Innovation and Tradition in the Shopping Landscape of Paris and a Provincial City, 1800–1900

International audienceIn the early nineteenth century, visiting Paris’s shopping streets was hardly a pleasurable activity. Despite the presence of many beautiful shops adorned with luxurious and comfortable interiors, most of the major shopping streets were narrow, muddy, smelly and overcrowded with traders’ stalls and heavy traffic. Unlike in London, most shopping streets lacked pavements and the few pavements that had been constructed were often blocked with stalls, forcing visitors to walk in the mud and take the risk of being hit by vehicles. During the July Monarchy (1830–48), British visitors continued to wonder in letters and travel diaries about the discrepancy between the elegant Parisian bourgeoisie and shop interiors, and the atrocious streets they had to navigat