Description
The Pont Neuf is the oldest standing bridge across the Seine in Paris, and the one that crosses the western tip of the Île de la Cité in two arms, one of five arches, one of seven. Despite its name, "New Bridge," it dates from the early 17th century.
Walk along it and look down at the sides: 381 stone masks of satyrs and woodland gods, each one different, run under the cornice. They are copies of the originals attributed to the Renaissance sculptor Germain Pilon, and a few of the old ones are kept in a Paris museum.
Where the bridge crosses the island stands the bronze statue of Henry IV on horseback, and below it a small triangular park, the Square du Vert-Galant, named after the king's nickname, "the Green Gallant." It is a quiet spot at the very tip of the island, close to the water.
"One never crossed the Pont Neuf without meeting three things: a monk, a girl and a white horse." The Paris police used to say that a man not seen crossing it in three days must have left town.
Henry III laid the first stone in 1578, but the Wars of Religion stopped the works, and it was Henry IV who opened it in 1607. It was the first stone bridge in Paris with no houses on it: the king did not want them blocking the view of the Louvre. Its sidewalks kept pedestrians out of the mud.
So it became the city's square. Acrobats, quack doctors, tooth pullers, pamphlet sellers and pickpockets crowded it. Peter the Great found nothing in Paris more curious, and Benjamin Franklin wrote that he understood Parisians only by crossing it.
The statue of Henry IV was recast in 1818 with the bronze of a statue of Napoleon's general Desaix. And in 1985 Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the whole bridge in fabric.
Walk along it and look down at the sides: 381 stone masks of satyrs and woodland gods, each one different, run under the cornice. They are copies of the originals attributed to the Renaissance sculptor Germain Pilon, and a few of the old ones are kept in a Paris museum.
Where the bridge crosses the island stands the bronze statue of Henry IV on horseback, and below it a small triangular park, the Square du Vert-Galant, named after the king's nickname, "the Green Gallant." It is a quiet spot at the very tip of the island, close to the water.
"One never crossed the Pont Neuf without meeting three things: a monk, a girl and a white horse." The Paris police used to say that a man not seen crossing it in three days must have left town.
Henry III laid the first stone in 1578, but the Wars of Religion stopped the works, and it was Henry IV who opened it in 1607. It was the first stone bridge in Paris with no houses on it: the king did not want them blocking the view of the Louvre. Its sidewalks kept pedestrians out of the mud.
So it became the city's square. Acrobats, quack doctors, tooth pullers, pamphlet sellers and pickpockets crowded it. Peter the Great found nothing in Paris more curious, and Benjamin Franklin wrote that he understood Parisians only by crossing it.
The statue of Henry IV was recast in 1818 with the bronze of a statue of Napoleon's general Desaix. And in 1985 Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the whole bridge in fabric.