Square des Batignolles

The Square des Batignolles features a prominent bronze bust of poet Léon Dierx, set within an English-style garden of winding paths and a small lake. Created in eighteen sixty-two by order of Napoleon the Third and engineer Adolphe Alphand, this park served as the center of a new residential district meant to mimic the lush aesthetic of London’s green spaces. The poet Paul Verlaine lived nearby and often brought his young son here, once getting lost in the crowd during the eighteen seventy-one Commune.