The residents of the right bank neighborhoods and western sector of Paris were most negatively impacted by the construction. The narrow streets and medieval town character were replaced by wide metropolitan boulevards and avenues. The changes intensified the communication among Parisians of all classes as enclosed localities lost their distinct community identities. The Bastille was demolished, resulting in the 1860s in an urgent movement to preserve many neighborhood traditions as possible, and to capture the local architecture in photographs before it was too late (the photographic snapshot was invented during the 1880s).

 

By the 1870s, hundreds of miles of old streets had been altered, widened, straightened and connected with new avenues. By the late 19th century, significant improvements in urban planning and in public health were finally completed.

 

The increasing movement of lower class workers and middle class entrepreneurs into Paris paralleled the exploding increase in the shipping of raw materials to the factories of the city and its suburbs, as well as the commerce of finished products into markets in the city and out into the countryside. The boom in real estate and commerce shifted vast sums of money into the hands of entrepreneurs who increasingly dominated society and overpowered any competition.

 

The rapid expansion of commercial traffic by river and rail transformed the landscape. Heavily loaded barges and their accompanying coal-powered tugboats polluted and congested the River Seine. Huge train yards and coal yards were built in and near the city, irreparably scarring the land. Lower class workers flocked to the docks and the yards to service and power the trains and barges, and to handle the loading and unloading of copious quantities of livestock, tools, food, textiles, and other products.

 

Social class traditionally stratified the urbanites of Paris and their agricultural neighbors, limiting and determining their social interactions and travel behaviors.

 

During the 18th century, wealthy, upper class tourists, who could obtain required passports and identity papers, had travelled by horse drawn carriage across France; they had rolled across the country on excellently maintained roads, principally to see rural peasants in their quaint regional costumes. By the early 19th century, upper class tourists to and from other cities traveled more quickly via railways and had little desire to visit rural communities. Urban areas were regarded as sophisticated and central to modern life, while villages were considered miserable and squalid. Parisians journeyed to the seashore and the forest of Fountainbleau; upper class and middle class travelers even dressed in different, and appropriate costumes for their sojourns.

 

Travel and tourism in France increased substantially during the 19th century, stimulated by the expanding railway system, and by the increasing time and money available to the middle class and lower class for leisure activities. By the end of the 19th century, some urbanites attitudes reverted and rural life was again perceived as healthier and more moral, and was seen as a necessary remedy to urban civilization. City dwellers were acknowledged as cultured, but highly pressured to improve their financial and social positions.

 

People of all classes visited the countryside; the upper class and middle class bought property or built country homes near the forest of Fountainbleau to spend their leisure hours eating, boating, swimming, walking, reading, socializing, and enjoying their private ornamental gardens. Impressionist painters Claude Monet (1840-1926), Alfred Sisley (1939-1899), and Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) were avid boaters; Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) even gave up painting for yachting in his later years. Following the practice of Barbizon painters like Charles Francois Daubigny (1817-1878), many of the Impressionists rented or purchased studio-boats. These studio-boats enabled them to paint landscapes while on the water, transport materials easily from one location to another, while providing a convenient place for rest and social visits. Monet also became a fanatical gardener, constructing elaborate mini-landscapes to entertain in which also served as painting subjects. He built hothouse studios across his estate.

 

Guidebooks for tourists of all social classes proliferated, providing information on destination locations, village fairs, and scenic walks to visit gardens, explore ruins, and view chateaus. Rural tourism became a social equalizer and brought classes in contact with each other as never before. The parts of the countryside visited by city dwellers were increasingly viewed as the preferred place for exercising sexual freedom, committing immoral acts, and indulging in intrigue. Sexual, homicidal and financial vices became more common in the Paris suburbs and adjoining rural areas. Some critics blamed railways and rural tourism for degrading French society, diminishing political solidarity, and weakening family bonds.

 

Artists were generally considered part of the middle class. In 1880, there were nearly 3200 artists represented at the Paris Salon. In 1899, a popular street and trade directory listed over 2500 fine arts practitioners in Paris. Students seeking apprenticeship in a master's studio or school presented a letter of recommendation or an example of their work as well as paid an entry fee called la bienvenue (the welcome). Artists were required to pay a monthly fee from 12 to 25 francs to the common fund of the studio to pay teachers and models, and to cover the expenses of materials and cleaning supplies.