Description of the attraction
The story of the Notre Dame Bridge, which connects the Ile de la Cité and the Quai de Gevre, is a recital of the constant misfortunes that people have methodically fought and coped with.
The crossing at this site was part of the main street of Lutetia even before the Romans conquered Gaul. When in 52 BC. NS. Roman troops approached Lutetia, the townspeople burned all the crossings leading to the island of Cité. The Romans built a new stone bridge. In 885-886, after the siege of the city by the Normans, the bridge was destroyed, and a small bridge was built instead - at first it did not even reach the Cité, but was used only by fishermen. It served for a long time, but in 1406 a flood destroyed it. However, there was not enough crossing at this place, and in 1413 Charles VI ordered to build here a solid wooden bridge with houses on it. This bridge has already been named Notre Dame. Sixty houses, considered the most beautiful in all of France, stood on it.
After 86 years, he also collapsed. The foundation for the construction of a new bridge was laid in the same year, but so far they have been ferrying. The new bridge - arched, stone - appeared in 1507. Again, sixty houses with the same gabled roofs were erected on it. There were many shops among them, and the bridge quickly became one of the commercial centers of the city. Perhaps it was here for the first time in history that houses had numbers, on the one hand - even, on the other - odd.
Between 1746 and 1788, all the houses on the bridge were demolished. This process was depicted by the famous French landscape painter of the 18th century Robert Hubert, who loves to paint the ruins. In the painting Demolition of Houses on the Notre Dame Bridge, some of the buildings have already been demolished, some are half collapsed. The viewer is, as it were, on the banks of the Seine: there is no embankment, the walkways for boats, the boats themselves and people gazing at the transforming bridge are visible.
In 1853, a new bridge with five arches was built on the old foundation. In nineteen years, at least thirty-five times the barges crashed into the pillars, and the bridge was popularly called the Devil's. I had to remove the three central arches and replace them with a new structure, already metal. The Notre Dame Bridge in its present form was opened in 1919.
