At last everything cleared up at the same time, and the sky which freed itself from its mists, and the politics which became calmer, and the souls which opened up to at least temporary confidence. From then on, the capital, left to itself, did its best to complete its festive preparations.
In 1855, the Palace of Industry, increased by various annexes, had seemed sufficient to classify products from France and abroad. In 1867, the number of exhibitors, which was 52,000 instead of 24,000, the presumed number of visitors, the desire to fix the attention by an increasingly captivating spectacle, all these reasons had determined a more spacious installation .
The choice fell on the Champ-de-Mars plain. The general plan was that of a vast park, strewn with kiosks or pavilions, arranged some for utility, others for picturesque effect, fantasy or pleasure.
In the middle of this park had been erected the Palace of the Exposition proper. It was an immense circular construction, without floor, of a very pronounced oval, which alone covered an area of more than sixteen hectares and which, stretching from the Seine towards the Military School, began at three hundred meters from the river, to finish about two hundred meters from the avenue La Motte-Picquet. If the appearance was not very elegant, the interior layout, very remarkable and fitted out according to the plans of the Commissioner General A. Le Play, was both simple and ingenious. It consisted of a series of concentric circles, with radiating paths crossing the successive sectors.
Each of these circular galleries was devoted to a special nature of products. A Universal Exhibition, by assembling all the products of human activity, makes it possible to note down to their most fleeting details the tastes, fashions and trends of an era. As such, it reflects the social and economic state, just as general elections reflect the political state. The Exposition of 1867 had, above all, this character. One would have said that imperial society, on the eve of disappearing, had posed complacently before the future to allow the future to recognize and fix it.
It was the great celebration of Paris which enjoys itself, not that of a day and a night, but that which lasted six months. It was like a gigantic fairy tale transported into real life and penetrating it with fantastic aspects. strangely assorted colors, capriciously intermingled lines, joyful cries, noisy to the point of stunning, daring invitations that provoked all pleasures and aroused all passions. The gaze was solicited by all
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kinds of constructions, of all sizes, of all styles, of all eras, of all nations:lighthouses, theatres, caravanserais, Egyptian temples, Greek porticoes, Chinese pagodas, English or Dutch cottages, Tyrolean sheepfolds, post houses or Russian isbah, Swedish dwellings. Above all, the Orient dominated, with its mosques, cafes, bazaars and the whole series of Byzantine imitations. With bewildered curiosity, we contemplated this jumble of buildings with fragile foundations, all in appearance, which the same season would see born and die and which, with their superficial brilliance, symbolized society itself quite well.
Everything had been combined for the picturesque. Here Arab encampments, there Russians with their horses, real steppe horses; further away, Mexicans perched on the platform of an Aztec tomb; elsewhere, virtuosos from Tunis who gave a mixed public the sample of a café-concert in the style of Barbary countries; then Chinese, Chinese, Egyptian, all more or less authentic; finally, and in infinite numbers, Turks.
The hope of a little depreciating the general expenses of the enterprise had prompted the imperial commissioners to concede, for a fee, to industrialists, small or large, certain installation rights:from concession to concession, these had invaded part of the park; they had established there brasseries, pastry shops, delicatessens, and, especially in profusion, photography workshops; they would organize balls there, sing songs there, draw lotteries there, show Ukrainian horses trained like learned dogs.
With its shops, its barracks, its games, its turnstiles, the Exhibition looked like a fairground, but prodigious, and the most dizzying one could have dreamed of. The appearance was also that of a huge hostelry and, to be honest, of an equivocal and brilliant hostelry.
A too easy police had failed to regulate these places. Under the awnings of restaurants or cafes, low-cut, made-up, provocative women, dressed as Bavarians, Dutch or Spanish, offered, in all languages, food and drink from all countries, and, by their boldness , disconcerted the least prudish.
In the midst of the perpetual tumult, only one place allowed a relative meditation:it was the garden drawn in the portion of the Champ-de-Mars opposite to the Seine and which formed like a small isolated park, at the end of the large park itself. There had been gathered everything that can delight the eyes, greenhouses, aviaries, freshwater and saltwater aquariums, flowerbeds, ponds, even large trees.
The park was, in truth, too frivolous. How many, having worn themselves out in distractions, barely found time to enter the great gallery, and only brought home the unjust and incomplete impression of a vast enterprise of petty pleasures, of a colossal fair as desired ! It was a great pity.