Gustave Cailbotte, Paris: A Rainy Day, 1877.

Foundation of the Faculty of Theology in Paris.

Founding of the Society for French Hygiene and the Society for Public Medicine and Hygiene Professionals.

Emile Zola publishes L'Assommoir, a novel of the impact of alcoholism in the working class. The book as a number of graphic scenes of the conditions of the Paris poor. Here is one, from the first pages of chapter 1. Gervaise is waiting for her husband Lantier to come home.

"When Gervaise awoke, about five, stiff and aching, she burst into sobs.  Lantier had not come back.  It was the first time that he had stayed out all night.  She remained sitting on the edge of the bed, under the strip of faded chintz which hung from the bedhead fastened to the ceiling by a piece of string.  And slowly, her eyes clouded with tears, she looked all round the wretched little lodging-house room, with its walnut chest of drawers, in which one of the drawers was missing, its three cane-bottom chairs, and its greasy little table, on which stood a dilapidated water jug.  They had had to put in an iron bedstead for the children, and the bedstead filled up two-thirds of the room, and blocked up the chest of drawers.  Gervaise and Lantier's trunk, wide open in a corner, was hardly full, an old man's hat at the bottom stowed away under dirty shirts and socks; while, along the walls, on the backs of the chairs, hung a tattered shawl, a pair of trousers clotted with mud, old clothes too bad even for the old clothes' dealer.  In the middle of the chimney-piece, between two ill-matching zinc candlesticks, there was a bundle of pawn tickets, delicately pink-coloured.  It was the best room in the hotel, the first floor room, looking out over the street."

"... The hotel was on the Boulevard de la Chapelle, to the left of the Barrière Poissonnière.  It was a tumble-down two-storeyed building, painted dull red up to the second storey, with shutters that the rain had soaked rotten.  Above a lamp with cracked glass, between the two windows, ‘Hôtel Boncœur, Proprietor: Marsouiller', could just be made out in big yellow letters, from which bits of moist plaster had fallen away.  Finding the lamp in her way, Gervaise stood upright, still holding the handkerchief to her lips.  She looked to the right, in the direction of the Boulevard de Rochechouart, where groups of butchers in blood-stained aprons stood about in front of the slaughter-houses; and the fresh breeze brought up from time to time a grim stench of slaughtered beasts.  She looked to the left, following the long trail of the avenue, which came to an end, almost opposite, at the white mass of the Lariboisière hospital, then in course of construction.  Slowly, from one end of the horizon to the other, she followed the city wall, behind which she had sometimes heard at night the cries of people being murdered; and she peered into the lonely angles, the dark corners, black with slime and filth, fearing that she might come across the body of Lantier – a knife through his belly.  When she raised her eyes above this grey interminable wall, framing the city with a strip of desert, she saw a broad glimmer, a dusty cloud of sunlight, out of which rose the hum of Paris in the morning.  But her eyes turned back instinctively to the Poissonnière tollgate; she leaned out, dizzy with the unending flood that passed between the two squat sheds of the excise – men, beasts, and carts, coming down from the heights of Montmarte and La Chapelle.  There was a trampling, as of a herd in motion, a concourse of people, scattered over the roadway by a sudden block, an endless file of men going to work, their tools on their back, their bread under their arm; and the whole pack plunged ceaselessly into the depths of Paris."

Monet, La gare St. Lazare, 1877, oil on canvas, 74x104cm, Orsay. This is one of a series of painting Monet did of the station. Choosing the station as a site for painting was unusual at this time, but Monet was interested in the light effects it offered. An interesting aspect of  some of his St. Lazare canvases is that some of the canvas was bare, letting the beige canvas become part of the work. The station dates from 1836. It was heavily redone between 1867 and 1889. Today the station is recognizable from the painting, although the end of the shed is somewhat closed in and the yard is fuller of signals. This image is from Duby, L'Histoire de Paris par la Peinture.
 
 
 
 

These three pictures show different views of rue Soufflot, in the 5th arrondissement. This road runs from the Pantheon to Luxembourg Gardens, ending at Boulevard Saint Michel to the west. The top two are undated, the bottom one is 1877. Top left shows the view looking towards the Luxembourg gardens. If you were standing here today, you'd see more extensive trees bordering the gardens and the Eiffel Tour in the background, but that doesn't happen until 1889. Notice the construction of the buildings in the top left, on the right side of the street. That's what was. The top right shows the view on rue Soufflot looking towards the Pantheon. The Pantheon dates from the 18th century. Many of the older buildings have come down. The lower right has you standing out in the middle of Blvd. Saint Michel looking at the Pantheon. This is the way the street looks today, except the paving stones are gone or covered. Today at the corner on the left is a MacDonalds. Several blocks down on the right is the very nice local restaurant Les Fontaines, a better meal choice. Charles Marville is the photographer, and the book, Le Nouveau Paris is edited by Philippe Mellot.

Left: Johan Barthold Jongkind, La rue Saint Severin, 1877, Carnavalet. Stylistically, this offers a very different view of Paris. Jongkind was attracted to the Latin Quarter since it was one of the few areas to survive Haussmann's rebuilding of Paris. This image is from Duby, L'Histoire de Paris par la Peinture.

Right: This is an 1877 view of Blvd. Henri IV. It runs from Bastille down to the Seine. This view is towards place de la Bastille. The column in the picture is a commemorative column built to recognize those who died in the 1830 revolution that overthrew Charles X. Paired with the pictures above of rue Soufflot, this shows major construction on both banks of the Seine over these years. Charles Marville is the photographer, and the book, Le Nouveau Paris is edited by Philippe Mellot.

More broadly:

Edison invents the telephone. The principle of the phonograph is also invented. Edison builds on the work of Charles Cros. (CHF)

Queen Victoria is proclaimed empress of India. (CHF)

The population of France is 37,000,000. (CHF)

One of the best sellers this year is G. Bruno's Le Tour de France par Deux Infants, the story of their travels in France after they left Alcase after the German occupation in 1871. This year it sells 55,000 copies, in 1878 it will sell 136,000 copies. (AF)