History
The rue de la Harpe below its twist to the west at the rue Saint-Séverin, dates from Roman times. Leaving Lutèce's (Roman Paris') main north-south thoroughfare just below the Petit-Pont it turned south to become a roadway parallel to the first known as the "via inferior" ("lower road"). Before it was cut short below the Boulevard Saint-Germain by the construction of the Boulevard Saint-Michel from 1859, it continued under more or less the same name until Paris' former 12th-century ''Porte Saint-Michel" gate at the corner of today's rue Soufflot and Boulevard Saint-Michel. The rue de la Harpe's 'newer' westward twist above the rue Saint-Séverin owes its existence to first a "bac" footbridge crossing the river from its end, then the construction of the first version of the pont Saint-Michel from 1378.
Read more about this topic: Rue De La Harpe
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)