The river, today one of the most beautiful avenues of Paris, was especially vital in the past, as shown by the coat of arms of the city. It represents a sailing ship with the motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (she is tossed by the waves, but does not sink). This alliance made with the river is very old, as proved by the  pirogues discovered in Bercy district. They were built in the 4th millennium BC and can be seen at the Carnavalet museum.
The Pillar of the Boatmen (pilier des Nautes) testifies as well how much powerful was the guild of the boatmen, also merchants travelling upstream and downstream Lutecia. This votive monument was discovered below Notre-Dame cathedral and is now displayed in the Cluny museum. Boatmen played a major role in the development of Lutetia, chief settlement of the Parisii, and becoming Paris in the 5^thcentury.

Atget's photos show how much active were the riverbanks with ships, floating cranes, tugboats and also small trades like mattress carders and dog shearers. Riverbanks so much different with the ones today, where many barges are now equipped to drink, eat and dance. Equipped for the pleasure of homo festivus, a new species invented by the French essayist Philippe Muray, observing our modern world with criticism. Whatever, walking along the Seine river from Pont Mirabeau to Pont Marie will give the opportunity to admire many architectural masterpieces in a superb set of the Seine...

Pont-Mirabeau

Mirabeau Bridge is also a poem written by  Guillaume Apollinaire in 1912 when his love affair with MarieLaurencin ended.
He was living not far, in the 16th district,  which was very different from the one that we know today, as per the description in his book A Stroller along Both Banks (Le Flâneur des deux rives). At the beginning of the 20th century, the district of Auteuil was quite picturesque; probably close to the one known  also by the writer Balzac when he settled in rue Raynouard in 1840.  Apollinaire depicts Auteuil with some melancholy due to his sad love affair and because of the First World War.  During the war, he  got a shell splinter in the head and had to undergo a trepanning in Auteuil in May 1916 at the clinic Villa Molière.
(I get goose bumps, I was born in that same clinic which no longer exists ... and aside my desk is a lithograph of MarieLaurencin ...).

The bridge is an allegory of Paris and of the river. The four statues represent the City of Paris, Navigation, Commerce and Abundance.

Let’s now continue along port de Javel towards pont de Grenelle.

Port de Javel / Quai André Citroën/ Ile aux Cygnes

Parc and quai André Citroën are named after the former car factory where Tractions, 2CVs and DS were manufactured between 1919 and 1976.
Prior to the Citroën factory, in the same neighborhood, there was a chemical factory producing bleach (eau de Javel) since 1777.
Besides these names, nothing is left from the intensive industrial activity in this district. Difficult to imagine that just after pont de Grenelle, the Jean-François Cail plant was producing railway locomotives and other equipment. The plant was later replaced in 1909 by the Vel' d'Hiv', an indoor velodrome, of sinister memory with the mass arrest of Jews in July 1942. It was demolished in 1959.

Today, the towers of Front de Seine have replaced the industrial plants, the houses and the slum where lived the Citroën foreign workers. One can get an idea of the atmosphere at that time with the novel by Leo Malet, master of crime fiction in post war Paris. (Unfortunately, Les Eaux Troubles de Javel, the tenth book of his New Mysteries of Paris has not been translated in English).
On top of giving the atmosphere of that time, the book also learned me the origin of the name Citroën. Roelof Jacob, a seller of lemons was André Citroën's grandfather. With the Napoleonic code civil to be applied in Holland when Napoleon took over this country in 1810, Roelof, as an askenazi jew, had to choose a name. He chose quite naturally Citroen which means lemon in dutch ...

Arrived at the end of the island, we reach the pont de Bir-Hakeim, full with tourists going to the Eiffel Tower and with girls photographed at the foot of the pillars. The bridge is quite captivating, even more the night with its lamps all lit and the aerial metro.
Let's now walk on the right bank along the Trocadero gardens. Between Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower, the pont d'Iena is packed with tourists and street vendors.

Next is the pont de l'Alma with its famous zouave, now the reference when the Seine is flooded. The Zouave, more commonly known as the Zouzou, is left alone. When the bridge was completely rebuilt, the three other statues where removed: The skirmisher is now in Vincennes, the grenadier in Dijon and the artilleryman at la Fère.

Bateaux-Mouches

When Atget photographed the landing stage of bateau mouche in 1900, these water buses were only used as simple means of transport. These boats were already used since 1862 by the city of Lyon where they were manufactured. Their name Mouche (fly) has nothing to do with the insect.  It comes from the  name of the district of Lyon were they were manufactured. They became operational in Paris for the  1867 Exhibition. Thirty boats , specifically ordered for the event were routed to Paris via the Saone river, the Burgundy canal,  the Yonne and finally the Seine river. After the Exhibition, they were kept to be used as simple means of transport.

The one who was able to fly high is Jean Bruel! After the World War II, he had the fabulous idea to buy one of the last original bateaux mouches. He registered the trademark Bateaux-Mouches and invented the concept of Seine boat-tours via the most beautiful avenuein Paris...

Pont Alexandre III

The 1867 Exhibition let us indirectly the Bateaux-Mouches,
the 1889 Exhibition let us the symbol of Paris, the Eiffel Tower.
The 1900 Exhibition let splendid Art Nouveau buildings, such as:
the Grand Palais, easily recognisable by its large glass and metal roof.
The Petit Palais, an other architecture jewel with the Museum of Fine Arts (Go there, the admission to the permanent collection is free! And the Café is located in a charming garden).

And in the same axis of these buildings, the pont Alexandre III, in honour of Nicolas II’s father.

This bridge is one of my favorite. It is so refined, down to the finest detail: the grace of the movement outlined by the statues, the smooth line of the street lamps marking the bridge curvature, the glass reeds seemingly caught by the Russian winter freeze. An impressive airy work of art leading us to forget the technical achievement of this single arch bridge.
The extreme pressure exerted by the low single arch metal bridge required construction of massive stone abutments. Today a night club can be found in the right bank abutment, as well a restaurant with a terrace in the left bank abutment.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old one, I want to claim for a movement of cutting away the love locks. To me they rather sound symbols of insane possessive love, on top of degrading the bridges. The ones found at pont Alexandre III are especially heart breaking to me!

Let's cross the bridge toward the left bank and walk along quai d’Orsay towards pont de la Concorde.

Port des Invalides

Atget’s photos show active banks and quays. Today if some barges can still be seen in the middle of boats crowded with tourists, the quays are now used  for leisure and by restaurant terraces. Only some rusted winch leftover are reminding us the former activity of Parisian ports.

We are now walking towards pont de la Concorde, built during the French Revolution partially with stones of the Bastille prison.

From quai d’Orsay, we can see on the right the Hôtel des Invalides. Under  the golden dome are the remains of Napoleon. A little bit further on the left, we now can see Place de la Concorde.

Port de Solférino - Piscine Deligny

Boat wash and public bath facilities could also be seen along the active ports.
The famous Deligny floating swimming pool could be seen along quai Anatole France until it sank into the river in 1993. In 1785, there was a public bath facility, where later in 1801 Deligny was teaching swimming lessons. Then the public bath was replaced later by a floating swimming pool built over twelve barges. These barges were initally used in 1840 to bring back the Napoleon's ashes from  from Rouen where they arrived from Sainte-Hélène.
During the 20th century, the swimming pool equipped with a solarium and a bar restaurant was quite trendy. It was also quite a source of scandal when the first sunbath topless could be seen right in front of the National Assembly.
In 1993, after been hit by a barge, the swimming pool sank to the bottom of the river in less than one hour.

We are now at the foot of the Orsay Museum, installed in the former station of Paris-Orleans railway. Hopefully this 1900 beautiful building, a perfect blend of metal structure and cut stone, was saved from destruction. Under the high glass ceiling, the platforms were replaced by a central nave with sculptures  that take us today on a different journey, one of the European art from mid 19th to beginning of 20th.

Quai Voltaire - Booksellers

We are now quai Voltaire, quite a symbol of literature. Not only because many writers lived there, starting with Voltaire. This is also where we start to see the bouquinistes‘ dark green bookstalls.These second-hand booksellers form a long and picturesque line between quai Voltaire and quai de la Tournelle on the left bank and between Pont-Neuf and Pont Marie on the right bank.
The book lovers will find history books, editions of classical texts and nice editions like la Pléiade on the left bank. On the other bank, they will find comic books near la Mégisserie, books on movies on quai de Gesvre and thrillers around Hôtel de Ville.

We have now arrived near pont des Arts which links the Louvre and the Institute of France.

Quai de Conti - Pont des Arts

Here I start singing Matthieu Chedid’s song:

On the Pont des Arts,
My heart is shaky,
Just below the surface,
The air is so good,

This air so fresh,
I take it in,
Our reflections perched,
Upon this bridge,

We love like that, the Seine and I

Though I cannot be sure that the air is so good and so fresh, I definitively love the place! One's heart can be really shaky in front of the beautiful view on all sides. I like the view over Pont-Neuf embracing the Ile de la Cité.

The metal footbridge of Pont des Arts shown on Atget's photo was almost identically rebuilt in 1984 after it collapsed in 1979.

Love can be heavy... More than 40 tons of love locks fastened to Pont des Arts were cutoff in 2015! Love is now transparent with the new padlock-proof glass panels installed on the bridge... but love is obstinate and love locks still appear here and there ...

I saw once a fisherman, like the ones on Atget's photo; but he was simply acting... The spot is very popular with the filmmakers. 

Pont-Neuf - Port de Conti

I always enjoy looking at the stone heads, all different, along the parapet of the oldest bridge in Paris: heads of satyrs, fauns and divinities ... heads of visitors from the past, with grinning and smirking faces at our new restless world.

In 1550 when it was planned to connect the Louvre district with the faubourg Saint-Germain., already four bridges were linking IIe de la Cité with the two banks. Though king Henri III laid the first stone in 1578, the bridge was not completed until 1606 due to the French wars of religion and to the lack of treasury. This new bridge, the largest and the longest of its time was also the first bridge to be houseless and to get the first pavements in Paris.

Soon, the bridge attracted all kinds of people like merchants, jugglers, pickpockets, people selling universal panaceas and other ointments, tooth pullers ... It also attracted peddlers selling books and pamphlets, the ancestors of bouquinistes.

Compared with the photo taken by Atget, no change; and an artist is still standing at the foot of the bridge, drawing in situ the beautiful view.

Pont-Neuf - Quai des Grands Augustins

The famous restaurant Lapérouse , at nr 51,quai des Grands Augustins, has been a legendary place for a long time. A beautiful mansion for upper class people. Compared to prices rather sky high, the ceilings are low; Men wearing a top hat were frequently banging their head against the low door's frame. They were banging their head (se taper la tête) and have a good meal. In old French slang, la cloche is the head. And this gave the old French expression se taper la cloche meaning to have a nice diner...
In the late 19th century, this was also a preferred place for the illegitimate affairs ... this could be done with the utmost discretion in the private salons. There are still these small private dining rooms upstairs, where the waiters knock at the door before entering, as other than food could be consumed ...The scratched-on mirrors keep also the memory of the women testing the authenticity of the diamonds received from their lovers ...

Pont-Neuf - Vert Galant

Pont-Neuf - Place Dauphine

Initially, this square initiated by King Henri IV was a triangle of thirty two identical town houses. The sense of architectural harmony with all the same houses built in stone and brick was later altered by the uncontrolled addition of new floors. The two pavilions that are facing the Pont Neuf can provide an idea of this harmony, looking similar to Place des Vosges, also initiated by King Henri IV.

It was especially modified in 1874 with the destruction of the houses along rue Harlay, in order to clear the space in front of the Court.