In Paris, the Belle Époque (18711914) saw the construction of the Eiffel Tower, the Métro, the completion of the Opera, the Rue Réaumur and the beginning of the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre. Three lavish "universal expositions" in 1878, 1889, and 1900 brought millions of visitors to Paris to sample the latest innovations in commerce, art, and technology. Paris was the scene of the first public projection of a motion picture, and the birthplace of the Ballets Russes, Impressionism, and modern art.

The expression Belle Époque ("beautiful era") came into use after the First World War; it was a nostalgic term for what seemed a simpler time of optimism, elegance, and progress.

Rebuilding after the Commune

After the violent end of the Paris Commune in May 1871, the city was governed by martial law under the strict surveillance of the national government. At the time, Paris was not actually the capital of France. The government and parliament had moved to Versailles in March 1871 once the Paris Commune took power, and they did not return to Paris until 1879, although the Senate returned earlier to its home in the Luxembourg Palace.Héron de Villefosse, René, Histoire de Paris, Bernard Grasset, Paris, 1959, p. 380

The end of the Commune left the city's population deeply divided. Gustave Flaubert described the atmosphere in the city in early June 1871: "One half of the population of Paris wants to strangle the other half, and the other half has the same idea; you can read it in the eyes of people passing by." This sentiment soon became secondary to the need to reconstruct the buildings that had been destroyed in the last days of the Commune. The Communards had burned the Hôtel de Ville (including all the city archives), the Tuileries Palace, the Palais de Justice, the Prefecture of Police, the Ministry of Finances, the Cour des Comptes, the State Council building at the Palais-Royal, and many others. Several streets, particularly the Rue de Rivoli, had also been badly damaged by the fighting. Besides the cost of reconstruction, the new government was obliged to pay an indemnity of 210 million francs in gold to the victorious German Empire as reparations for the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870. On 4 August 1871, at the first meeting of the city council after the Commune, the new Prefect of the Seine, Léon Say, put forward a plan to borrow 350 million francs for reconstruction and indemnity payments. The city's bankers and businessmen quickly raised the money, and the reconstruction was soon underway.

The Conseil d'État and Palais de la Légion d'Honneur (Hôtel de Salm) were rebuilt in their original style. The new Hôtel de Ville was built on the lines of a more picturesque Neo-Renaissance style than the original that was based on the appearance of the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, with a façade decorated with statues of outstanding personages who contributed to the history and fame of Paris. The destroyed Ministry of Finance on the Rue de Rivoli was replaced by a grand hotel, while the Ministry moved into the Richelieu wing of the Louvre Palace, where it remained until 1989. The ruined Cour des Comptes on the Left Bank was replaced by the Gare d'Orléans, also known under the name Gare d'Orsay, now the Musée d'Orsay. The one difficult decision was the Tuileries Palace, originally built in the 16th century by Marie de' Medici as a royal residence. The interior had been entirely destroyed by fire, but the walls were still largely intact. The walls remained standing for ten years while the fate of the ruins was debated. Baron Haussmann, in retirement, appealed for a restoration of the building as a historic monument, and there was a proposal to turn it into a new museum of modern art. In 1881, however, a new Chamber of Deputies more sympathetic to the Commune than previous governments decided that it was too much a symbol of the monarchy and had the walls pulled down.

On 23 July 1873, the National Assembly (the legislature of the early French Third Republic that was replaced by the Chamber of Deputies and a Senate in 1875) endorsed the project of building a basilica at the site where the uprising of the Paris Commune had begun. The gesture was intended as a symbolic means to atone for the sufferings of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune. The Basilica of Sacré-Cœur was subsequently built in a Neo-Byzantine style and paid for by public subscription. It quickly became one of the most recognizable landmarks in Paris during construction, but was not finished until 1919.Héron de Villefosse, René, Histoire de Paris (1959), Bernard Grasset. p. 380-81

The Parisians

The population of Paris was 1,851,792 in 1872, at the beginning the Belle Époque. By 1911, it reached 2,888,107, higher than the population today. Near the end of the Second Empire and the beginning of the Belle Époque, between 1866 and 1872, the population of Paris grew only 1.5%. Then the population surged by 14.09% between 1876 and 1881, only to slow again to a 3.3% growth between 1881 and 1886. After that, it grew very slowly until the end of the Belle Époque. It reached a historic high of almost three million persons in 1921 before beginning a long decline until the early 21st century.

In 1886, about one-third of the population of Paris (35.7%) had been born in Paris. More than half (56.3%) had been born in other departments of France and about 8% outside France. In 1891, Paris was the most cosmopolitan of European capital cities, with 75 foreign-born residents for every thousand inhabitants. In comparison, there were only 24 per thousand in Saint Petersburg, 22 in London and Vienna, and 11 in Berlin. The largest communities of immigrants were Belgians, Germans, Italians and Swiss, with between 20 and 28,000 persons from each country. Followed by these were about 10,000 from Great Britain and an equal number from Russia; 8,000 from Luxembourg; 6,000 South Americans and 5,000 Austrians. There were also 445 Africans, 439 Danes, 328 Portuguese and 298 Norwegians. Certain nationalities were concentrated in specific professions. Italians were concentrated in the businesses of making ceramics, shoes, sugar and conserves. Germans were concentrated in leather-working, brewing, baking and charcuterie. Swiss and Germans were predominant in businesses making watches and clocks, and accounted for a large proportion of the domestic servants.

The remnants of old Paris aristocracy and the new aristocracy of bankers, financiers and entrepreneurs mostly had their residences in the 8th arrondissement, from the Champs-Élysées to the Madeleine church; in the "Quartier de l'Europe" and "Butte Chaillot" (now the area of the Place Charles de Gaulle); the Faubourg Saint-Honoré; the "Quartier Saint-Georges", from the Rue Vivienne and the Palais-Royal to Roule; and the Plain of Monceau. On the Right Bank, they lived in Le Marais. On the Left Bank, they lived on the south of the Latin Quarter, at Notre-Dame-des-Champs and Odéon; near Les Invalides; and at the École Militaire. The less affluent shop owners lived from the Porte Saint-Denis to Les Halles to the west of the Boulevard de Sébastopol. The middle class employees of enterprises, small businesses and government lived closer to the center of the city along the "Grands Boulevards"; in the 10th arrondissement; in the 1st and 2nd arrondissements near the Paris Bourse (Stock Exchange); in the Sentier quarter near Les Halles; and in Le Marais.

Under Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann demolished the poorest, most crowded and historical neighborhoods in the center of the city to make room for the new boulevards and squares. The working-class Parisians moved out of the center toward the edges of the city, particularly to Belleville and Ménilmontant in the east; to Clignancourt and the Quartier des Grandes-Carrières to the north; and on the Left Bank to the area around the Gare d'Austerlitz, Javel and Grenelle, usually to neighborhoods that were close to their places of work. Small quarters of working-class Parisians remained in the center of the city, mainly on the sides of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève in the Latin Quarter near the Sorbonne and the Jardin des Plantes and along the covered Bièvre River, where the tanneries had been located for centuries.

Paris was both the richest and poorest city in France. Twenty-four percent of the wealth in France was found in the Seine department, but 55% of burials of Parisians were made in the section for those unable to pay. In 1878, two-thirds of Parisians paid less than 300 francs a year for their lodging, a very small amount at the time. An 1882 study of Parisians, based on funeral costs, concluded that 27% of Parisians were upper or middle class, while 73% were poor or indigent. Incomes varied greatly according to the neighborhood: in the 8th arrondissement, there were eight poor persons for ten upper or middle class residents; in the 13th, 19th and 20th arrondissements, there were seven or eight poor for every well-off resident.

The Apaches of Paris Apaches was a term that was introduced by Paris newspapers in 1902 for young Parisians who engaged in petty crime and sometimes fought each other or the police. They usually lived in Belleville and Charonne. Their activities were described in lurid terms by the popular press, and they were blamed for all varieties of crime in the city. In September 1907, the newspaper Le Gaulois described an Apache as "the man who lives on the margin of society, ready to do anything, except to take a regular job, the miserable who breaks in a doorway, or stabs a passer-by for nothing, just for pleasure."

Government and politics

After the Commune took over the municipal government of Paris in March 1871, the French national government concluded that Paris was too important to be run by the Parisians alone. On 14 April 1871, just before the end of the Commune, the National Assembly, meeting in Versailles, passed a new law giving Paris a special status different from other French cities and subordinate to the national government. All male Parisians could vote. The city was given a municipal council of eighty members, four from each arrondissement, for a term of three years. The council could meet for four sessions a year, none longer than ten days, except when considering the budget, when six weeks were allowed. There was no elected mayor. The real powers in the city remained the Prefect of the Seine and the Prefect of Police, both appointed by the national government.

The first legislative elections after the Commune, on 7 January 1872, were won by the conservative candidates. Victor Hugo, running as an independent candidate on the side of the radical republicans, was soundly defeated. In the Paris municipal elections of 1878, however, the radical Republicans were overwhelmingly victorious, winning 75 of the 80 municipal council seats. In 1879, they changed the name of many of the Paris streets and squares. The "Place du Château-d’Eau" became the Place de la République, and a statue of the Republic was placed in the center in 1883. The avenues "de la Reine-Hortense" (named for the mother of Napoleon III, Hortense de Beauharnais), "Joséphine" (name for the wife of Napoleon I, Joséphine de Beauharnais), and "Roi-de-Rome" (named for Napoleon II), were renamed Avenue Hoche, Avenue Marceau, and Avenue Kléber, after generals who served during the period of the French Revolution: Lazare Hoche, François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, and Jean-Baptiste Kléber.