Upon entering Lyon in 1788 , Mr C*** de T***, secretary to the king, decried the city’s narrow, ill-paved, and winding streets. In doing so he was intoning a well-known refrain. A bluish strip, a pale “sample of the sky,” suggested to him that the busy citizens feared air and light. Luckily, he was soon able to escape to the new Saint-Clair quarter, where he discovered a magnificent row of tall houses facing a superb promenade with a grand panorama looking eastward across the Rhône. Earlier in the decade, François de la Rochefoucauld, who, despite his elevated origins, was not...

Leaving one’s family, contacts, and daily landmarks may be painful, but it is also likely to be swift. In many cases it is difficult to explain, for the individual in question and, a fortiori, for historians. On the other hand, the process of choosing a new city, weaving the relationships that will make it home, and making the many decisions that will shape a life in a new environment generally take much longer and demand greater reflection. It is also likely to be better documented. This first chapter locates some of the key impulses behind Jean-Antoine Morand’s decision to settle...

The construction of a new quarter in Lyon was the making of Jean-Antoine Morand and Antoinette Levet. The Saint-Clair development, on the northeastern edge of the Presqu’île, brought them wealth. It also familiarized them with the social and cultural trends behind large-scale real estate ventures, the networks of forces indispensable to such projects, and the range of obstacles likely to stand in the way of success. By the mid-1760s, Morand was in a position to formulate the grand plan that stood at the centre of his career. In the following pages, we will explore the key parameters of this project...

As early as 1761 , that is, soon after his return to Lyon from Parma and before the full potential of the Saint-Clair venture had become clear, Morand was already scouting lands directly across the Rhône from the new quarter. Although he was there on behalf of a client, we know that he was also, at the time, seeking opportunities beyond private architectural commissions.⁴ In 1763, for instance, he drew plans for a canal to ship building stones to Lyon and discussed a project of “private public garden” west of Paris.⁵ When the sale of his first Saint-Clair house allowed...

The development of the Rhône’s left bank had many implications for Lyon’s elite, which perhaps justified much of the resistance encountered by Morand. All house owners legitimately feared the impact of a large residential and commercial venture on existing real estate prices. Economic and demographic conditions were not only volatile but also hardly known and certainly poorly understood. This meant that few people would have had solid reasons to believe that further economic and demographic growth would likely justify the planned expansion of the city. They also knew that many religious institutions could be led to sell part of their...

The successful bridging of a large and powerful river such as the Rhône, that “monstre indomptable,” was a remarkable achievement.² Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that Morand managed this feat on schedule, within budget, and to standards that proved remarkably sound. Before the industrial age, such efficacy was rare enough to deserve attention. Although the group of investors assembled by Morand late in 1767 had greater plans, the company formally constituted in March 1772 was concerned exclusively with the construction and exploitation of a bridge across the Rhône. The company consisted of Morand and ten associates, who were...

In the spring of 1778 Morand took another step along the path of bourgeois respectability, buying a substantial estate in the Beaujolais, some twenty kilometres north of the city. The count de Laurencin, who would soon try to revive the Perrache project, sold him the Machy estate for the impressive sum of 120,000 lt. Significantly, this property never seems to have acquired a place in his life, though for his son, Antoine, it became central. The purchase was made just as Antoine was completing his studies, before being called to practice law in front of the Sénéchaussée. He later moved...

From the completion of his bridge to his arrest late in 1793 , Morand continued work on a range of projects, besides the initiatives detailed thus far. He was a busy man, successful enough to support his family in a style that only a fraction of the population of his adoptive city could aspire to, even if it required endless financial juggling. Yet a number of disappointments suggest that his career was no longer on an ascendant curve. Was he able to accept this reality in light of the comforts and satisfactions his private life afforded him, or did his...

Early in the afternoon of 24 January 1794, or 5 Pluviose, Year 2, Morand was guillotined in front of Lyon’s hôtel de ville, on the renamed Place de la Liberté.² He was sixty-six. He had been arrested almost two months earlier, interrogated, and found guilty of contributing to the defence of the rebellious city besieged by the armies of the Republic. His properties were confiscated by the nation.

Morand was probably not indifferent to the political transformations that preceded the Revolution.³ There is no evidence, however, that he involved himself deeply in the political maelstrom that brewed in Lyon in...