Over 100 years ago, in 1795, Paris was much smaller and ended at the outskirts of the villages of Passy, Montmartre, and Belleville. At the time, the capital had only 12 arrondissements numbered from west to east and from north to south. It wasn’t until 1859 and Baron Haussmann that the map of Paris began to resemble the one we know today. But as you’ll see, the city was completely transformed by a phrase from that era, which was considered scandalous at the time…
Why do the arrondissements of Paris have numbers?
It is thanks to Baron Haussmann’s immense work that we know the city of Paris as it is today. But at the time, the numbering project had a completely different rationale: to group neighborhoods into blocks. The current 16th arrondissement (Passy and Auteuil) was then supposed to bear… the number 13. A true outrage for the city’s elite at the time.
In fact, at the time, people would say that couples living together were “married in the 13th.” A scandalous and unflattering expression, since it was very frowned upon by bourgeois society and the Christian community, which was the majority in that area. To appease the residents’ outrage, Haussmann abandoned the block-based numbering system and devised the famous spiral (or snail-like shape) that we all recognize today. The 13th arrondissement was assigned to the Left Bank, the more working-class side, and Passy was given the number 16! From now on, you’ll never look at a map of Paris the same way again!
