Pont-Neuf is the widest and busiest bridge in Paris, spanning the Seine from the Île de la Cité toward both banks. Unlike the bridges covered with houses and workshops, in 1648 it offers a surface open to the sky.
| Type | Place (bridge) |
| Era | 1648–1649, the Fronde |
| Spanish entry | Pont-Neuf |
Role in the Fronde
Itinerant merchants, charlatans, puppeteers, pamphlet sellers and spies of every side mingle on the bridge beneath the equestrian statue of Henry IV, whose memory every party seeking legitimacy invokes.
It is the thermometer of Paris’s popular mood: when the crowd blocks it, the city burns; when traffic flows, the Cardinal breathes. The mazarinades, pamphlets against Mazarin, are sold and read aloud on its parapets. Agents of Francisco de Cominges watch it discreetly, while the Duc de Beaufort’s men cross it openly to show they have no fear.
Open questions
- What happened on the bridge in the tensest days of winter 1649 is not clear; only a rumor that something took place between its arches, over the dark water.
See also
- Cour des Miracles: refuge of the marginal people who frequent the underside of the bridge.
- Holy Monday: gesta event tied to movement in besieged Paris.