Haussmann’s Paris
How one prefect with a spade and Napoleon III’s backing rebuilt the city you are standing in.
Between 1853 and 1870, the prefect Georges-Eugène Haussmann gutted medieval Paris and replaced it with straight avenues, matched façades, parks and sewers — the city every visitor photographs today. This journey walks the cuts themselves: the boulevards that tore through the old quarters, the island that was emptied, the star of avenues around the Arc de Triomphe, and the golden district where the new money moved in.
The first 2 stops are free to read below — the full journey, with practical tips for every stop, unlocks with the 7-day Pass.
Les Halles and Rue de Rivoli, the first cut
Start at the hinge of the old city. Haussmann’s brief was to “give air and circulation” to a capital still breathing medieval air, and the straight line of Rue de Rivoli and the cleared Halles quarter were his showcase. The covered market that Napoléon III’s architect Baltard built in glass and iron stood here until 1971 — today’s canopy marks the hole it left.
Tip · The Tour Saint-Jacques by the station is a good vantage point to see how the Haussmann avenues radiate from this crossing.
The Palais Garnier and the Grands Boulevards
The Second Empire built its stage set in stone: Charles Garnier’s opera house (1861–1875), with its grand staircase designed to be climbed in evening dress, crowned the city’s new theatre district. The Grands Boulevards to the east — already Haussmann’s crowds and café terraces — were the first place in Paris where people went to see and be seen.
Tip · The opera’s marble façade is best seen from the Café de la Paix corner, itself an 1862 piece of Haussmann-era Paris.
🔒 4 more stops with the 7-day Pass
🔒 The emptied island
The medieval maze of the Île de la Cité, razed for light and order.
Cité station →🔒 Boulevard Saint-Michel, the Latin cut
The straight line driven through the tangled Latin Quarter.
Saint-Michel station →🔒 The star of twelve avenues
The Étoile: twelve avenues radiating from the Arc de Triomphe.
Charles De Gaulle-Étoile station →🔒 The plaine Monceau, the city of new money
The golden district where the bankers built their display cases.
Villiers station →