ABSTRACT
The year was 1603. It is said to have been a daring undertaking, no less so for having been ventured by a king. Wooden planks had to be moved and fastened, access to the construction site had to be secured, and still some involved in the activities of the day fell into the river underneath. Yet Henry IV, King of France and self-appointed master builder of Paris, insisted on being the first person to cross what was in 1603 the fifth and newest bridge spanning the river Seine in its entire length. 1 Thus inaugurated, a year before being fully finished and becoming useful as a traffic thoroughfare, the Pont-Neuf connected the historically dissimilar north, or right (droite) and south, or left (gauche) banks of the city’s main fluvial artery in a more or less direct fashion, touching the Ile de la Cité at its most westerly and marginal point. 2
