Paris's Haussmannian revolution

"La révolution haussmannienne de Paris"
French C1 writing exercise

Learn about the architectural revolution that took place in Paris in the 19th century.

Use Le Passé Simple when appropriate

Pay attention to the hints!

Some vocabulary you may want to look up before or during this exercise: "picturesque", "to get around (city)", "there's no way to", "broken-down (house)", "starting in the (years)", "liveable", "inroads", "a beautification project", "to entrust [someone] with", "interestingly enough", "department of civil engineering", "to prefer [someone] over [someone]", "outside of Paris".

I’ll give you some sentences to translate into French

  • I’ll show you where you make mistakes
  • I’ll keep track of what you need to practise
  • Change my choices if you want
Start the exercise

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Since the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, Paris' architecture had remained essentially unchanged: It was a picturesque Paris, certainly, but it was difficult to get around [there]. Indeed, there was at the time no way to cross the city - neither from south to north, nor from east to west - without constantly bumping into more or less broken-down buildings. Starting in the 1850s, it became clear that the only way to make Paris still liveable was to improve its communications. Napoleon III had lived in England and the United States, whose great boulevards and numerous parks he had been able to admire. He thus arrived in 1848 with a beautification project for the capital that he entrusted in the end to Baron Haussmann, who, in just twenty years or so, literally transformed Paris. It is interesting to note that he avoided the Parisian department of civil engineering's engineers, and that he preferred [over them] engineers with whom he'd already worked outside of Paris.

Thinking...