Pont Neuf

Put your hand on the parapet. The stone is cool, pale, and worn smooth by centuries of elbows and palms. Below you the Seine moves green and grey, and a tour boat slides out from under an arch with a low hum. Above, the sky opens wide. On most Paris streets, buildings close in on every side. Here, for a moment, the city steps back and gives you air.

You are standing on the Pont Neuf. The name means New Bridge, and that is the first surprise. This is the oldest standing bridge across the Seine in Paris. Work began in 1578, under King Henri the Third. The bridge was finished in 1607, under his successor, Henri the Fourth. It has kept the name New for more than four hundred years, through every bridge that came after it.

Look at how the bridge meets the river. It does not make one clean line from bank to bank. Instead, it crosses in two parts and touches the western tip of the Île de la Cité, the island where Paris began. One section has five arches. The other has seven. Together the two sections tie the Left Bank, the island, and the Right Bank into a single route.

Now the second surprise. Today a bridge with nothing built on it seems normal. In the late sixteenth century, it was a new idea. Older Paris bridges carried rows of houses and shops. Those buildings blocked the view of the river completely. The Pont Neuf was built without them. For the first time, Parisians could stand in the middle of the city and see the Seine open in both directions.

The bridge also gave people something else. It had raised walkways along each side, set apart from the carriages and carts in the centre. These were among the first pavements of this kind in Paris. Picture the old streets, full of mud, horses, and wheels. On the Pont Neuf, a person on foot could walk above all that, safely, and simply look at the water.

Look along the edge of the bridge, just below the parapet. You will see a long row of carved stone faces. They are called mascarons. There are hundreds of them. Some laugh, some frown, some stick out their tongues, and some look sly or tired. They are grotesques, decorative faces meant to amuse more than to honour anyone. Many of the faces you see today are copies, carved during restorations to replace the worn originals.

Above each pier, the walkway curves outward into a small half-round bay. These alcoves look like little balconies over the river. Today people use them to sit, eat a sandwich, or take a photo. In earlier centuries, they had a busier life. Merchants set up stalls in them. The bridge became one of the liveliest public spaces in Paris, a place to buy, sell, perform, and talk.

According to many accounts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Pont Neuf was a kind of open-air fair. There were booksellers and singers. There were street performers and sellers of cures. Tooth pullers worked here in public. Pickpockets worked here too, more quietly. A popular saying held that if you crossed the bridge at any hour, you would always meet a monk, a white horse, and a lady of easy virtue. Treat that as a joke of the time, not a fact.

For a long period, a large water pump also stood on the bridge. It drew water from the Seine for royal buildings nearby. It carried a decoration showing the Samaritan woman giving water to Christ at the well, so people called it the Samaritaine. The pump was taken down in the early nineteenth century. But the name lived on. The large department store on the Right Bank, close to the bridge, still carries it.

Now turn toward the island and find the bronze rider. That is Henri the Fourth, the king who completed the bridge. The first statue of him stood here from the early seventeenth century. During the French Revolution, it was pulled down and melted. The statue you see is a replacement, put up in 1818 after the monarchy returned. Locals have long told a tale that the bronze came partly from melted statues of Napoleon. It is a good story, but treat it as one.

Henri the Fourth had a nickname: the Vert Galant. It roughly means the lively old charmer, a man who stayed fond of women well into later life. Behind and below the statue, steps lead down to a small park at the very tip of the island. It is called the Square du Vert-Galant, after him. Down there, the river splits around you, and willow branches hang close to the water.

The bridge has also attracted artists. In 1985, the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the whole Pont Neuf in golden fabric for about two weeks. For a short time, the oldest bridge in Paris became a soft, shining sculpture. Filmmakers came too. The 1991 film Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, by Leos Carax, made the bridge the home of two lovers living on the street. Painters have set up their easels here for centuries.

The stone around you is not entirely original. Over its long life, the bridge has been repaired, reinforced, and restored many times. A large restoration took place between the 1990s and the 2000s. Workers cleaned the stone, repaired the arches, and replaced damaged carvings. So when you look closely, you are seeing layers of work. Some blocks are old and darker. Others are newer and brighter. Together they keep the bridge in use every day.

Before you move on, stand still for one more moment. Feel the light wind that runs along the river. Watch the boats pass under the arches, and listen to the traffic and the voices around you. Look downstream toward the Louvre, then upstream toward the island and its towers. People have stood in this same spot for more than four centuries, doing just what you are doing now... looking at the water, and watching Paris go by.