Delusions of Grandeur (La Folie des Grandeurs)

Abstract

Around the time Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly, under the orders of Emperor Napoleon III, under the first Canon shots to lay claim to what would become France's colony of Indochina, Paris embarked on an epic renovation project directed by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, also under the Emperor's orders. The plan was to modernise Paris and get rid of insalubrious slums-breeding ground for diseases as well as popular discontent. No doubt rich plunder from the colonies helped fund this - largely successful - imperial enterprise.