Going to Bordeaux for the weekend? Take advantage of the opportunity to discover the 18th-century city at the time of feverish European change!
Eighteenth-century Europe is at once committed to emancipatory ideas and to obscurantism. On the one hand, we witness the advent of the Encyclopédie under the pen of Diderot and d’Alembert (1751-1772), the first inventory against the death penalty written by Italian jurist Cesare Baccaria in 1764, and a fledgling but oh-so-precursory feminism in the person of Mary Wollstonecraft, who later inspired the suffragettes in England. From 1730 onwards, France was to experience the industrial revolution, followed by an agricultural revolution that enabled the population to better meet its needs. At the same time, hygiene was making spectacular progress, eradicating plague epidemics as early as 1720.
On the other hand, Europe is the mother of powerful colonial empires, all vying for the smallest parcel of land they can profit from. When Christopher Columbus set foot on Hispanola (Dominican Republic) and then on the territory that was to become the United States of America in 1492, the thorny question of whether the natives actually possessed souls arose. Africa’s fate was sealed: the Pope declared that these so-called « Indians » did indeed have souls, unlike the inhabitants of the dark continent. Thus began the triangular trade to supply America with cheap labor to work in the cotton and sugar cane fields.
Bordeaux, a major port
Photo credit: Painting by Claude Joseph Vernet (1758) – First view of the port of Bordeaux: taken from the Salinières side .
Two centuries later, under the reign of Louis XV, the port of Bordeaux not only traded wine, but also sugar, cotton, tobacco, coffee, gold from the colonies and slaves.
Bordeaux, the leading port in the kingdom of France (although not the leading slave port, Nantes accounted for 42% of all slave shipments), had to adorn itself in its finest finery for the occasion. To hide the roofs covered with thousands of terracotta tiles, known as « Roman tiles » because they had been imported by the invading people, the king had the quaysides splendidly landscaped: Place de la Bourse, roofs adorned with slate. As a result, merchants and ambassadors stopping off in Bordeaux could only marvel at such prestige.
Bordeaux, 18th-century monuments
Photo credit: WikiMedia – Ludovic Courtès
Bordeaux’s 18th-century UNESCO heritage is a must-see. While wine was traded in Les Chartrons, further along the quays the Place de la Bourse, formerly known as Place Royale, then Place de la Liberté under the Revolution and finally Place Impériale under Napoleon I, took shape. The Grand-Théâtre on Place de la Comédie, a listed historic monument, is an ancient Gallo-Roman forum where the Piliers de Tutelle once stood.
Take a stroll through the town and explore the ancient medieval city that became modern thanks to intendants Boucher and Tourny and the classical style of the new architecture. The Allées Tourny owe their name to the famous architect: an esplanade in the heart of the city center, where an old merry-go-round with wooden horses turns.
Meet the Porte Dijeaux, built by Voisin and taking its name from the Gascon « De Jòu « , a temple dedicated to Jupiter in Gallo-Roman times, and the Porte de Bourgogne, also known as the Porte des Salinières and formerly known as the Arc de Napoléon.
Bordeaux opted for a tramway powered by its own rails, so as not to alter the urban landscape and risk losing its UNESCO label. This allows the production of period films in an authentic setting.
The Age of Enlightenment: a spark in the night
Photo credit: WikiMedia – Marc Ryckaert – Rue Port-Dijeaux
The 18th century saw the advent of rationalist philosophers and writers opposed to absolute monarchy. Montesquieu, born in Guyenne near Bordeaux, was a French moralist and political thinker in favor of the separation of powers as early as 1721.
He lived in Bordeaux for several years, including in the Rue des Lauriers: the restaurant « Les Grenadines » perfectly reflects the 18th-century atmosphere in which this famous writer lived. He also lived in Rue du Mirail when he published Lettres Persanes. At 87 Rue Port-Dijeaux, you’ll find Librairie Mollat, which has occupied the French writer’s former home since 1928.
He was joined by other philosophers, such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who criticized the abuses of the Church, torture and slavery, as well as the separation of powers. They all wanted to see the emergence of an enlightened political system, with inalienable rights. It wasn’t until 1789, when social unrest swept through France, that a new state took shape. The French Revolution saw the abolition of privileges, the end of the Ancien Régime and the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
However, the absolute monarchy was not yet a Republic: it was to be transformed into a constitutional monarchy, thus beginning its slow mutation towards an uncertain ideal.
Didn’t Rousseau say: « Man is born free and everywhere he is in irons »?
Main photo credit: Wikimedia – Olivier Aumage