Paris in the 1880s: A City of Contrasts

The Paris of the 1880s was a city caught between tradition and modernity. Baron Haussmann's grand boulevards had reshaped the medieval city into a modern metropolis over the previous decades, creating the wide avenues and uniform building facades that define Paris today. Gas lamps illuminated the streets, the newly completed Opéra Garnier gleamed with gilt and marble, and department stores like Le Bon Marché drew shoppers from across Europe.

Yet beneath this glittering surface, Paris remained a city of stark contrasts. In the shadow of the grand monuments, working-class neighborhoods teemed with life. Immigrants from across France and beyond—Italians, Belgians, Germans, and Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe—crowded into cramped apartments in Belleville and Ménilmontant. These diverse communities brought their skills, traditions, and dreams to the capital, contributing to the vibrant tapestry of Parisian life.

Marie Leclerc, a seamstress from Brittany who had moved to Paris in 1885, later recalled: "The city was like nothing I had ever seen. The boulevards were so wide you could barely see across them, and everywhere there was construction—new buildings, new bridges, new everything. But in my quarter near the Gare de l'Est, we lived much as we had in the countryside, only closer together."