In 1867, seven million people came to see Emperor Napoléon's answer to the challenge of the 1862 London International Exhibition. Eleven years after the first Great Exhibition of 1851, the British had proved to the world that it was no easy matter to repeat a resounding success. Napoleon decided, seven years after the first French exposition universelle, that the French could and should again surpass the efforts of their ancient rival and sometime ally. In a letter addressed to Emperor Napoleon, Eugène Rouher, one of the French commissioners to the London Exhibition of 1862, set forth the first proposal for the 1867 exposition:
Sir: After the closure of the London Exposition, and before the distribution of awards, on the 25 of January, the principal exhibitors manifested their desire for a universal exposition to be opened in Paris in the year 1867. Many among this group will meet together to propose to the Imperial Commission a subscription by which the government may share the costs of this enterprise.1
It was time for the French people to proclaim once again that Great Britain was not the only nation capable of showing off its national resources of industrial and artistic talent. The second British exposition, held in 1862, was a failure for a number of reasons.2 Now was the chance, many French leaders felt, not just to match, but to beat the English at the enterprise of staging expositions.
Visitors would see more than just a bigger and better show in 1867. In its attempt to classify and organize every branch of human activity, and to invest that activity with moral purpose, the second exposition universelle symbolized the encyclopedic ambitions of the Second Empire. Every aspect of the Parisian exposition, from the overall plan for exhibits to the final awarding of medals, would proceed from a single conviction: the bounty of nature could be transformed into universal harmony for the human race.
To spread this message, the Empire enlisted the some of best talent in France to proclaim Paris not only the host of the exposition, but the seat of a new order for the human race. Victor Hugo was commissioned to write the introduction to the Paris Guide for 1867; Theophile Gautier, to introduce visitors to the treasures of the Louvre; Alphonse Viollet-le-Duc to show the proud heritage of the cathedrals of Paris. Hippolyte Taine, Alexandre Dumas fils, Ernest Renan, Sainte-Beuve — all contributed the powers of their pens to promote the glory of La France. The Paris Guide that year was a showcase for the intellectual power of France's writers, just as the great oval palace on the Champ de Mars would be the showcase for her industrialists and artists. It is possible that the Paris Guide was meant as a response of Renan’s earlier criticisms in his stinging 1855 essay, "The Poetry of the Exposition." The literary world was now included in the grand exposition, and some of France’s best writers had their chance to speak to the world.
Perhaps most surprising was the appearance of Victor Hugo, whose long-time opposition of the regime of Napoleon III was well-known. But the opportunity for the grand old man of French literature was too great to resist. In the closing words of his Paris Guide essay, Hugo rang out the most noble aspiration of the age:
Down with war! Let there be alliance! Concord! Unity!..
O France, adieu! Thou art too great to remain merely a fatherland. To become a goddess, thou must be separated from motherhood. Soon thou shalt vanish in a transfiguration.
Thou shalt no longer be France: thou shalt be Humanity! No longer a nation, thou shalt be Ubiquity. Thou art destined to dissolve utterly, radiating outward, transcending thy frontiers. Resign thyself to thy immensity. Adieu, O people! Hail, Humankind! Submit to thy sublime and fateful enlargement, O my country; and as Athens became Greece, as Rome became Christianity, thou, France, become the world! 3
For Hugo, the cosmic drama was unfolding toward a glorious transcendence. It is the mission civilisatrice writ large: France brings the world to her hearth, and the visitors depart with the blessings and faith of Peace and Progress. A Greek city enlarged, by the fulfillment of its destiny, into the voice and conscience of all Greek culture. A Roman city became the vessel of a religion that encompassed even more of the inhabited world. Now France (with Paris as her capital) becomes the seat and agent of a truly world-wide transformation: the emergence of a global civilization under the cultural and spiritual leadership of France.
It was a noble vision of a cosmic human drama. But later witnesses have seen the play from start to finish:
Opening act: the restoration of the Bonaparte line, and a revival of all the old hopes and fears that accompanied the First Empire.
Second act: victory in the Crimean War and the first exposition universelle of 1855, and a confirmation of the hope that the Second Empire could surpass the First.
Third act: the expansion of French industry and finance, and the remaking of the streets of Paris under the aegis of Baron Haussmann.
Fourth act: the first stirrings of serious troubles for France muffled momentarily in the brilliant eclat of the exposition universelle of 1867.
Fifth act: defeat and disgrace.
Hugo was a great visionary, but no prophet. He could not foresee the coming of the Franco-Prussian War, the brutal siege and capitulation of Paris and France, the capture and exile of Napoleon III, the Prussian troops marching down the Champs Elysées, the massacres of the Commune Revolt during what historians call l'année terrible — the terrible year of 1870-71. Dazzled by the brilliance of a revitalized Paris and the splendors of the world's fair, Hugo was temporarily blinded to the old blood rivalries between nations — antagonisms that could not be banished by words or expositions.
In 1867 Paris was a harvest banquet, a rich repast where all the fruits of autumn were there on the Champ de Mars for all to enjoy. But by the end of the fifth act in 1871, Parisians were reduced to trapping rats for food.
PARIS, 1867
In the years before the calamities of l'année terrible, Paris was a marvel to behold. Visitors who had not been to Paris in a decade or more were astonished to experience the dramatic transformations in the look and life of the city. The will of the emperor and the ésprit de géometrie of Baron Haussmann had demolished many a slum, and many venerable but inconveniently situated old buildings; broadened streets and converged them into central focal points; and created an extensive municipal park system. Beneath the streets, gas lines for lighting and heating and new water and sewer pipes for home and industry brought the benefits of technology into the lives of every Parisian. The technological progress and "greatest good for the greatest number," so heralded at the first exposition universelle in 1855, was coming into being at last.