Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2Edwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland)
History
Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2
Edwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland)
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
The Rue de Tournon--to pass from the garden to the front of the
palace--has already been mentioned in connection with that Hôtel de
l’Empereur Joseph at which Joseph II., visiting his sister Marie
Antoinette, elected to stay in preference to putting up at one of the
royal palaces. The street owes its name to François de Tournon,
cardinal-ambassador under Francis I. At that time the land through which
the street was afterwards to run was the site of a large horse market, a
sort of annex to the Marché Saint-Germain, and familiarly known as the
Muddy Meadow--“le Pré crotté.” Very different were the Paris markets of
those days from the system of markets now so perfectly organised. At
present, when Paris has expanded so far beyond its ancient “barriers”
that it has become one of the greatest cities in the world, the
provisioning of its population is a question of the first importance.
For breakfast, as for subsequent meals, the French metropolis requires a
stupendous quantity of food, which must arrive regularly at a fixed
hour, and be delivered promptly at the doors of the numberless beings
whose mouths are to be filled.
At some hours before dawn a large number of market-gardeners and other
cultivators from the vicinity of Paris enter the city and converge
towards the same point. Enormous and noisy drays at the same time bring
in to this common centre the consignments of edible produce which arrive
by rail daily from the provinces or abroad.
The great market which receives all these goods, known as the
Halles-Centrales, is situated opposite the beautiful church of
Saint-Eustache, at the end of the Rues Coquillière, Montmartre,
Montorgeuil, and Rambuteau. This immense and elegant building,
constructed entirely of bricks and iron, consists of twelve pavilions,
which shelter the sale of the various descriptions of goods. Each
pavilion has its speciality. One is a wholesale, another a retail
meat-market, a third is devoted to fish, a fourth to eggs and butter,
and so on.
Markets are held in various parts of the city; but most of them are fed
by the Central Market. Many of them recall the Central Market by the
light character of the architecture in brick and iron. Two great
cattle-markets are established at Sceaux and at Poissy, and a smaller
one at La Chapelle Saint-Denis, connected with the Marché de la
Villette, built with the view of absorbing all the smaller meat-markets.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account