Boulevards of Paris

The grands boulevardsThe Grands Boulevards are the quintessence of the Parisian boulevards. Their origin is a plan initiated by Louis XIV's minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert in the late 1660s, of comprehensive reforms and remodeling of Paris. Aside of the demilitarization of the former city walls and their replacement with a ring of Grand Boulevards, started in 1670, the plan included the establishment of the Lieutenant général de police in 1667; the destruction of all gates of the ancient Wall of Philip II Augustus on the left bank, started in 1673 and completed in 1783; the unification of professional regulations in the city and its outskirts (French: faubourgs) in 1673; the termination of lingering feudal authority over criminal justice in a number of mostly ecclesiastical enclaves that was transferred to the king's Grand Châtelet in 1674; and the erection or refurbishment of monumental gates on key intersections, namely the Porte Saint-Antoine in 1671, the , the Porte Saint-Denis in 1672-1673, the Porte Saint-Martin in 1674, and a massive triumphal arch to be erected on what is now the Place de la Nation, started in the 1670s but abandoned around 1680 and whose unfinished struc