphal arch. It needs to reduce the gorgeous decoration and increase the solemn atmosphere.

The city gate left by Louis XIV has no role in city defense at all, and is more like a monument.

The new city gate should have the functions of tax card and residence. At the same time, as the new gate of Paris, it should have the momentum of the Acropolis Hill in Athens.

In 1784, during the reign of Louis XVI, in order to solve the financial losses caused by serious smuggling in and outside Paris, the tax collectors group decided to build a new city wall around Paris and set up a number of tax cards on it to control tax revenue.

This city wall is outside Louis XIV's city-circling walkway and is 2.5 times the size of Louis XIII's city wall. For this purpose, 62 new "city gates" will be built. These city gates all use Greek temple-style gables.

The colonnade and rectangular plan have been simplified to distinguish it from the Arc de Triomphe.

You have to pay taxes when crossing the city gates. The emergence of tax gates has led to an increase in prices in the city. People in the city have long been in dire straits, but the government has spent huge sums of money to build "ordinary city gates."

These city gates are neither simple log cabins like the previous tax cards, nor have anything to do with the familiar Arc de Triomphe. What is the point of spending so much money to build a tax collection agency that can solve the problem with log cabins?

In addition, the construction cost of the city gate has greatly exceeded the previously given budget, which also exacerbated the outbreak of the French Revolution.

The burning of the Paris City Gate became the first fire lit by the Revolution. After the citizens of Paris demolished those "ordinary city gates", the 22-meter-long and 3.5-meter-high city wall built by the tax collector group at that time, as well as the patrol channel outside the city wall,

and forest belts have been preserved, still continuing to play a role in distinguishing cities and suburbs in the early 19th century.

When the Prussians besieged the city, they were surrounded by this wall built by Louis XVI to collect taxes.

In the last years of the reign of Louis XVI, the urban environment in Paris was in a very bad state, with the city and suburbs mixed together.

The famous Champs Elysées is the central axis linking the Louvre Museum and the New Arc de Triomphe, also known as the Avenue of Triumph. In the 17th century, this world-famous and beautiful avenue was once a swamp and wilderness.

In 1805, Napoleon defeated the Russian and Austrian coalition forces, and this gate was built to commemorate this event.

It was built in the form of a separate monument, not only containing the life story of Napoleon, but also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier below.

Construction was briefly halted during the Restoration of the Bourbons and resumed after the Bourbons were overthrown, but after repairing the magnificent gate, Paris' already bad traffic became even worse.

However, no one in Paris wants to demolish the Arc de Triomphe just like they demolished those "tax cards". On major festivals, the Paris people will still have soldiers wearing Napoleonic-era military uniforms holding sabers in front of the Arc de Triomphe to boost morale.

Every year on National Day, the French Prime Minister walks under the Arc de Triomphe and on the day he leaves office, he presents a bouquet of flowers to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

It is said that on Napoleon’s birthday, May 5, the sunset will always be exactly in the center of the circular arch.

During the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussian army paraded under the Arc de Triomphe, and Hitler also passed through the Arc de Triomphe and paraded under the Arc de Triomphe.

The Theory of Princes once said that a king must not forget military establishment and training. Indulging in comfort and forgetting this profession will lead to the downfall of the monarch, which is also the main reason for the loss of power.

The military not only protects the monarch who inherits the throne, but also becomes a shortcut for civilians to climb to the throne.

In The Prince, the Grand Duke of Milan, Francesco Forza, is used as an example. In France more than two hundred years later, a small Corsican borrowed the "" abandoned by this French nobleman.

Shortcut" and became Emperor of France.

The common people felt that they could find in him the same qualities and abilities as other common people, but Napoleon was not a real commoner. He was a minor aristocrat, and it had declined in Napoleon's generation. Fortunately, his father worked hard and gave Napoleon the ability he had.

Opportunities to study.

But what he learned had nothing to do with Paris, where singing and dancing were flourishing. It was a "peaceful" world where only musicians, writers, and tall, handsome men and beauties could succeed.

Consequences of not rectifying the military. All rational people know that Ludovico Sforza, a descendant of Francesco who was a mercenary, was not as obsessed with art as Machiavelli wrote and did not rectify the army.

Mercenaries have no loyalty at all. If a monarch relies on mercenaries to win a battle, he will inevitably be threatened by mercenaries, and he will even end up losing his territory like the Duke of Milan.

It's not that easy to control these hyenas. In comparison, the local soldiers are much more loyal.

During the French Revolution, when citizens in Paris rioted, the military's performance was always confusing. The Royal Guards turned against them, but the same could not be said for other regular troops stationed in Paris. They just basically did not move, as if they had evaporated and had no sense of existence, despite the anger.

The common people chopped up the nobles alive.

During the Nika riots, the army faced several times the number of civilians and suppressed them at the racing track. They also suppressed the riots. There were no cannons at that time.

"What are you looking at!" Severus said suddenly.

"Oh, you scared me!" She slapped his arm softly.

"Are you still reading the Paris Commune?" Severus looked at the newspaper she placed on the table in the library reading room.

"I think they are very interesting." Pomona said, stroking the yellowed newspapers. "They are very real. They are still taking in refugees and providing housing for women and children even when their own resources are tight."

"Where are the men?" Severus asked. "Where are the men?"

Pomona couldn't answer.

"Do you know why the Prussians only besieged the city but did not enter it?" He handed her a cup of iced coffee.

"What do you think?" Pomona took out the banana bread from her pocket.

It was her breakfast, she had no appetite because of the hangover, now she felt better and was ravenous from hunger.

"Stalingrad was almost in ruins after the battle, and urban combat will inevitably involve street fighting. Letting the French fight their own people can not only divide them, but also avoid damage to their own troops."

Pomona had never been to the suburbs of Paris. She only knew from historical information that it was very chaotic.

In the context of English-speaking countries, suburbs refer to independent or semi-detached residences with lawns, similar to Little Whinging, where Harry used to live.

But the "banlieue" in France should be different from the "suburbs" in the UK.

The word comes from "forbidden". In the Middle Ages, new arrivals to a city would see a notice at the city gate, informing the newcomers how to live a civilized life in the city.

The ban represents the boundaries of urban civilization, and does not refer to the same single-family houses in the suburbs of the city, surrounded by green spaces and gardens.

"I'm sorry." Pomona said, "Yesterday's dinner..."

"It's nothing." Severus interrupted her, "I can understand that you were in a state of war preparedness at the time, not to mention that it felt good to dance afterwards."

"Prometheus stole fire from Mount Olympus, but I stole the food of the gods." She said with a silly smile.

"Do you think saying that will save you from the terrible party arrangement last night?" Severus said coldly.

"We are at Hugo's house."

Severus ignored her and continued to read the borrowed book.

"How about we go to Notre Dame in the afternoon?"

"There are too many tourists and I'm not interested." He flatly refused.

"So, going to the hidden place in France?" Pomona said, "I haven't been to the wizarding world in France yet."

"It's up to you." He said without any interest.

Pomona shrugged and returned to reading the previous clippings.
Chapter completed!