Conclusion

Abstract

The reputation of Paris as a beautiful city with many magnificent sites, a reputation that is still very much with us, was forged by the 1840s and continued to expand for the rest of the century. Paris became the capital of modernity, in more ways than one. A visual and mental model of the consumer was constructed gradually beginning in the early nineteenth century and was associated with the modernity characterized by ephemeral experiences of vibrant urban life. An influential component in this regard was Delphine de Girardin’s fragmented characterization of Paris as a series of phenomena, seen on the street level. Her writing also forged new links between the sensibility of the high society and that of the flâneur expressed in a mass medium. Some of the columns written by her imitators, as did fashion columns, had much more promotional functions, further linking journalism, fashion, and retail. A different vision of modernity, that of harmonious organization, reflected in the fascination with visual and textual panoramas and later expressed through Haussmannian urban planning and architectural modality, was another significant component of the commercial modernity of Paris. Whereas on the Grands Boulevards initially both kinds of modernity were celebrated, by the turn of the century the presence of a huge volume of urban stimuli, much of it commercial, meant that it was the modernity as a stream of stimuli that boulevard culture came to symbolize.