Description of the attraction
The Pont Jena offers one of the most Parisian views - right at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The bridge has an unusual history: its name almost caused its destruction.
The bridge overlooking the Champ de Mars was ordered to be built by Napoleon in 1807. The Emperor rejected the proposed names - the Champs de Mars Bridge or the Military School - in favor of a name that warmed his vanity: the Jena Bridge. In 1806, Napoleon's troops won a brilliant victory over the Prussian army at Jena. The day of the battle turned out to be a disaster and shame for Prussia, and for Napoleon, in his words, one of the happiest days of his life.
After the happy days, the black ones came: in 1814, the allied troops entered Paris. By this time, engineer Cornel Laman had just completed the five-arch stone bridge ordered by the emperor. Among the winners was the Prussian General Blucher, who once took part in the battle of Jena. Seeing the bridge named after that battle, Blucher was furious and planned to blow it up. The crossing was saved only by the intervention of the allies and, as the legend says, personally by Louis XVIII - he allegedly said that the bridge would only be blown up with him. So the bridge was just renamed and the proud imperial eagles that adorned the tympans were removed. Instead, they installed the royal letters L.
However, in France in the 18th and 19th centuries, the situation changed rapidly. After the revolution of 1830, the bridge was given its historical name, and after the accession to the throne of Napoleon III in 1852 - the eagles. In 1853, at the entrance to the bridge, four sculptures were erected - Gallic, Roman, Arab and Greek warriors. The dismounted riders stand on powerful pylons near their horses and look very monumental, while from a distance they resemble Klodt horses on the Anichkov bridge in St. Petersburg. All the warriors were executed by different sculptors - Auguste Préault, Louis-Joseph Doma, Jean-Jacques Féchet and François Deveaux.
The steps leading from the bridge to the embankment are known among moviegoers as the "Renault stairs": it was along them in the movie "View of the Murder" that a Renault taxi, hijacked by James Bond in pursuit of the killer, rode down.
