La Bievre - the lost stream of Paris

La Bievre is being rediscovered! La Bievre springs from the Chartreuse mountains south of Paris and runs west, then enters Paris meandering, splitting into two creeks, winding it's way past the place d'Italie uniting at Monge and Mouffetard, until reaching the Seine, after a humble 25 mile run, near the gare d'Austerlitz.

Today la Bievre is confined to an underground sewer system. If Paris owes it's emplacement geographique to a river, it is not la Seine -- it is la Bievre. Bievre means beaver in English, and in former times beavers still lived and labored in the river.

The gaullois settled on it's banks long before the conquering parisii tribe occupied the ile de la cité. The clean clear water from the Bievre was the source of life for the Romans who built Lutetia on the rive gauche 2000 some years ago.

They were the first to dam la Bievre near Rungis and construct an acqueduct feeding their baths and fountains with fresh, clean running water. In the XVII century Marie de Medicis restored the aqueduct destroyed by vandals and war to feed her park's fountains and deliver fresh water to Saint Germain des pres.

In the meantime the deminishing water of la Bievre was abused by all those who needed water for tanning, dying, washing and the driving wheels of water-powered cereal mills. It was used and abused without any regard of its frail ecosystem or, indeed, posterity. It became a sewer. It ran through Paris smelling of filth, and caused the pest and other diseases. During the 20th century la Bievre was expedited underground.

Now a hundred associations clamor its revival. In honor of Paris and humanity.

If you wish to take an interesting walk through Paris that has no other reason than being an intellectual assesment of the geography and history, start at the parc Kellerman in the XIII arrondissement. The Bievre ran here already split in two creeks. It was later canalized. You walk straight north through a maze of ugly modern and not so modern buildings until you reach the rue Tolbiac. You take a left and than another left on the rue Bobillot, all the way to place Rungis. Then you turn right and go north until you reach the boulevard Auguste Blanqui trying to find the Square Le Gall where the above photograph was taken.

The Bievre enters a strange world where the construction of Haussman architecture obstructed it's way but there is still a gap between buildings on 14 boulevard d'Arago and further on, 14 boulevard Port Royal. The two streams united at rue Monge and Rue Claude Bernard. If you follow its path down to the Jardin des Plantes, where a stretch of its stream will be brought up soon, you can see by the decline of the geography, how this small narrow river, raped by history and human exploitation, regains its course, to run into the Seine just next to the pont d'Austerlitz. It's a miracle anyone cared and it's a miracle that after so many years this vital river suddenly surfaces like the ultimate truth behind the making of Paris.