Pont Royal

The Pont Royal stands as the third oldest bridge in Paris, though its survival was far from guaranteed. Before this elegant stone structure was commissioned by King Louis XIV in the late seventeenth century, the site was occupied by a wooden crossing known as the Pont Rouge. This previous bridge faced a relentless series of disasters, including fires and repeated destruction by the Seine’s flooding. The misery of the wooden bridge was so constant that the famous letter writer Madame de Sévigné once documented the dramatic loss of eight of its arches during a single flood in sixteen eighty-four.