Porte de Saint-Mandé de Paris

The Porte de Saint-Mandé appears as a broad, open transit intersection where the bustling Boulevard Périphérique passes beneath the city streets. It marks the site of one of the original fortified gates in the Thiers wall, which encircled Paris during the mid-nineteenth century. In eighteen ninety-four, a young anarchist named Émile Henry walked to the nearby Café Terminus, carrying a bomb that shattered the quiet of the neighborhood. The city wall is gone, but the gate remains a busy threshold for commuters.