Why go
The Restoration is visible in the reuse of existing places and the growth of new neighbourhoods. La Madeleine returned to church use, the Louvre gained galleries, and blue enamel street signs established a familiar Paris detail. Around Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and Place de l’Europe, the city’s cultural map also shifted northward.
The full story
The Bourbon Restoration followed the fall of Napoleon with an effort to reassert royal symbols in Paris. Louis XVIII returned to the Tuileries, the Pont de la Concorde briefly regained the name Pont Louis XVI, and a statue of Henry IV returned to the Pont Neuf. At the same time, the city’s cultural life resumed. The Louvre expanded with new galleries for antiquities, and La Madeleine was converted back from Napoleon’s Temple of Glory into a church. Paris also began to modernise everyday movement. A horse-drawn omnibus system, developed between the late 1820s and 1860, made travel within the city faster and became an early model for mass transit. New Right Bank neighbourhoods formed around Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and Place de l’Europe. The area known as New Athens attracted artists and writers, including Delacroix, George Sand and Chopin. Look for the small continuities of this era as well: the familiar blue street-name plates began replacing older carved signs.