The Topographical Evolution of the City of Paris 
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THE “ PLAN DE BALE ”-I 55 2 . 
Michel on the southern side, the Pont Notre- 
Dame, Pont-au-Change and Pont aux Meun- 
iers on the northern side. They were so 
similar in principle and construction that we 
will describe them all by giving a brief ac¬ 
count of the most important, the Pont Notre- 
Dame. 
Undoubtedly the Romans had a wooden 
bridge at this point. When that disap¬ 
peared its work was done by the Pont- 
au-Change, a little further down the stream. 
The first Pont Notre-Dame was begun in 
1412. This bridge was loaded with houses 
and shops in the picturesque medieval way, 
and lasted until 1499, when it fell with great 
ruin and commotion. The Pont Notre- 
Dame could not be spared. The good 
people of Paris set about its reconstruction 
at once in a sensible way. A commission 
of seven of the best Maitres des CEuvres de 
la Ville was created, and attached to this, 
as consulting engineer and architect, was 
the famous Fra Giovanni Giocondo da 
Verona, the same great builder who, in his 
old age, took up the work at St. Peter’s 
where Bramante left it. The design for the 
Pont Notre-Dame is given by Jacques-An- 
drouet du Cerceau in his “ Plus excellents 
Bastiments de France.” It is labelled Pont 
Saint-Michel, an obvious error. This design 
is an ideal solution of the bridge problem as 
it presented itself in the old walled towns. 
The bridge was famous the world over, 
and fine it was, with its gay shops and or¬ 
derly houses. When, in 1531, soon after 
its completion, Francis I. brought his queen 
Fleonore d’Autriche to Paris, he ordered all 
the shop-girls of the Pont Notre-Dame to 
wear their best gowns “ pour tapisserie.” 
The Pont-au-Change, as its name implies, 
was devoted to the use of jewelers and money¬ 
changers. The Paris Bourse started here. 
The old bridge-builders placed the piers 
of their arches so near together that they 
acted as dams, materially increasing the rap¬ 
idity of the current. The citizens used this 
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