The Belly of Paris

"There was a coup d’etat and he came to power officially as emperor in 1852, then was booted out in 1870 after the loss of the Franco-Prussian War. Napoleon did a great deal to change Paris. He rebuilt it and modernised it. It was so long ago that his modernisations now seem old and quaint. A lot of people have no idea that much of Paris was rebuilt in that period. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . One of the things he did was to pull down the medieval market that was in the centre of town on the Right Bank. It had been there for centuries. He replaced it with a modern market called Les Halles, with pavilions of cast iron and glass, which then became very famous as the Baltard Pavilions. Much later they were pulled down, in the 1960s and 1970s, by President Georges Pompidou. There were riots and protests. People still lament the destruction of Les Halles. Emile Zola’s book is set largely at the Baltard Pavilions because the main character, Florent Quenu, winds up working with relations there. Yes, and when he comes back he doesn’t recognise his Paris because of all the building work that has been going on. The book is really about the modernisation of the market and Paris, and French bourgeois society. It’s a study of the contrast of this individual who finds himself alienated from this rich, brilliant, new society. It is wonderfully described and even though much of that Paris has disappeared some of it is still around. The Belly of Paris is a wonderful book of imaginary history if you are at all interested in the creation of “modern Paris”, meaning the city born in the mid-19th century."