Pont Royal

Infobox_Bridge
bridge_name= Pont Royal


caption= A photograph of the Pont Royal and the Left Bank taken in the evening.
official_name=
also_known_as=
carries= Motor vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles
crosses= The Seine River
locale= Paris, France
id=
design= Arch Bridge
length= 110 m (361 feet)
width= 16 m (53 feet)
below= ?
construction dates= 1685-1689
toll= Free both ways
coordinates=coord|48|51|39|N|02|19|49|E

The Pont Royal is a bridge crossing the river Seine in Paris. It is the third oldest bridge in Paris, after the Pont Neuf and the Pont Marie.

Location

The Pont Royal links the right bank and Pavillon de Flore and left bank of Paris between rue du Bac and the rue de Beaune. The bridge is constructed with five arches "en plein cintre". A hydrographic ladder, indicating floods' highest level in Paris, is visible on the last stone heap nearest each bank.

Access

History

In 1632, the entrepreneur Pierre Pidou directed the development for a wooden toll-bridge which would be called "Pont Sainte-Anne" (in reference to Anne of Austria) or "Pont Rouge" (due to its color). It was designed to replace the Tuileries ferry upon which the rue du Bac ("bac" meaning "ferry" in French) owes its name. The ferry had been offering crossings since 1550. Fragile, this bridge of five arches would be repaired for the first time in 1649, completely redone two years later, burnt in 1654, flooded in 1656, completely rebuilt in 1660, propped up in 1673 and finally carried away by a flood in 1684. Madame de Sévigné reported that this last incident caused the loss of a number of the bridge's arches.

It was finally reconstructed between October 25, 1685, and June 13, 1689, this time with stone and receiving complete financing from the king Louis XIV, and it was the king who gave the name "Pont Royal". The Director of Building charged Jacques Gabriel, Jules Hardouin-Mansart and François Romain with the construction project. In the 18th century, the bridge was a popular meeting place for various festivities and celebrations.

At the time of the French Revolution of 1789 – in the period following the fall of the monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the beginning of the First French Empire in 1804 - the name of Pont Royal was changed to Pont National. During that period, General Napoléon Bonaparte (future Napoléon I, Emperor of the French) had cannons installed on the bridge in order to protect the Convention Nationale and the Committee of Public Safety, housed in the Tuileries Palace.

During the First French Empire (1804-1814), Napoléon I named the bridge "Pont des Tuileries", name that was kept until the Restoration in 1814 when king Louis XVIII gave the bridge its royal name back.

The bridge underwent a last reconstruction in 1850. In 1939, it was classified as a monument historique under the same bill as the Pont Neuf and the Pont Marie.

In 2005, "Pont Royal" was illuminated by lights at night as one of the Paris Olympic Bid highlights.

Gallery

External links

* [http://www.paris.fr/portail/deplacements/Portal.lut?page_id=232 Pont Royal Information from the Paris city hall website]
* [http://fr.structurae.de/structures/data/index.cfm?ID=s0000222 Structure data]

References

This article was mainly derived from the [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_Royal French Article] of the same name.

Location