Today's selection -- from The Seine by Elaine Sciolino. Parisians and the Seine River:
"The harmony between Paris and its river is no accident. Parisians left nothing to chance. The Seine has served as a mirror for the city's architectural treasures since the twelfth century, with the construction of the Louvre -- first a defensive fortress, then a royal residence, then a museum -- and Notre-Dame Cathedral. Paris became the first city in Europe to use its river to put its imposing architecture on display. Over time, the river was contained and landscaped to show off the structures of art and history that line its banks. The Seine allows Paris to present itself as a stage set, with the river cast as the pièce de résistance.....MUCH MORE
"In the nineteenth century, the Seine was plagued by raw sewage, the residents' garbage, putrid smells, and thick mudflats that revealed themselves at low tide. Then, in 1853, Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, who was given the title 'prefect of the Seine,' began to transform Paris, including its riverfront. He and his successors were determined to dominate the river, to channel the waterway into pleasant submission. They lined the Seine with new stone quays to create a single continuous route and built bridges to improve commerce and harmonize both sides of the river. They demolished thousands of decrepit houses -- and uprooted thousands of poor Parisians -- to create water views and tree-shaded promenades. They constructed locks and dams outside the city to make the river's flow consistent and dependable. The architects outdid themselves. In 1991, the riverbanks earned the honor of being named a UNESCO World Heritage cultural site. That designation applies only to the picture-perfect central area between the Pont d'Iena, at the Eiffel Tower, to the west, and the Pont de Sully, near Notre-Dame to the east. This is the Seine of romance; the commercial, industrial Seine farther east is left out. ...
"Napoleon intuitively felt the Seine's force, and once he was in power, he altered the river's life, defining it as the national river of France and launching ambitious public works projects to tame and reshape it. He saw it as a romantic inspiration as well as a practical asset and unifier of the nation. In a speech in Le Havre in 1802, he proclaimed its commercial importance as the connector of its three great port cities:
'Le Havre, Rouen, and Paris are a single town, and the Seine is Main Street.
