Henri Maréchal - L'éclairage à Paris - 1894

HENRI MARÉCHAL — THE ILLUMINATION OF PARIS — Paris, Baudry, 1894 — ORIGINAL EDITION

Author: Henri Maréchal (1859–?), Engineer of Bridges and Roads and of the Municipal Service of the City of Paris
Full title: Lighting in Paris. Technical study of the various modes of lighting employed in Paris on the public thoroughfares, in promenades and gardens, in monuments, stations, theaters, large department stores, etc., and in private houses. Gas, Electricity, Petroleum, Oil, etc. Factories and central stations, pipelines and lighting apparatus, administrative and commercial organization, reports of the companies with the city, treaties and conventions, illumination of public roads, calculation and cost price
Publisher: Librairie Polytechnique Baudry et Cᵢₑ, 15 rue des Saints-Pères, Paris — House in Liège, 7 rue des Dominicains
Date: 1894
Collation: VIII + 496 pages, 211 figures in the text. 19 CM X 28 CM
Binding: Original publisher cloth binding in Bordeaux/plum cloth, title and author’s name stamped in gold on the front board and spine, gold filet border on the boards, gold roulette at the head and tail of the spine — publisher’s binding from the period in excellent condition, no restoration.
Interior: Well-preserved paper, very fresh for 131 years. The 211 engravings in the text are in excellent condition, notably including detailed plans of Paris showing lighting networks by sector (Compagnie Parisienne du Gaz, Edison sector, Champs-Élysées, Rive Gauche, etc.) and precise technical schematics of flasks, dynamos, cables, junction boxes, underground conduits.

Henri Maréchal, engineer of Bridges and Roads assigned to the Municipal Service of the City of Paris, writes this work at a turning point in the history of urban lighting: Paris is transitioning from gas to electricity. (Cairn.info)
This volume is an irreplaceable primary source on Paris in the Belle Époque, covering simultaneously:
The gas: production in flasks, purification, distribution by pipelines, meters, the Compagnie Parisienne du Gaz with its plants at La Villette, Landy, Ivry, Passy, Saint-Mandé — with maps of the distribution perimeters.
Electricity: the revolution in progress — Edison sector (Opéra square), Champs-Élysées sector, Marcel-Deprez dynamos, Gramme, underground cables, central stations of Faubourg Saint-Denis — with detailed technical diagrams and Paris maps indicating all electrical sectors.
Petroleum and oil: lighting spaces not yet connected to networks.
Administrative organization: treaties between the City of Paris and concessionary companies, calculation of cost price, conventions.
The two large city maps off-text are particularly remarkable: one shows the perimeters of the gas plants of the Compagnie Parisienne, the other the electrical sectors with all central stations — a cartographic document of first importance for the history of Parisian infrastructure.

Technical reference work, rare in good publisher’s binding, signed by a municipal engineer with access to internal data of concessionary companies. Sought after by historians of Paris, collectors of the history of technology, and enthusiasts of Parisian cartography.

Keywords: Lighting Paris · gas · electricity · 1894 · Baudry · engineer · Ponts et Chaussées · Belle Époque · technical history · Paris cartography · Edison · Compagnie Parisienne du Gaz · rare book · sciences · urban planning · infrastructure