Pont Neuf and the Square du Vert-Galant

Pont Neuf, which means “New Bridge“ in French, is the oldest bridge in Paris. It is also one of the best-known. The Pont Neuf consists of two different bridge spans, one on each side of the Ile de la Cite, where the Place du Pont Neuf connects the two spans. The bridge has a total of 12 arches, with one span of seven arches joining the right bank and another span of five arches connecting Île de la Cité with the left bank.

 

 

 

Pont Neuf and Place du Pont Neuf with equestrian statue of Henry IV

 

 

Arches of Pont Neuf toward the left bank

Notice the niches along the bridge. These niches (called “bastions“) were created for the safety of pedestrians seeking to avoid being run over by passing carriages hurrying by or splashed by mud or horses going by on the bridge.

In 1607, the bridge was officially opened by King Henry IV. Henry was one of the most popular French kings, both during and after his reign. He showed great care for the welfare of his subjects and, as a ruler, displayed an unusual religious tolerance for the time. He enacted the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which guaranteed religious liberties to Protestants. He was assassinated in 1610 by a fanatical Catholic. After his death, an equestrian statue of the King was erected at the center of the bridge, on the Place du Pont Neuf.

 

 

Equestrian statue of Henry IV, with the Samaritaine Department Store in the background on the left. The store dates from 1869 and is on the right bank of the Seine but is no longer functioning as a department store.

 

Pont Neuf commemorative marker 

 

 

King Henry IV

 

 

King Henry IV

 

 

King Henry IV

 

 

King Henry IV

 

Henry IV was known as the “Vert Galant” (literally, green gentleman) because he was forever youthful in his passionate pursuit of the ladies. His womanizing was legendary, and he fathered many children with a number of mistresses. From his vantage point, the equestrian statue of the Vert Galant keeps watch over a picturesque little park on the tip of the Ile de la Cite, the Square du Vert-Galant. Romance is still in the air because today the garden is a popular spot for marriage proposals. The park is also where the Vedettes du Pont Neuf tour boats on the Seine depart from.

 

 

 

Square du Vert-Galant, on the tip of the Ile de la Cite

 

Circular bench in the park nearby the place where the Vedettes tour boats dock

 

 

A corner of the park

 

 

Gated entrance to the Square du Vert-Galant

This is the park in October, when the garden beds have not yet been replanted for the fall.

 

 

Musée des Arts et Métiers

The Musée des Arts et Métiers is the oldest museum of science and technology in Europe. It showcases aspects of city infrastructure and scientific innovations from the past to present and houses a collection of machines, tools and models created in the fields of technology and science. It is located in a former Benedictine monastery and the church of Saint Martin-des-Champs, originally built in the mid-11^th century.

The Statue of Liberty stands in the courtyard in front of the former church of Saint Martin des Champs and the Museum of Arts and Metiers (literally translated, “arts and crafts,“ but in reality, it is a museum of science and technology.)

A replica of the Statue of Liberty. There are others--one replica is near the Pont de Grenelle and the one that used to be in the Luxembourg Gardens is now in the Musee d’Orsay.

This sculpture is the first bronze cast from the plaster model that is now in the chapel of Saint Martin des Champs. In June, 2011, the American Ambassador to France, Charles H. Rivkin, dedicated the renowned sculpture. Before the event he said it would “highlight an iconic symbol of Franco-American friendship that has served as a beacon to millions of immigrants and generations of Americans.” The sculpture is located near the museum entrance, and visitors often pose for pictures with one arm raised, like Lady Liberty. The tourists are not the “huddled masses, yearning to be free,” but they are still excited to see the lady with the torch.

 

 

The former church of Saint Martin des Champs

 

 

The museum entrance

 

A bench made of recycled plastic and aluminum food cartons; one bench equals 75,000 cartons.

 

Sculpture of Zenobe Gramme, (1827-1901) a Belgian electrical engineer, who invented the Gramme dynamo, the first electrical motor that was successful industrially

 

The museum is divided into 7 departments: Scientific Instruments, Materials, Construction, Communication, Energy, Mechanics and Transportation. The exhibits in each department are also organized in 4 chronological periods. I had trouble tracking the periods precisely, but you don’t really have to know the exact progression in time in order to enjoy and admire the exhibits.
 

The museum begins with Scientific Instruments, exhibiting tools of astronomy used for determining the place of the sun in the zodiac, and Pascal's calculators, designed by Blaise Pascal when he was 19 years old.

 

Pascal’s calculating machine, 1642

 

Sundial, mid-eighteenth century

 

 

Pendulum clock

 

Clock with maidens

 

Sextant

The sextant, (sixth part of a circle) was an instrument used in navigation to measure the altitude of the sun or a celestial body above the horizon at sea, and thereby to compute the latitude of the observation point.

Scientific instrument

 

 

The equipment of Antoine Lavoisier's laboratory from the mid-1700s.

Lavoisier is regarded as the father of modern chemistry.

 

 

Ferdinand Berthoud’s marine clock, 1760

 

Cyclotron of the College of France, 1937, used to study the properties of matter

 

 

Closeup of cyclotron

I almost got kicked out of the museum for getting too close to the cyclotron for this pic.

 

Super calculator, Cray 2 - 1985, developed to process huge quantities of data

 

 

 

IBM 730 computer,

used by the French Atomic Energy Agency to perform nuclear energy-related research.

 

 

Geometric model for instruction, used by Theodore Olivier, professor of descriptive geometry, from 1839 to 1853 (Descriptive geometry is the study of the projection of three-dimensional figures onto a plane surface.)

Geometric model for instruction

 

Siemens transmission electronic microscope, 1973

 

Lunar robot

The LAMA robot (Lavochkin Alcatel Model Autonomous) was designed in the early 1990s to move autonomously on other planets (specifically, Mars). It had 4 cameras and 4 processors.

 

LAMA, Lunar robot

 

 

The Materials department features the creation of glass, brick and fabrics, including the development of looms and the factories which produce the vast quantities of the materials used today.

 

A mule-jenny, a machine used to spin cotton and other fibers into yarn.

Its invention greatly expanded the production of textiles and is associated with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

 

Vaucanson's loom, 1748

Vaucanson designed looms with some level of automation.

 

 

 

Side view of the loom

 

Mockup of a Bessemer Converter,

a large pear-shaped container in which molten iron is converted to steel by the Bessemer process.

 

Foundry Martin, where steel was created from iron, 1912.
The process invented by Pierre-Emile Martin was superior to the Bessemer process. 

Automatic loom

The Construction section of the museum shows the models used in construction.  

 

 Mockup of the Coliseum

 

Mockup of the Rue de Rivoli Arcade,  1878

 

 

An excavator circa 1870

 

Tunneler used in extending the Madrid metro system, 1998

 

Le beton arme (reinforced concrete)

This technique permitted greater versatility to building structures such as dams, and came into use in the late 19^th century

 

 

A scale model showing the creation of the plaster head of the Statue of Liberty over a wooden frame, all in miniature. The head was exhibited at the 1878 Paris World's Fair.

 

 

Scale model

 

 

Copper was hand-hammered, pressed into shape against a negative wooden mold, called the repousse technique. During the restoration, from 1984 to 1986, American artisans had to study with French artisans to learn how to do the now nearly lost art of repousee.

 

 

The copper plates, of pure copper 3/32 of an inch thick, were riveted together and suspended on a steel armature built by Gustave Eiffel.

 

 

A total of 62,000 pounds of copper was used to build the Statue of Liberty, which was shaped using 300 different types of hammers. I learned a lot from this display in miniature, depicting the process by which the Statue of Liberty was made.

  

In the Communication department are exhibited printing presses, typewriters, telephone equipment from the early 1900s, telegraph systems from 1860, radio development from 1924 onward, the history of cameras, phonographs, recording instruments for producing sound for cinema and satellites, with a model of the Telstar which enabled the first live trans-Atlantic television transmission in 1962 from New York to England.

 

Marinoni's rotary letterpress printing machine, 1883.

The machine increased the printing yield.

 

 

La Monocyclette, vertical printing machine

 

 

 

"Chronophone" sound projector by Léon Gaumont, 1910

The chronophone, invented in 1901 by Gaumont, was a mechanical device used to synchronize a sound projector placed behind a screen and the picture projector placed behind the audience.

 

The Energy department displays the history of the machinery used for harnessing every form of energy including steam, wind, electrical, atomic and solar.

 

Scott’s steam engine was one of the last descendants of Watt’s original steam engine (1769). Disassembled in 1986, it had previously been used in the Paris region to pump water from the Seine.

 

Foucault’s pendulum in the apse of the church

 

Also found in this part of the museum is an in-motion Foucault Pendulum. This 156-year- old demonstration continues to fascinate and prove the measurable reality of Earth's rotation. The actual orb used by Foucault on February 3, 1851, at the Paris Observatory, was his first public demonstration of his pendulum and is exhibited here and protected within a glass case.

 

A demo of the pendulum

The presentation was all in French, so I really didn’t understand much of what the guide said, but I would really have liked to hear it in English.

　

The Transportation department shows everything from the bicycle to rocket ships. This is the final department visited in the museum and an impressive section of it is located in the chapel of the old church. Here we find the first "horseless carriages", steam powered trains, propeller driven racing cars, modern cars cut in half and complete airplanes which are suspended overhead, dramatically contrasting with the ceiling of this medieval church.

　

 

 

This huge space is used in a unique way--not at all your typical museum display. There is a ramp leading up to and around a Statue of Liberty. Light streams in from the church windows behind her. There’s a catwalk zigzagging up an entire wall of the former church, with various machines on certain levels of the catwalk. You are reminded it is a church by the stained glass windows which allow light to pour in through the skeleton of the catwalk. There are famous, old-fashioned airplanes suspended in the vastness of the church. And you don’t just look up at them because you can view them from different angles via the catwalk. This whole panorama took me by surprise.

 

 

The base under the walkway around the Statue of Liberty

 

This Statue of Liberty is the 1878 plaster model, 9.4 feet tall from the base to the torch, that Bartholdi enlarged 16 times to make the 151-foot-tall iron and copper statue in New York Harbor. Bartholdi’s widow bequeathed the model to the museum in 1907, three years after his death. The model was used to make the bronze sculpture of the Statue of Liberty standing in the courtyard of the museum, dedicated by the American ambassador to France in 2011.

 

 

Statue of Liberty, close-up

 

 

The catwalk

 

Avion Bleriot, 1909

The Blériot XI is the aircraft that was used by Louis Blériot on July 25, 1909, to make the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft.

 

 

Avion Bleriot

 

 

Avion Breguet above Foucault’s Pendulum demo in the apse of the chapel

 

 

Avion Breguet was a reconnaissance aircraft used by the French in World War I

 and is probably the most famous French warplane of all time.

 

 

Both planes

 

Formula One race car on a platform on the catwalk

 

 

Auto cutout, seen from above

 

Early Peugot, 1890s

 

Model T Ford, 1908

 

 

I loved the “Helica,” a car with a propeller by Leyat, 1921.

 

The engineer Leyat attempted to apply to his “Helica” the principle of propeller propulsion, based on aviation. In spite of impressive performances--it went 70 kilometers per hour in a short time--the “Helica” was never replicated, mainly because the wind created by the propellers was too uncomfortable for the passengers.

 

 

 

This the Arts et Metiers metro station.

The museum has its own metro stop, complete with gears hanging down from the ceiling.