Up in Auteuil

One of the more popular French presidents was Sadi Carnot.  He was named after his uncle, Nicholas Leonard Sadi Carnot, a thermodynamics scientist who was named after a Persian poet, Sadi of Shiraz. 

Approaching Notre Dame d'Auteuil from the rue Antoine Roucher.

Before he became a politician, Sadi Carnot was a civil engineer.  So it is not surprising that he decided, when he was president (1887 to 1894) to have a bridge built over the Seine to connect the Javel/Grenelle area on the left bank with the Auteuil neighborhood on the right bank.

At the time it was designed and built, this Pont Mirabeau was the longest and tallest bridge in Paris.  Its two pilings represent boats, one going upstream, and one going downstream.  Each end of each piling is decorated with a magnificent statue by Jean Antoine Injalbert.  These represent the City of Paris, Abundance, Commerce, and Navigation.

Pont Mirabeau, looking toward the Javel neighborhood.

Pont Mirabeau is strikingly beautiful.  Sadly, President Sadi Carnot did not live to see its completion in 1897; he was assassinated by an Italian anarchist in 1894, at the peak of his popularity.  The country was horrified.  Following an elaborate funeral, the body of Sadi Carnot was enterred in the Panthéon.

Notre Dame d'Auteuil church, above and below.

This morning I crossed the Seine on the Pont Mirabeau so that I could walk to what was once the center of the village of Auteuil.  I paused in the little plaza across from the Notre Dame d'Auteuil church to study its stately façade, and to gaze at the strikingly different, modern façade of the Chapelle Sainte Bernadette, which is also part of the Notre Dame d'Auteuil parish.  The Chapelle offers services for the Portuguese and Philippine communities.  (Many guardiens and concierges of apartment buildings in the 15th and 16th are of Portuguese or Philippino background.)

Part of the modern Chappelle Sainte Bernadette façade.

Auteuil was a village whose origins go back to the 13th Century.  At the time of Louis XV, it became a fashionable place for the rich to have a country estate.  Proust was born there, and Victor Hugo and Moliere once lived there.  In 1860, it was annexed to Paris.  (The former villages of Auteuil and Passy make up the bulk of the fashionable 16th arrondissement.)

Auteuil is home to the prestigious Jean Baptiste Say school which prepares students for the École Polytechnique, the university where Sadi Carnot received his civil engineering education (in part).

Just to the southwest of the Notre Dame d'Auteuil church is a sprawling geriatrics hospital with a sprawling name:  Hôpital Sainte-Périne - Rossini - Chardon-Lagache.  Part of this sprawling complex was (and perhaps still is?) the Chardon-Lagache retirement community, which was established in 1857 for old people (i.e., over 60) of "modest means."

The Jean Baptiste Say school.

South of the sprawling hospital is the Parc Sainte-Perine, which was formerly Square Sainte-Perine until it was significantly enlarged last year.  Tom and I have never visited that park; I will save that adventure for another day . . . .

Here are many more photos from this morning's walk through cool, damp Paris.

The Seine, from Pont Mirabeau.

This iron gate is just a few doors down the street from our apartment;
the poster is for a current exhibition at the Bourdelle museum.

Guimard-designed Metro entrance at the Mirabeau station.

River cruise boats at the Port de Javel.

The Voie Georges Pompidou has a sigificant bi-directional
bike lane now (above and below).  (You can see the Statue
of Liberty and a piece of the Eiffel Tower in the photo above.)

Street named for Eugene Poubelle, the Prefect of the Seine who introduced
garbage cans to the Paris region, and made their use mandatory (1884).  Garbage cans
(dustbins, in British English) are called Poubelles in France.

The Seine and Eiffel Tower, from the Pont de Grenelle.

Knarly old, trimmed-back olive trees seem to be much loved in Paris.  This sign gives
voice to this tree in a planter on Rue Linois. The sign says, "Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am a living tree. I am neither a Poubelle nor an ashtray.  Respect
me.  Thank you for him.  The Olive Tree [Olivier]."