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City walls, gates and arches
These arches are almost never visited, because they rear up over the now-garish "Grands Boulevards"
The triumphal arches of Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin loom over fast-foods and chain stores (in the 10th Arrondissement). No postcard honors them. Tour buses do not stop here. And many Parisians find them merely bizarre.
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Yet by recalling the gates through which merchants passed in or out of town through a city wall, these 17th-century monuments reveal the power of kings, and their potentially-tense relationship with nascent capitalists.
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 - "Royal arch" (Porte Saint-Denis) ("Porte" means "gate")
To show that he had made defending Paris obsolete, Louis XIV tore down the 15Th-century wall (in 1672). Merchants then finance the two arches, in hommage, they said, to the charismatic young king.
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 - The smaller "merchants' arch" (Porte Saint-Martin)
Under that guise, they are also declaring "We are here".
In stone. For the first time... for the upshot, please CLICK.
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- The arch at the Porte Saint-Denis is the more impressive
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 - Behind the arch, the trade route to England
The street you see beyond the arch (the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis) passes next to the Basilique de Saint-Denis, a day's march north (please scroll down).
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On the other hand, tje rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin had no symbolic importance. The arc that marks its site is smaller and less ornate
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- This (original) map of trade routes and ramparts explains the medieval set-up
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The broken red lines show our walk. As well, the map reveals how modern arteries and métro lines are built on the sites of medieval trade routes and ramparts.
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- Royal tombs and "Royal Way"
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• The tombs: All French kings (except three) are buried in the Saint-Denis Basilica, a day's march (now a 40-minute metro ride) from central Paris. The Spain-England trade route passed next to the Basilica and crossed through Paris, up to the palace.
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So the street (rue Saint-Denis) became a link between living kings and their ancestors: the "Royal Way", a site whose symbolic significance was immense.
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 - The Royal Way, one of the great trade routes, in 1485. To us, it looks like a winding country path...
•The Way: The scene takes place just within the 15th-century ramparts. The painter has his back to the later "Royal Arch" and sees the 13th-century walls in the distance.
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The Court will accompany the prince in an official entry into town. Crowds will mass along the Way, cheering and drinking wine that flows from fountains...
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• To follow that route today, please CLICK
• But during our walk, we first stroll over to the "merchants' arch"...
- Seventeenth-century propaganda...
The arch's decoration evokes deeds that were considered glorious and turned out to be disastrous.
We briefly leave the Middle Ages to explain the illusions and conflicts that both arches reveal.
- ... introduces layers of later preoccupations
The epicenter of Continental elegance in the 19th century is now a place where 50 nationalities mix. We discover one of the last ungentrified parts of the city, where superb vestiges of the past and immigrants' raucous vitality mix.
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 - "Royal arch", engraving of about 1830
 - Kurds' demonstration, 2011
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 - "Freedom of expression and association! Resisting is not a crime."
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Credits: Photos / Claude Abron: painting / Fouquet, "The Court meets the Count of Anjou", 1485; engraving / from the archives of Marc Gaillard, historian of Paris.
 - Unexpected Paris guided tours
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