T.J.  Clark,  The Painting of Modern Life

 
The reader will  have  noticed how  tempting it is to  make this  chapter out of  nothing but the  voices  of  the  discontented. There were  plenty  of them: at  times in  the  later 1860s it seemed as  if Haussmann had  hardly a single friend, apart from  the pamphleteers he paid  and  the editors of guidebooks, who are obliged  to  make the best of things. Haussmannization was unpopular in Paris: the  defeat  of  the  official   slate   in  the  city in  the  1869 elections was bound up  with  that  fact,  as  was  the  decisive no which Paris gave to the emperor's  plebiscite of 1870:  so  too was the uprising against the  empire on 4 September of  the  same  year.  Revenge  on Haussmann could occasionally be sweet. An American called Sheppard described the scene in  the  western districts on 4 September [the date the 2nd Empire was overthrown] as follows: "The  busts of the Emperor and  Empress were  thrown out  of the windows of

A Cartoon from the 2nd Empire: The Imperial Menagerie -- Haussmann, The Beaver (Lucrative Activity)

the houses in which they  were  found; and on  one  ladder I saw  a well-dressed bourgeois [member of the middle class]effacing the street  name of  the  Boulevard  Haussmann, and substituting that of 'Victor Hugo.'” One month later, when the  mob first  invaded the Hotel  de   Ville,  there  was  some of the  same   symbolism: ''Furniture   is smashed. A splendid plan  of  Paris,  drawn up  by Haussmann's engineers and   Napoleon's Haussmann, is cut  to pieces  by  the  vengeful Reds.  They break into  the chamber where the twenty mayors are  in session. The mayors flee."

Time and   again one   is struck by the   vehemence and diversity of and diversity of opposition  to  the new   city:   vengeful  Reds   and  well-dressed  bourgeois  in temporary agreement as  to  what they   had  suffered at  whose   hands. It is often  hard  to  make out  what the  agreement  derived from:  what   was  it exactly  that  so little endeared  Baron  Haussmann to his fellow citizens,  and persuaded  them   that   public  works   were  the  worst   part  of  empire?