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| Turgot-Bretez Map, 1739 |
Paris is one of the settings in Refiner’s Fire, and while researching
the city, I came across the fascinating video below that
recreates the background sounds of the 18th century city. It was created
by French musicologist Mylène Pardoen for the Bretez Project, which was
presented at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in 2015. In addition to
recording historically accurate sounds, Pardoen worked with experts to
carefully map out the old streets of Paris and combine the audio with the
city’s historical context to create a 3-D rendering based on one of the best
maps of the day, the Turgot-Bretez Map of 1739. Turgot was the provost of Paris
merchants who commissioned the map, and Bretez was the engineer who directed
the survey of the city.
Pardoen explains that they chose
the Grand Châtelet district between the Pont au Change and Pont Notre Dame
bridges because in the 18th century 80% of Paris’ background noise
was concentrated there. Since there was no gas or electricity available back
then, many artisans of luxury items, such as jewelers, engravers, and furriers
established shops in this district to take advantage of the greater natural
light along the river. The tall houses and narrow streets on either side of the
bridges captured the sounds, creating a dense sound environment.
The soundscape is based on
documents such as Le Tableau de Paris,
published in 1781 by Louis-Sebastien Mercier and on works like those of Arlette
Farge, who specialized on the history of the 18th century; Alain Corbin, who researched
the history of the senses; and Youri Carbonnier, a recognized authority on
houses built on bridges.
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| Joust of Mariners in Front of the Pont, Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet |
In the video you’ll hear 70 sonic
tableaux, many created by trades such as shopkeepers, craftsmen, and boatmen.
You’ll recognize the rhythmic whoosh of air as a
blacksmith in his shop in a Paris alleyway stokes his fire with a bellows; roosters crowing in the
distance and pigs squealing as they’re driven to market; the babble of
conversation at the street markets; carriages rolling along cobbled streets, punctuated by the clopping of the horses’ hooves; the rush of the Seine, and the washerwomen working under the arches of
the bridge; the hum of flies at the fishmongers’ stalls; the noise of the loom in
the woolen mill that stood at one end of the Pont au Change; the scraping of
hides in the tanneries on Rue de la Pelleterie; and type being set at the print
shop on Rue de Gesvres. Overhead are the cries of the seagulls drawn to the
city’s waste heaps. You’ll also be able to discern how sounds echo beneath
bridges and in covered passageways and the effect produced by the varying heights
and construction materials of the buildings.
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| View of Paris from the Pont Neuf, Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet |
According to Pardoen,
most of the sounds are natural, with machine noises, for example, being
recorded using authentic antique devices. However, the sound of the Notre Dame
pump, which drew water from the Seine, had to be artificially recreated.
Pardoen recorded an old-fashioned water mill and reworked the sound based on
the estimated size of the pump’s vanes. “It is a
research project that will continue to evolve,” Pardoen says. “The next step
will be to include the machines and devices that are now missing from the
image, and allow the ‘audience’ to stroll freely through the streets of the
neighborhood.”
One thing I’d really love to have is a version that
has English captions. That would really help non-French speakers like me in
doing research.
I’d love to hear your reaction.
What did you like best about the video, and what do you think of the sounds,
the changing scenes? Did it help you to visualize a distant time and place in a
new way? Please share your feedback!
