Something for the Weekend (15th – 17th October)

A bric a brac of events this weekend, which is apt, as two of my recommendations concern outdoor markets. On top of that, you'll find music, British culture and toilets!

See the full list of my recommendations on the Paris Weekends blog.

Pont Cardinet: a bridge to the past

The golden age of the railway has long since departed from the Pont Cardinet train station, but it has left behind a unique glimpse into another era of rail travel.

The station itself is something of an anomaly in Paris. The only working train station within Paris that is not a terminus or part of the RER network, it stands out today as quaint outpost in need of a new purpose. Barely 5 trains an hour stop here now, but its architectural merits point backwards to a time when it was busier and better loved.

Designed by the architect Julien Polti (whose brother Georges was a surrealist author), the Pont Cardinet building was a replacement for an earlier station, the Gare de Batignolles. Finished in 1922, it is built on a metal platform as a prolongation of the Pont Cardinet just 1.5km from the Gare Saint Lazare main line station. The quality of the building was recognised almost immediately.

"La nouvelle gare des Batignolles, sans aucune prétention, mais dont les lignes sont logiques et où, par surcroît, de légers motifs de céramique prouvent un souci de coquetterie, montre un judicieux emploi du ciment armé" Henri Verne and René Chavance, 'Pour comprendre l'art décoratif moderne en France', Paris 1925.

The building has kept much of the charm of its origins, with graphical patterns in ceramics on the exterior and cathederal windows in the ticket hall. Although it is more an observer of the trains rushing in and out of St Lazare today, it is also this fact that has protected it from bland, corporate makeovers.

Throughout the station, fixtures and fittings are all from another time. Little seems to have changed in the last thirty years or so, except for the blackening out of two of the large windows, perhaps to protect those inside from a too agressive sun.

To one side, an autumn flash of fire growing on a disused line. This was the ligne d'Auteuil, a line that cut through the western side of Paris out to the Bois de Boulogne. First opened in 1854, the last train left this platform on a snowy evening in January 1985.

The station may well however have a brighter future. The new Clichy Batignolles district is growing around it, and an increasing local population will need improved public transport links. There is talk of extending the line 14 of the Metro to this point, or alternatively to greatly increase the number of trains that will stop here. Let's just hope that bringing this station back to life won't also mean that its heart is taken away.

Something for the Weekend (8th – 10th October)

It’s a battle of the districts this weekend as three parts of the city will be competing to attract the crowds to their events. Elsewhere, choose between quiet reflection or bawdy burlesque!

Find out more on the Paris Weekends blog.

Death and Taxes

This small brick structure, built into the walls of the Levallois cemetery, is one of the remaining traces of a particularly hated source of taxation - l'octroi.

The octroi was a local tax collected on articles being brought into a city for consumption. Going back to Roman times, such taxes have always existed, but in Paris the system was a very controversial one, playing a small role in the country’s revolution in 1789.

Louis XVI erected a wall known as the mur des fermiers généreux, around the city, and installed the tax collectors in 57 mostly elegant buildings (several of which still survive today such as at Stalingrad, Monceau, the Place de la Nation and at Place Denfert Rochereau). When revolution struck, the octroi became a target and several of the barrières were attacked and burned to the ground, and the tax was swiftly abolished. Ten years later though, the city authorities realised how out of pocket they were and reintroduced the tax, but this time they said to raise capital for ‘good deeds’ only. Soon, the city was generating 85% of its revenue from the tax and the good deeds only aspect was dropped.

As this was generally a tax on basic goods such as oil, sugar and coffee, a market for such produce naturally sprung up just outside the city walls. Nowhere was this more evident than in the market for alcohol! Tax free wine could be enjoyed for a fraction of the price outside the city, and city-dwellers could often be found in the slightly dubious taverns of places such as the Bas Courtille in the then suburb of Belleville.

The very basic structure shown in the picture at the top and in these other examples below are an interesting footnote to this history. As the Paris city walls came down and the city itself begun swallowing up its neighbours, so the octroi tax started moving outwards into the growing towns of the suburbs. These structures were built at the very beginning of the 20th century at the entrance points into the towns concerned (Levallois and Neuilly), as these territories took the opportunity themselves to raise taxes on incoming goods.




What were their targets though? Although most revenue came from the staple products, over time a wide range of goods have been targetted. In the middle of the 19th century, luxury carriages, dogs and man-servants were taxable, whilst more recently horses and billiard tables were also affected by the tax.

The octroi tax was finally abolished over 60 years ago in 1948, so it is somewhat surprising to find these small brick units still standing in these suburban towns. What are they used for today? It is easy to imagine how they were used at the time; small two or three man affairs, little more than the small cabins that security staff on private sites may use today, but then surely more comfortable and solid, with a working fire on cold days.

On one unit today there is a sign suggesting that this is now used by a union - the Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (French confederation of Christian workers), but there can't be many of those if they can all fit into such a small space.

Today then they have become little more than a curious part of the street furniture - but one with an interesting story to tell.

White night, bright lights

Live action from the Nuit Blanche event in Belleville! It seemed for a long time as if it may be a wet night rather than a white night, but finally the weather is dry and warm. This of course has brought the crowds out, meaning long queues for certain sites (Ecole d'Architecture). No queuing for me though - I'm more interested in capturing the atmosphere of the event!