Fulgence Bienvenüe (; 27 January 1852 – 3 August 1936) was a noted French

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

, best known for his role in the construction of the

Paris Métro The Paris Métro (french: Métro de Paris ; short for Métropolitain ) is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the Paris, city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform ar ...

, and has been called "Le Père du Métro" (Father of the Metro). A native of

Uzel Uzel (; or Uzel-près-l'Oust) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. It is about west-northwest of Rennes and north-northwest of Loudéac. The old school, in the centre of Uzel, was the scene of tor ...

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

, and the son of a notary, in 1872 Bienvenüe graduated from the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

as a civil engineer and the same year he began working for the Department of Bridges and Roads at

Alençon Alençon (, , ; nrf, Alençoun) is a commune in Normandy, France, capital of the Orne department. It is situated west of Paris. Alençon belongs to the intercommunality of Alençon (with 52,000 people). History The name of Alençon is firs ...

. His first assignment was the construction of new railway lines in the

Mayenne Mayenne () is a landlocked department in northwest France named after the river Mayenne. Mayenne is part of the administrative region of Pays de la Loire and is surrounded by the departments of Manche, Orne, Sarthe, Maine-et-Loire, and Ille-et ...

area, in the course of which his left arm had to be amputated after being crushed in a construction accident. In 1886, Bienvenüe moved on to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

to design and supervise the construction of aqueducts for the city, drawing water from the rivers

Aube Aube () is a French department in the Grand Est region of north-eastern France. As with sixty departments in France, this department is named after a river: the Aube. With 310,242 inhabitants (2019),Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...

. Next, he built a

cable railway Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

near the

Place de la République The Place de la République (known as the Place du Château d'Eau until 1879) is a square in Paris, located on the border between the 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondissements. The square has an area of .Warner, p. 250 Named after the First, Second a ...

and created the park of

Buttes-Chaumont The Parc des Buttes Chaumont () is a public park situated in northeastern Paris, France, in the 19th arrondissement. Occupying , it is the fifth-largest park in Paris, after the Bois de Vincennes, Bois de Boulogne, Parc de la Villette and Tuiler ...

. In 1891, he was appointed as Engineer-in-Chief for Bridges and Roads, the most prestigious engineering job in France. Paris city officials selected Bienvenüe to become chief engineer for the Paris Métro in 1896. He designed a special way of building new tunnels which allowed the swift repaving of the roads above; this involved (among other things) building the crown of the tunnel first and the floor last, the reverse of the usual method at that time. Bienvenüe has the credit for the mostly swift and relatively uneventful construction of the Métro through the difficult and heterogenous Parisian soils and rocks. He came up with the idea of freezing wet and unstable soil in order to permit the drilling of tunnels. He was to supervise the Paris Metro construction for more than three decades, finally retiring on 6 December 1932. Bienvenüe's construction of the Métro was widely praised and has been described admiringly as a work "worthy of the Romans". He eventually accumulated many honors for his engineering accomplishments, including the ''Grand Prix Berger'' of the Academy of Arts and Sciences (1909) and the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor (1929). On 30 June 1933, the Avenue du Maine station on the Metro was renamed Bienvenüe in his honor. The naming ceremony took place in his presence; there was a last-minute scramble to repaint the station's new nameboards when it was discovered that the unusual diaeresis in his name had been omitted, making it the French word for "welcome". In 1942 the station was linked to the adjacent Montparnasse station, forming a single station named Montparnasse-Bienvenüe. Bienvenüe was buried in 1936 at the

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figures ...

, Paris. high school in

Loudéac Loudéac (; ; Gallo: ''Loudia'') is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department, Brittany, northwestern France. Geography Climate Loudéac has a oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification ''Cfb''). The average annual temperature in Loudéa ...

is named after Bienvenüe.

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1852 births 1936 deaths People from Côtes-d'Armor French civil engineers École Polytechnique alumni École des Ponts ParisTech alumni Corps des ponts Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery French amputees Paris Métro Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur {{France-engineer-stub

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References

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