How Paris Became Paris
Nineteenth century civic planner Baron Haussman is often given credit for transforming Paris into a modern city: a rebuilding massive project of bridges, wide boulevards and public spaces.
In How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City, historian Joan DeJean (The Age of Comfort) argues that the real transformation occurred two centuries earlier, when Henri IV set out to rebuild a city that had been ravaged by Catholic and Protestant alike during the thirty-six years of the Wars of Religion. In 1597, wolves roamed freely in the French capital; by 1700, Paris was synonymous with culture, glamour and fashion.
Beginning with the building of the Pont Neuf (literally, the New Bridge), DeJean tells the story of a hundred years of royal vision, private funding, innovative real estate development and public planning. She also looks at how physical changes to the city created new behaviors, new institutions, and new problems. Many of the things that we think of as typically urban first appeared at this time: from public transportation and sidewalks to traffic jams and tourists. (Not the same thing as pilgrims.) Other changes are less familiar: new public spaces in which to promenade led to the new crime of cloak-snatching.
DeJean is also concerned with more than just seventeenth century urban renewal. Using a range of sources including contemporary guidebooks, plays and travel accounts, she explores how the city’s image was reinvented –creating a fantasy of Paris as what Claude Monet would later describe as “that dizzying place.”
The Black Hole of Calcutta
In mid-eighteenth century India, power was up for grabs. The Mughal dynasty was in decay. Smaller regional powers flourished. European trading companies, which held their trading privileges at the discretion of Indian rulers, were constantly looking for a way to get an edge. The British and French East India Companies, in particular, maintained private armies with which to defend themselves–usually against each other.
In 1756, the British East India Company became involved in a dispute with the new Nawab of Bengal, twenty-six-year-old Siraj-ud-duala. The young Nawab looked on the growth of the British settlement at Calcutta with both greed and suspicion. When he learned that the British merchants, in anticipation of war with France, had begun to expand their fortifications without his permission, he marched on Calcutta with 30,000 foot, 20,000 horse, 400 trained elephants and 80 cannon. The city was defended by a small, badly trained, force of soldiers and militia. Siraj-ud-daula attacked early on June 20.Anyone who could escaped down river by boat in a disorganized retreat. Those who had been unable to escape surrendered by mid-day and spent the night in the the Black Hole, a cell in which the British locked up drunken soldiers. The next day, the survivors were forced to leave Calcutta and made their way downriver to Fulta, where the rest of the Calcutta merchants had taken shelter.
The incident was made infamous by the account of one of the survivors, John Zephaniah Holwell. Published in 1758, Howell’s pamphlet, titled A Genuine Narration of the Deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen and others who were suffocated in the Black Hole, was popular reading in the eighteenth century and frequently reprinted. Holwell reported that 146 English, including one woman, were held in an 18 square foot cell with one small barred window; only 21 survived the night. Referring to his experience as “a night of horrors I will not attempt to describe, as they bar all description,” he went on to describe the event in horrific detail. The story became part of the mythology of empire when Thomas Babington Macaulay borrowed heavily from Holwell for his own lurid account of the incident in his 1840 essay on Lord Clive.
There is no doubt that the men who attempted to defend Calcutta against Siraj-ud-daula, led by Howell himself, were incarcerated in the fort’s punishment cell, which was called the Black Hole by British soldiers. (The name continued to be used in army garrisons as late as 1863). Details of the story have since been disputed. Holwell’s numbers appear to have been exaggerated. More importantly, his claims of malice on the part of Siraj ud duala have been rejected. While it is clear is that the British prisoners were held overnight in a small, badly ventilated cell on the longest day of the year and that a substantial proportion of them did not survive, there is no evidence that the Nawab ordered the imprisonment or was even aware of it. British atrocities against Indian residents of Calcutta in the days before Siraj-ud-daula’s attack add balance to the story.
From the British point of view, retribution was rapid and thorough. Siraj ud duala’s attack on Calcutta was the first step in the events that would lead to the Battle of Plassey and the rise of the British Raj.
Blood Royal: A Medieval CSI Team In Action
In Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris, medievalist Eric Jager returns to the world of medieval true crime stories that he popularized in The Last Duel.
On a cold night in November, 1407, a band of masked men assassinated Louis of Orleans, the powerful and unpopular brother of the intermittently insane King Charles, on a dark street in Paris. Blood Royal tells the stories of both the criminal investigation that followed and the subsequent impact of the assassination on French politics.
The first half of the book is told as a medieval murder mystery, based on working notes of the investigation written by Guillaume de Tignonville, provost of Paris and the law-enforcement officer responsible for finding who killed the royal duke. Except for the absence of modern forensic science, Tigonville’s investigation techniques will be familiar to any fan of police procedurals: from interviewing witnesses to tracing physical clues. Jager maintains a high level of suspense throughout the enquiry as Tigonville and his men eliminate suspect after suspect until they uncover the shocking solution.
The second half of Blood Royal, while equally interesting, is more traditional history. Jager examines the power vacuum in the royal family left by Orleans’ death, the civil war that followed, and Henry V’s opportunistic invasion of France. He ends with the rise of Joan of Arc on the horizon.
Blood Royal will appeal to history buffs,* true crime fans, and anyone who loves historical mysteries or police procedurals.
A Lagniappe**
If historical true crime calls your name, I’d like to call your attention to two more excellent books. I enjoyed them both, but some how never got around to mentioning them on the blog.***
Holly Tucker’s Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution is smart, riveting and occasionally gruesome. (There were passages that I would have read with my eyes closed if such a thing were possible.) Set in seventeenth century Paris, Blood Work tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Denis, a doctor who transfused calf’s blood into a well-known Parisian madman in his search for medical answers. Several days later, the madman died and Denis was charged with murder. If you like your mystery and history tied up with big questions about the point where morality and science meet, this one’s for you.
For those of you who prefer your historical crime with a little less gore, I highly recommend The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han Van Meergeren by Jonathan Lopez. Smart, riveting and not at all gruesome, The Man Who Made Vermeers is a tale of forgers, Nazis and the glittering art world of the 1920s and 1930s. It’s probably the only book ever nominated for both a national Award for Arts Writing and an Edgar for best non-fiction crime book.
*That would be you, right?
** Or, if you prefer, “But wait! There’s more!”
***Sometimes it feels like blog post topics are like an impatient crowd. Most of them wait their turn, but one or two always elbow their way to the front.
Much of this review–minus the asides, the snarkiness, and the extras–previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.