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93-786: During the Belle Epoque Cimiez became a favourite holiday resort of European royalty: Victoria , Edward VII , George V , and Leopold II stayed in Cimiez. Close to the ruins is the Excelsior Régina Palace , where Queen Victoria spent part of her long visits to the French Riviera . From 1974 to 2010 the Nice Jazz Festival was held among the Roman ruins in July each year. (In 2011

186-423: A passport and even reside abroad with minimal bureaucratic regulation. World War I, mass transportation, the spread of literacy, and various citizenship concerns changed this. The Belle Époque featured a class structure that ensured cheap labour. The Paris Métro underground railway system joined the omnibus and streetcar in transporting the working population, including those servants who did not live in

279-524: A Paris cafe was ten centimes. Visitors paid an additional price for several of the exposition's most popular attractions. Climbing the Eiffel Tower cost five Francs; admission to the popular panoramas, theatres and concerts was one franc. Visitors from the French provinces could buy a ticket which included the train fare and entry into the exposition. The total cost of exposition was 41,500,000 francs, while income

372-409: A Paris suburb. Speaking of the tower construction workers, the son-in-law of Eiffel, declared, "no soldier on the battle field deserved better mention than these humble toilers, who, will never go down in history." During the exposition, no one other than construction personnel were allowed higher than the second viewing platform. In the first week of the exposition, 29,922 persons climbed the tower to

465-514: A building by the Paris architect Pierre-Henri Picq . This was an elaborate iron and glass structure decorated with ceramic tiles in a Byzantine-Egyptian-Romanesque style. After the exposition the building was shipped to Fort de France and reassembled there, the work being completed by 1893. Known as the Schœlcher Library, initially it contained the 10,000 books that Victor Schœlcher had donated to

558-683: A cafe patron and wounded several others. France enjoyed relative political stability at home during the Belle Époque. The sudden death of President Félix Faure while in office took the country by surprise, but had no destabilising effect on the government. The most serious political issue to face the country during this period was the Dreyfus affair . Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of treason, with fabricated evidence from French government officials. Antisemitism directed at Dreyfus, and tolerated by

651-490: A different glamour, pursued in the cabarets of Montmartre . Large public buildings such as the Opéra Garnier devoted enormous spaces to interior designs as Art Nouveau show places. After the mid-19th century, railways linked all the major cities of Europe to spa towns like Biarritz , Deauville , Vichy , Arcachon and the French Riviera . Their carriages were rigorously divided into first-class and second-class, but

744-556: A far-reaching impact on European writers, and ran editions in London, Paris, Saint Petersburg, and Berlin. Paris's popular bourgeois theatre was dominated by the light farces of Georges Feydeau and cabaret performances. Theatre adopted new modern methods, including Expressionism, and many playwrights wrote plays that shocked contemporary audiences either with their frank depictions of everyday life and sexuality or with unusual artistic elements. Cabaret theatre also became popular. Musically,

837-605: A lasting impact on modern society. After the telephone joined the telegraph as a vehicle for rapid communication, French inventor Édouard Belin developed the Belinograph, or Wirephoto , to transmit photos by telephone. The electric light began to supersede gas lighting , and neon lights were invented in France. France was a leader of early cinema technology. The cinématographe was invented in France by Léon Bouly and put to use by Auguste and Louis Lumière , brothers who held

930-494: A minaret, two mosques, a school and two ornamental gateways. The doors, windows, and architectural fittings and decoration were real, imported from demolished buildings in Cairo. The street was populated by real Egyptians in costumes, including musicians, belly dancers, artists, craftsmen, and vendors of various Egyptian foods and delicacies. The exposition featured several other examples of picturesque habitations and villages from around

1023-430: A range of spectacles including Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, with the sharpshooter Annie Oakley . Transport around the exposition was partly provided by the 3 kilometre (1.9 mi) 600 mm ( 1 ft  11 + 5 ⁄ 8  in ) gauge Decauville railway at Exposition Universelle . The exposition railroad was reported to have carried 6,342,446 visitors in just six months of operation. Some of

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1116-630: A series of diplomatic conferences managed to mediate disputes that threatened the general peace: the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Berlin Congo Conference in 1884, and the Algeciras Conference in 1906. Indeed, for many Europeans during the Belle Époque, transnational, class-based affiliations were as important as national identities, particularly among aristocrats. An upper-class gentleman could travel through much of Western Europe without

1209-517: A small Pavillon of Electricity for an electrician named Ferdinand de Boyéres, located just outside the exposition site at avenue de Suffren. The Pavilion of electricity was demolished immediately after the exposition, and the cafe was torn down in 1910. the exhibition will be famous for four distinctive features. In the first place, for its buildings, especially the Eiffel tower and the Machinery Hall; in

1302-451: A special function, as the residence of the President of France when he visited the exposition. Many smaller but picturesque buildings were included within or adjacent to the exposition. The architect Hector Guimard , then just twenty-two years old, built his first two buildings for the exposition; The cafe-restaurant Au Grand Neptune at 148 Quai Louis-Bleriot (Paris 16th arrondissement), and

1395-522: A striking contrast to the very modern Palace of Machines, next to it. It was the idea of Baron Delort Gléon, an art collector and specialist in Egyptian art, with financial support from Charles De Lesseps, the head of the Egyptian committee for the exposition, and son of Ferdinand De Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal . It was a winding street, with buildings at odd angles, and featured, among other buildings,

1488-480: A system of hinged arches (like a series of bridge spans placed not end-to-end but parallel) made of steel or iron. Although often described as being constructed of steel, it was actually made of iron. One important goal of the exposition was to present the latest in science and technology. Thomas Edison visited the exposition to visit a pavilion devoted to his recent inventions, including an improved phonograph with clearer sound quality. Another new technology that

1581-459: A tower exactly to those dimensions. The structural design was created by two Eiffel engineers, Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, who along with Eiffel himself, received the patent for the plan. An Eiffel architect, Stephen Sauvestre, designed the curving form and decoration which gave the tower its distinctive appearance. Eiffel was granted exclusive rights for twenty years to operate the tower and its restaurants and viewing platforms. A site next to

1674-494: A young Pablo Picasso . More modern forms in sculpture also began to dominate as in the works of Paris-native Auguste Rodin . Although Impressionism in painting began well before the Belle Époque, it had initially been met with scepticism if not outright scorn by a public accustomed to the realist and representational art approved by the Academy. In 1890, Monet started his series Haystacks . Impressionism, which had been considered

1767-460: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Belle Epoque The Belle Époque ( French pronunciation: [bɛlepɔk] ) or La Belle Époque ( French for 'The Beautiful Era') was a period of French and European history that began after the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and continued until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during

1860-579: Is a Paris landmark still open for business today. The Folies Bergère was another landmark venue. Burlesque performance styles were more mainstream in Belle Époque Paris than in more staid cities of Europe and America. Liane de Pougy , dancer , socialite and courtesan , was well known in Paris as a headline performer at top cabarets. Belle Époque dancers and singers such as Polaire , Mistinguett , Paulus , Eugénie Fougère , La Goulue and Jane Avril were Paris celebrities, some of whom modelled for Toulouse-Lautrec 's iconic poster art. The Can-can dance

1953-507: The 1889 Paris Exposition , was a world's fair held in Paris , France , from 6 May to 31 October 1889. It was the fifth of ten major expositions held in the city between 1855 and 1937. It attracted more than thirty-two million visitors. The most famous structure created for the exposition, and still remaining, is the Eiffel Tower . The exposition was held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of

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2046-402: The 1889 World's Fair in Paris, launched an era of optimism and affluence. French imperialism was in its prime. It was a cultural center of global influence, its educational , scientific and medical institutions were at the leading edge of Europe. It was not entirely the reality of life in Paris or in France, however. France had a large economic underclass who never experienced much of

2139-623: The Barbizon school plein-air painters. These painters were associates of the Pre-Raphaelites, who inspired a generation of aesthetic-minded " Souls ". Many successful examples of Art Nouveau, with notable regional variations, were built in France, Germany , Belgium , Spain , Austria (the Vienna Secession ), Hungary , Bohemia , Serbia , and Latvia . It soon spread around the world, including Peru , Brazil , Argentina , Mexico , and

2232-668: The First Moroccan Crisis (1905–1906), and the Second Moroccan Crisis (1911). The Belle Époque was an era of great scientific and technological advancement in Europe and the world in general. Inventions of the Second Industrial Revolution that became generally common in this era include the perfection of lightly sprung, noiseless carriages in a multitude of new fashionable forms, which were superseded towards

2325-632: The Folies Bergère , and took her eclectic performance style abroad as well. Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes brought fame to Vaslav Nijinsky and established modern ballet technique. The Ballets Russes launched several ballet masterpieces, including The Firebird and The Rite of Spring (sometimes causing audience riots at the same time). Exposition Universelle (1889) The Exposition Universelle of 1889 ( French pronunciation: [ɛkspozisjɔ̃ ynivɛʁsɛl] ), better known in English as

2418-704: The Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912). The First Balkan War (1912–1913) and the Second Balkan War (1913) are considered prologues to the First World War (1914–1918), whose level of material and human destruction at the industrial level marks the end of the Belle Époque . There were also notable diplomatic conflicts that could provoke world wars such as the 1890 British Ultimatum , the Fashoda Incident (1898),

2511-513: The Netherlands , Portugal , Russia and Sweden . Nonetheless, many citizens and companies from those countries participated, and a number of countries had their participation entirely funded by private sponsors. They included Germany and Alsace-Lorraine , Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil , China , Denmark , Egypt , Spain, the United Kingdom and its colonies, Haiti , Italy, Luxembourg ,

2604-474: The Second Empire reforms to the city's architecture and public amenities. Haussmann's renovation of Paris changed its housing, street layouts, and green spaces. The walkable neighbourhoods were well-established by the Belle Époque. Cheap coal and cheap labour contributed to the cult of the orchid and made possible the perfection of fruits grown under glass , as the apparatus of state dinners extended to

2697-545: The South African Republic , Switzerland , Uruguay and Venezuela . The British dominions of New Zealand and Tasmania also took part. Because of the theme of the exposition, celebrating the overthrow of the French monarchy, nearly all European countries with monarchies officially boycotted the exposition. The boycotting nations were Germany , Austria-Hungary , Belgium , Spain , the United Kingdom , Italy ,

2790-518: The Storming of the Bastille , which marked the beginning of French Revolution , and was also seen as a way to stimulate the economy and pull France out of an economic recession. The exposition attracted 61,722 official exhibitors, of whom twenty-five thousand were from outside of France. Admission to the exposition cost forty centimes, at a time when the price of an "economy" plate of meat and vegetables in

2883-483: The United States . European literature underwent a major transformation during the Belle Époque. Literary realism and naturalism achieved new heights. Among the most famous French realist or naturalist authors are Guy de Maupassant and Émile Zola . Realism gradually developed into modernism , which emerged in the 1890s and came to dominate European literature during the Belle Époque's final years and throughout

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2976-472: The interwar years . The Modernist classic In Search of Lost Time was begun by Marcel Proust in 1909, to be published after World War I. The works of German Thomas Mann had a huge impact in France as well, such as Death in Venice , published in 1912. Colette shocked France with the publication of the sexually frank Claudine novel series, and other works. Joris-Karl Huysmans , who came to prominence in

3069-460: The super-rich now began to commission private railway coaches , as exclusivity as well as display was a hallmark of opulent luxury. The years between the Franco-Prussian War and World War I were characterised by unusual political stability in Western and Central Europe . Although tensions between France and Germany persisted as a result of the French loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871,

3162-442: The École des Beaux-Arts , held an exhibition of Japanese printmaking that changed approaches to graphic design, particular posters and book illustration ( Aubrey Beardsley was influenced by a similar exhibit when he visited Paris during the 1890s). Exhibits of African tribal art also captured the imagination of Parisian artists at the turn of the 20th century. Art Nouveau is the most popularly recognised art movement to emerge from

3255-422: The 15th to 18th centuries. Buried in the cemetery near the monastery are the painters Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy , alongside the winner of the 1937 Nobel Prize for Literature , Roger Martin du Gard . Cimiez contains a large Jewish population (around 20%). 43°43′3″N 7°16′30″E  /  43.71750°N 7.27500°E  / 43.71750; 7.27500 This Alpes-Maritimes geographical article

3348-400: The 1850s, it exerted a strong influence on the next generation of poets and artists. The Decadent movement fascinated Parisians, intrigued by Paul Verlaine and above all Arthur Rimbaud , who became the archetypal enfant terrible of France. Rimbaud's Illuminations was published in 1886, and subsequently his other works were also published, influencing Surrealists and Modernists during

3441-466: The Belle Époque and after. Rimbaud's poems were the first works of free verse seen by the French public. Free verse and typographic experimentation also emerged in Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard by Stéphane Mallarmé , anticipating Dada and concrete poetry . Guillaume Apollinaire 's poetry introduced themes and imagery from modern life to readers. Cosmopolis: An International Monthly Review had

3534-528: The Belle Époque appear to be a time of joie de vivre (joy of living) in contrast to 19th century hardships. It was also a period of stability that France enjoyed after the tumult of the early years of the Third Republic , featuring defeat in the Franco-Prussian War , the uprising of the Paris Commune , and the fall of General Georges Ernest Boulanger . The defeat of Boulanger, and the celebrations tied to

3627-466: The Belle Époque was characterised by salon music . This was not considered serious music but, rather, short pieces considered accessible to a general audience. In addition to works for piano solo or violin and piano, the Belle Époque was famous for its large repertory of songs (mélodies, romanze, etc.). The Italians were the greatest proponents of this type of song, its greatest champion being Francesco Paolo Tosti . Though Tosti's songs never completely left

3720-568: The Belle Époque's wonders and entertainments. Poverty remained endemic in Paris's urban slums and rural peasantry for decades after the Belle Époque ended. Conflicts between the government and the Roman Catholic Church were regular during the period. Some of the artistic elite saw the Fin de siècle in a pessimistic light. Those who were able to benefit from the prosperity of the era were drawn towards new forms of light entertainment during

3813-549: The Belle Époque, and the Parisian bourgeoisie, or the successful industrialists called the nouveaux riches , became increasingly influenced by the habits and fads of the city's elite social class, known popularly as Tout-Paris ("all of Paris", or "everyone in Paris"). The Casino de Paris opened in 1890. For Paris's less affluent public, entertainment was provided by cabarets , bistros and music halls . The Moulin Rouge cabaret

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3906-602: The Belle Époque. Among the post-Impressionist movements in Paris were the Nabis , the Salon de la Rose + Croix , the Symbolist movement (also in poetry, music, and visual art), Fauvism , and early Modernism . Between 1900 and 1914, Expressionism took hold of many artists in Paris and Vienna. Early works of Cubism and Abstraction were exhibited. Foreign influences were being strongly felt in Paris as well. The official art school in Paris,

3999-828: The Eiffel Tower on a narrow strip of land along Quai D'Orsay and the banks of the Seine. The houses were arranged by century and by continent, beginning with Garnier's idea of prehistoric dwellings and huts, through the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and other early civilizations, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance to the modern then houses from Japan, and China and the homes of Eskimos, and dwellings from Africa, Japan, China and Lapland, and dwellings of Native Americans, Aztecs and Incas. The dwellings were designed by Garnier with more imagination than strict historical accuracy, but they were picturesque and very popular. The Roman House had

4092-406: The Eiffel Tower. In addition to the architectural displays of France's colonies, the exposition showcased a construction of villages inhabited by natives of the colonies, to be observed by viewers. The colonized people had their daily lives displayed for the exposition visitors, which made some of them uncomfortable. Samba Lawbé Thiam, a jeweler from Senegal who was part of the 1889 Exposition, said

4185-619: The Forest of Dampierre . Other major buildings included the Palaces of Liberal and Fine Arts, each with a richly decorated dome, facing each other across a garden and reflecting pool between the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Machines. Both were designed by Jean-Camille Formigé with a similar plan. Both buildings had modern iron frames abundance of glass, but were completely covered with colorful ceramic tiles and sculpted decoration. The exposition included

4278-510: The French section was the Imperial Diamond , at the time the largest diamond in the world. The Mexican pavilion featured a model of an exotic (for Europeans) Aztec temple, a "combination of archeology, history, architecture, and technology." The presentation of Joseph Farcot 's steam engine, that had already won a prize in 1878. Most of the buildings were on military land or city-owned park land, and they were demolished shortly after

4371-564: The Netherlands, Peru , Portugal, Romania , Russia, Finland and Sweden. The exposition occupied two large sites. The main site was on Champs de Mars on the Left Bank, which had been the parade ground of the Ecole Militaire , and had been occupied by the 1878 Universal Exposition . This was the site of the major part of the exposition, including the Eiffel Tower , Palace of Machines, and

4464-553: The Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, and the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911. Physicist Gabriel Lippmann invented integral imaging , still in use today. In 1890, Vincent van Gogh died. It was during the 1890s that his paintings achieved the admiration denied them during his life; first among other artists, then gradually among the public. Reactions against the ideals of the Impressionists characterised visual arts in Paris during

4557-522: The Palaces of Fine Arts and Liberal Arts. The exposition extended across the Seine to the right bank, to the Trocadero Palace , which had been built on the heights for the 1878 Exposition. The slope from the Trocadero Palace down to the Seine was filled with terrace, fountains, gardens and horticultural exhibits. A separate, smaller site was located on the esplanade of Les Invalides , which hosted

4650-580: The River was chosen, despite the infiltration of river water, since that land was owned by the City of Paris, and the tower could be kept in place after the exposition was completed. The construction lasted two years, two months and five days, and involved five hundred workers, who assembled eighteen thousand iron pieces, each of five meters and carefully numbered, which had been made at a factory in Levallois-Perret ,

4743-542: The artistic avant-garde in the 1860s, did not gain widespread acceptance until after World War I. The academic painting style, associated with the Academy of Art in Paris, remained the most respected style among the public in Paris. Artists who appealed to the Belle Époque public include William-Adolphe Bouguereau , the English Pre-Raphaelite 's John William Waterhouse , and Lord Leighton and his depictions of idyllic Roman scenes. More progressive tastes patronised

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4836-429: The end of the era by the automobile , which was for its first decade a luxurious experiment for the well-heeled. French automobile manufacturers such as Peugeot were already pioneers in carriage manufacturing. Edouard Michelin invented removable pneumatic tires for bicycles and automobiles in the 1890s. The scooter and moped are also Belle Époque inventions. A number of French inventors patented products with

4929-527: The entire width of the exposition site, the land between the avenue de la Bourdonnais and the present avenue de Suffren, and covered 77,000 square meters, with 34,700 square meters of glass windows. At 111 meters, the Gallery covered the longest interior space in the world at the time, It cost 7,430,000 Francs, or seven times the cost of the Eiffel Tower. It was later used again at the 1900 Universal Exposition and then destroyed in 1910. The Gallery of Machines used

5022-541: The era of the French Third Republic , it was a period characterised by optimism , enlightenment, regional peace, economic prosperity, nationalism , colonial expansion , and technological , scientific, and cultural innovations. In this era of France's cultural and artistic climate (particularly in Paris of that time ), the arts markedly flourished, and numerous masterpieces of literature, music, theatre and visual art gained extensive recognition. The Belle Époque

5115-508: The exposition closed. The most notable survivor was the Eiffel Tower , which had been deliberately built on Paris city-owned land, to avoid demolition. The Exhibition included a building by the Paris architect Pierre-Henri Picq. This was an elaborate iron and glass structure decorated with ceramic tiles in a Byzantine-Egyptian-Romanesque style. After the exposition, the building was shipped to Fort-de-France in Martinique and reassembled there,

5208-501: The exposition was intended to be an educational element, but has also historically been framed as an exploitative and patronizing display of colonized people without their consent. This colonial section of the exposition was linked to the Champs de Mars site by a corridor of pavilions along the left Bank. This corridor, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, also featured a display called "The History of Human Habitation", with model houses depicting

5301-478: The exposition, was the tallest structure in the world at the time. A competition to build what was simply called "A tower of three hundred meters" with a base one hundred meters wide, was announced in 1886. It was won by the construction firm of Gustave Eiffel , which had recently built the iron frame of the Statue of Liberty . The Eiffel firm had advance knowledge of the project and, beginning in 1884, had already designed

5394-495: The extraordinary manner in which South American countries are represented. The exposition itself included several large theatres for concerts and spectacles, including one for the dancers of Les Follies Parisiens. A separate theatre presented the music and dance of the French colonies in Indochina. Operas and concerts were also given in the grand hall of the Trocadero Palace. Outside the exposition, other theatres and venues presented

5487-514: The favoured composer of the Belle Époque was Edvard Grieg , who enjoyed the height of his popularity in both Parisian concert and salon life (despite his stance on the accused in the Dreyfus affair). Ravel and Frederick Delius agreed that French music of this time was simply "Edvard Grieg plus the third act of Tristan ". Modern dance began to emerge as a powerful artistic development in theatre. Dancer Loie Fuller appeared at popular venues such as

5580-611: The festival moved to the Place Masséna .) Also here can be found the Cimiez monastery and church, used by the Franciscan friars since the 16th century. The church, with a baroque altar from the seventeenth century and a marble cross from 1477, houses the paintings Pietà ( triptych from 1475), Crucifixion (1512) and Deposition (1515) by the Italian artist Ludovico Brea . On display are also more than 300 documents and works of art from

5673-489: The first film screenings in the world. The Lumière brothers made many other innovations in cinematography . It was during this era that the motion pictures were developed, though these did not become common until after World War I. Although the aeroplane remained a fascinating experiment, France was a leader in aviation . France established the world's first national air force in 1910. Two French inventors, Louis Breguet and Paul Cornu , made independent experiments with

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5766-407: The first flying helicopters in 1907. Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896 while working with phosphorescent materials. His work confirmed and explained earlier observations regarding uranium salts by Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor in 1857. It was during this era that biologists and physicians finally came to understand the germ theory of disease , and the field of bacteriology

5859-453: The following: "We are very humiliated to be exhibited this way, in huts like savages; these straw and mud huts do not give an idea of Senegal. In Senegal ... we have large buildings, railroad stations, railroads; we light them with electricity. The Bureau of Hygiene does not tolerate the construction of this type of hovel. Those [existing ones] that fall into disrepair are not replaced." The incorporation of indigenous colonized individuals in

5952-574: The general French public in everyday society, was a central issue in the controversy and the court trials that followed. Public debate surrounding the Dreyfus Affair grew to an uproar after the publication of J'Accuse…! , an open letter sent to newspapers by prominent novelist Émile Zola , condemning government corruption and French antisemitism. The Dreyfus affair consumed the interest of the French for several years and it received heavy newspaper coverage. European politics saw very few regime changes,

6045-595: The history of domestic architecture, designed with much imagination by Charles Garnier , architect of the Paris Opera . There were twenty-two different entrances to the exposition, around its perimeter. They were open from 8 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. for the major exhibits and palaces, and until 11:00 in the evening for the illuminated greens and restaurants. The major ceremonial entrance was located at Les Invalides consisting of two tall pylons with colorful ornament, like giant candelabras. The Eiffel Tower , built especially for

6138-698: The immediate prewar years were marked by a general armaments competition in Europe. Additionally, this era was one of massive overseas colonialism , known as the New Imperialism . The most famous portion of this imperial expansion was the Scramble for Africa . Most of the great powers (and some minor ones such as Belgium, the Netherlands, or Denmark) became involved in imperialism , building their own overseas empires especially in Africa and Asia. Although there were numerous revolutions, civil wars and colonial insurrections,

6231-427: The island. Today, it houses over 250,000 books and an ethnographic museum, and stands as a tribute to the man it is named after who led the movement to abolish slavery in Martinique . The exposition featured numerous fountains and reflecting pools, particularly in the mall that ran between the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Machines. The largest fountain, near the Eiffel Tower, was entitled "The City of Paris enlightens

6324-532: The locomotives used on this line later saw service on the Chemins de fer du Calvados and the Diégo Suarez Decauville railway . Celebrities and dignitaries from around the world visited the exposition. Thomas Edison , with his wife and daughter, visited the exposition on August 14, 1889, his third day in France, to visit the exhibit where his improved phonograph was being demonstrated. He also ascended to

6417-473: The major exception being Portugal , which experienced a republican revolution in 1910. However, tensions between working-class socialist parties, bourgeois liberal parties and landed or aristocratic conservative parties did increase in many countries, and it has been claimed that profound political instability belied the calm surface of European politics in the era. In fact, militarism and international tensions grew considerably between 1897 and 1914, and

6510-465: The mid-1880s, continued experimenting with themes and styles that would be associated with Symbolism and the Decadent movement , mostly in his book à rebours . André Gide , Anatole France , Alain-Fournier , and Paul Bourget are among France's most popular fiction writers of the era. Among poets, the Symbolists such as Charles Baudelaire remained at the forefront. Although Baudelaire's poetry collection Les Fleurs du mal had been published in

6603-413: The most notable are: the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), two Boer Wars (1880–1881 and 1899–1902), the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), the First Italo-Ethiopian War (1895–1896), the Greco-Turkish War (1897), the Spanish-American War (1898), the Philippine-American War (1899–1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1905), and

6696-644: The nations, there were pavilions of specialized industries, such as the Suez Canal company, the pavilion of the Transatlantic steamship company, the telephone and electricity pavilions, and the Pavilions of gas and oil. The Palace of Food Products was a very large and ornate structure, presenting French food and wine products. One of its highlights was an enormous sculpted wooden barrel from Champagne Mercier that could hold 200,000 bottles of champagne. An unusual display

6789-459: The pavilions of the French colonies. This section featured a large assortment of outdoor restaurants and cafes with foods from Indochina, North Africa, and other cuisines from around the world. The colonial pavilions conveyed the multiculturalism of France's colonies, the largest of them being the Palais Central des Colonies, designed by Stephen Sauvestre , who notably contributed to the design of

6882-717: The period. This largely decorative style ( Jugendstil in central Europe), characterised by its curvilinear forms, and nature-inspired motifs became prominent from the mid-1890s and dominated progressive design throughout much of Europe. Its use in public art in Paris, such as Hector Guimard 's Paris Métro stations, has made it synonymous with the city. Prominent artists in Paris during the Belle Époque included post-Impressionists such as Odilon Redon , Gustave Moreau , Maurice Denis , Pierre Bonnard , Édouard Vuillard , Paul Gauguin , Henri Matisse , Émile Bernard , Henri Rousseau , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (whose reputation improved substantially after his death), Giuseppe Amisani , and

6975-596: The repertoire, salon music generally fell into a period of obscurity. Even as encores, singers were afraid to sing them at serious recitals. In that period, waltzes also flourished. Operettas were also at the peak of their popularity, with composers such as Johann Strauss III , Emmerich Kálmán , and Franz Lehár . Many Belle Époque composers working in Paris are still popular today: Igor Stravinsky , Erik Satie , Claude Debussy , Lili Boulanger , Jules Massenet , César Franck , Camille Saint-Saëns , Gabriel Fauré and his pupil, Maurice Ravel . According to Fauré and Ravel,

7068-457: The second place, for its Colonial Exhibition, which for the first time brings vividly to the appreciation of the Frenchmen that they are masters of lands beyond the sea; thirdly, it will be remembered for its great collection of war material, the most absorbing subject now-a-days, unfortunately, to governments if not to individuals; and fourthly, it will be remembered, and with good cause by many, for

7161-518: The third level. In 1909, when Eiffel's concession formally ended, it was decided to preserve the Tower permanently. A second monumental building on the site was the Galerie des machines , by the architect Ferdinand Dutert and engineer Victor Contamin , which had originally been built for the 1878 Universal Exposition . It was a huge iron and glass structure which contained the industrial displays. It occupied

7254-435: The upper classes. Exotic feathers and furs were more prominently featured in fashion than ever before, as haute couture was invented in Paris, the center of the Belle Époque, where fashion began to move in a yearly cycle. In Paris, restaurants such as Maxim's Paris achieved a new splendor and cachet as places for the rich to parade. Maxim's Paris was arguably the city's most exclusive restaurant. Bohemian lifestyles gained

7347-879: The viewing platform of the Eiffel Tower, where he was met by a group of Sioux Indians who were at the exposition to perform in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He returned to the Eiffel Tower later in his visit (Sept 10), where he was hosted for a lunch in Eiffel's private apartment on the Tower, along with the composer Charles Gounod . Other prominent visitors included the Shah of Persia Nasereddin Shah , Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII ) and his wife, Princess Alexandra ; artists Antoni Gaudi , James McNeill Whistler , Edvard Munch , Rosa Bonheur and Paul Gauguin ; U.S. journalist and diplomat Whitelaw Reid ; author Henry James ; Filipino patriots José Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar ; and inventor Nikola Tesla . A central attraction in

7440-441: The viewing platform, though the elevators were not yet in service, and they had to climb by a narrow winding stairway. By the time the exposition finished, after 173 days, 1,968,287 persons had ascended the tower. When the exposition ended, the tower was used for a time as a weather station. In 1904, Eiffel proposed to the French military that a radio transmitter, designed by the pioneer radio engineer Edouard Branly , be placed on

7533-415: The wealthy centers of cities. One result of this commuting was suburbanisation allowing working-class and upper-class neighbourhoods to be separated by large distances. Meanwhile, the international workers' movement also reorganised itself and reinforced pan-European, class-based identities among the classes whose labour supported the Belle Époque. The most notable transnational socialist organisation

7626-495: The world watching, cut the cable with an axe. The elevator's fall was halted ten feet above the ground by the Otis safety brakes. There were pavilions especially devoted to the telephone and to electricity, and others devoted to maritime navigation, and another, the Palais de Guerre or Palace of War, to developments in military technology, such as naval artillery. Prefabricated metal housing

7719-479: The world with its torch." The fountain was designed by Jean-Camille Formigé , who designed the nearby Palaces of Fine Arts and Liberal Arts. The other major fountain, not far away, was "The Five Parts of the World", illustrating the continents. It was designed by Francis de Saint-Vidal. The Rue de Caire ("Street of Cairo") was a popular attraction designed to recreate the architecture and street life of Cairo . It provided

7812-511: The world, including a Javanese village and recreated houses of villages from Senegal, Benin, and other colonies, with costumed residents. The Pavilions of the participating nations were located along the edge of the Champ de Mars. The Latin American nations had particularly colorful and lavish structures. The Pavilion of Argentina was one of the largest and most decorative pavilions in the exposition. It

7905-523: Was 49,500,000 francs. It was the last of the Paris world's fairs to make a profit. The countries that officially participated in the exposition were Andorra , Argentina , Bolivia , Chile , Costa Rica , the Dominican Republic , Ecuador , the United States , Greece , Guatemala , Haiti , Hawaii , Honduras , India , Japan , Morocco , Mexico , Monaco , Nicaragua , Norway , Paraguay , Persia , Saint-Martin, El Salvador , Serbia , Siam ,

7998-544: Was a popular 19th-century cabaret style that appears in Toulouse-Lautrec's posters from the era. The Eiffel Tower , built to serve as the grand entrance to the 1889 World's Fair held in Paris, became the accustomed symbol of the city, to its inhabitants and to visitors from around the world. Paris hosted another successful World's Fair in 1900, the Exposition Universelle . Paris had been profoundly changed by

8091-401: Was another technology that appeared at the exposition. Gustave Eiffel developed a series of houses with roof and walls of galvanised steel, and wooden interiors, which could be rapidly put together or taken apart, largely for use in French colony of Indochina. Some of them served as ticket booths at the 1889 exposition; one of these old booths, now used as a shelter for hikers, can now be found in

8184-409: Was designed by the French architect Albert Ballu , who won the 1887 design competition. It covered 1,600 square meters, and was fifty meters high, topped by five iron and glass cupolas and surrounded by a frieze of mosaics, ceramics and coloured glass ornaments. After the exposition closed, it was taken apart and shipped to Buenos Aires , where it stood until it was dismantled in 1952. In addition to

8277-404: Was established. Louis Pasteur was perhaps the most famous scientist in France during this time. Pasteur developed pasteurisation and a rabies vaccine . Mathematician and physicist Henri Poincaré made important contributions to pure and applied mathematics, and also published books for the general public on mathematical and scientific subjects. Marie Skłodowska-Curie worked in France, winning

8370-414: Was promoted at the exposition was the safety elevator, developed by a new American company, Otis Elevator . Otis built the elevators carrying passengers up the legs of the Eiffel Tower to the first level. When journalists expressed concern about the safety of the elevators, Otis technicians filled one elevator with three thousand kilograms of lead, simulating passengers, and then, with journalists from around

8463-503: Was so named in retrospect, when it began to be considered a continental European " Golden Age " in contrast to the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. The Belle Époque was a period in which, according to historian R. R. Palmer , " European civilisation achieved its greatest power in global politics, and also exerted its maximum influence upon peoples outside Europe." Two devastating world wars and their aftermath made

8556-692: Was the Second International . Anarchists of different affiliations were active during the period leading up to World War I. Political assassinations and assassination attempts were still rare in France (unlike in Russia) but there were some notable exceptions, including the killing of President Marie François Sadi Carnot in 1894. A bomb was detonated in the Chamber of Deputies of France in 1893, causing injuries but no deaths. Terrorism against civilians also occurred in 1894, perpetrated by Émile Henry , who killed

8649-523: Was the "History of Habitation", designed by Charles Garnier , the architect of the Paris opera house named for him. He was then 61 and had designed very few other major projects since the Opera. Although he had also signed a petition, along with other prominent writers and artists, that denounced the Eiffel Tower as an atrocity, he agreed to design a series of houses to illustrate the history of human habitation. The houses, separated by gardens, were placed close to

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