Pont de la Concorde

Stand still for a moment and feel the bridge under your feet. There is a steady tremor here, a low hum that rises from the stone. It comes from the traffic: cars, buses and motorbikes crossing in a constant stream between the two banks of the Seine. Below you, the river moves slowly, green-grey and heavy. On one side lies a vast open square with a tall stone needle at its centre. On the other side stands a columned building that looks like a Greek temple. You are standing on the Pont de la Concorde, a bridge that connects two very different faces of French power.

Let us begin with the view, because it explains why this bridge matters. To the north, on the Right Bank, is the Place de la Concorde, the largest square in Paris. To the south, on the Left Bank, is the Palais Bourbon. Today that building houses the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament. So this bridge joins a public square with a seat of government. People have crossed this line between the crowd and the lawmakers for well over two centuries. Some crossed to celebrate. Some crossed to protest.

The bridge was designed by Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, one of the most respected engineers of eighteenth-century France. Perronet was the first director of the school that later became the École des Ponts et Chaussées, the national school for bridges and roads. He had strong ideas about bridge design. He wanted lighter, flatter arches and thinner piers, so that more water could flow freely beneath. Look over the parapet and you can see that idea in the stone. The arches are long and shallow, not tall and round like older bridges.

Construction started in the late 1780s, under King Louis XVI. Then history interrupted. In 1789, the Revolution began, and the old order started to collapse. Work on the bridge continued through those years, and it was completed around 1791. This is the detail most visitors miss. According to the widely told account, some of the stone came from the Bastille, the royal fortress and prison stormed by the crowd in July 1789. After the fortress was demolished, its blocks were reused. The idea was clear: Parisians would walk over the remains of the old regime.

The bridge changed its name almost as often as France changed its government. It was first named after Louis XVI. During the Revolution, it became the Bridge of the Revolution. In the mid-1790s, it took the name Concorde, which means harmony or agreement. When the monarchy returned in the early nineteenth century, the royal name came back. After another revolution in 1830, the name Concorde returned, and it has stayed ever since. The bridge did not move, but the words on the map kept changing.

That name, Concorde, carries a heavy irony. Turn and look toward the square. During the Revolution, this open space held a guillotine. Louis XVI was executed there in 1793, and later Marie Antoinette as well. Many others died on the same spot during the period known as the Terror. When the authorities renamed the square Concorde, they were trying to turn a place of violence into a symbol of reconciliation. The bridge shares that name, and that hope.

Now look at the tall stone needle in the middle of the square. That is the Luxor Obelisk, an ancient Egyptian monument more than three thousand years old. It once stood at the entrance of the temple of Luxor, on the banks of the Nile. Egypt gave it to France in the early nineteenth century, and it was raised here in the 1830s. Moving it across the sea and up the Seine was a major engineering task. Today its gold-capped tip catches the light above the traffic.

Here is a second surprise. In the early nineteenth century, the bridge carried a row of large marble statues. They showed famous French figures, such as military commanders and statesmen. The statues were impressive, but they were very heavy. Engineers worried about the load on Perronet's slim structure. In the 1830s, the statues were removed and taken to Versailles. So the clean, open parapets you see today are partly the result of an engineering concern.

The bridge you are standing on is not exactly the bridge Perronet built. In the early 1930s, traffic in Paris had grown enormously. Engineers widened the bridge, roughly doubling its width. They took care to keep the original appearance from the river. Seen from a boat, the five stone arches still look much as they did in the eighteenth century. The change is easier to notice from below, where the old and new sections meet under the arches.

Let us talk about materials. The bridge is built of pale limestone, the same kind of stone that gives so much of Paris its creamy colour. In bright sunlight, it looks almost white. On grey days, it turns soft and dull, close to the colour of the river. The balustrades along the edges have rounded stone posts. Run your hand along the top rail and you will feel how smooth it has become. Millions of hands and elbows have rested here.

The river view from this spot is wide and open. Look east, upstream, and you can see the Tuileries Garden on the Right Bank. Beyond it, the long wings of the Louvre stretch along the water. Look west, downstream, and the Eiffel Tower rises above the rooftops. On the water, tourist boats pass slowly beneath your feet. Their engines echo under the arches for a moment, then fade. In summer, you may hear guides on the boats speaking in several languages at once.

This is not a quiet bridge, and it is not a romantic footbridge. It is a working bridge, one of the busiest in the city. But that is part of its character. Official motorcades pass here on their way to parliament. On national holidays, military parades and crowds gather nearby. When protests take place outside the National Assembly, the bridge is often closed by police. The life of the French state still flows across these five arches.

Before you move on, find a spot at the centre of the bridge. Face the Palais Bourbon, then slowly turn to face the obelisk. Notice how the two buildings line up, square to temple, across the water. That alignment was planned. The architects of the eighteenth century wanted long, straight views that tied the city together. You are standing on the line that connects them.

As you leave, listen once more to the hum of traffic under your feet. Look down at the pale stone, worn smooth by time and weather. Some of it may once have been part of a prison wall. Now it carries buses, bicycles and tourists with cameras. The river keeps moving below, as it did before the bridge, and as it will long after. Take one last look at the water, and walk on.