Pont des Arts — Former Love Lock Bridge

The Pont des Arts in Paris, opened in 1803 as the city's first metal bridge, is a historic pedestrian crossing connecting the Louvre to the Institut de France. During World War II, French Resistance fighters secretly exchanged forbidden manuscripts on the bridge. In 2014, part of its parapet collapsed under 45 tonnes of love locks, prompting city workers to remove over 700,000 padlocks in 2015.

Paris · from the walk “From the Cathedral to the Iron Lady” · audio ~3 min · Generated

Pont des Arts, Paris

Why were the love locks removed from the Pont des Arts in Paris?

You're standing on the Pont des Arts... a bridge that has lived not one life, but many. And each one tells a story most visitors never hear.......... It began with Napoleon Bonaparte. In eighteen oh one, he ordered a bridge built right here, connecting the Louvre to the Institut de France. When it opened in eighteen oh three, it was the First metal bridge in all of Paris... a daring experiment in cast iron. But here's the twist. The original design imagined a garden Floating above the Seine... with potted orange trees, flower beds, and wooden benches. An ice cream seller set up shop. A florist lined the iron railings with rare shrubs. And on opening day alone... sixty-four Thousand people crossed it, each paying a toll of one sou.......... But Napoleon himself? He Hated it. He called it ungrandious, complaining it had "no feeling of solidity about it." He turned out to be right... but it took a hundred and sixty years to prove him so.......... Now, here's something almost no one knows. During World War Two, this bridge became a site of Secret resistance. A writer using the codename Vercors... real name Jean Bruller... co-founded an underground press called les Éditions de Minuit, the Midnight Press. Right here on the Pont des Arts, he passed forbidden manuscripts to Jacques lecompte-Boinet, a leader of the French Resistance, who smuggled them onward to General de Gaulle. There's a plaque at the bridge's entrance that honors this, but most people walk right past it.......... And then came the love locks! Starting in two thousand eight, couples began attaching padlocks to the railings and tossing keys into the Seine. By two thousand fourteen, there were over seven hundred Thousand locks, weighing around forty-five tonnes... the equivalent of twenty elephants standing on the bridge! On the ninth of May, two thousand fourteen, part of the parapet actually Collapsed under the weight. The city launched a campaign called "Love Without Locks," begging tourists to take selfies instead. It didn't work. So on June first, two thousand fifteen, workers began cutting them all down.......... And what happened to all those locks? French artist Cyprien Gaillard claimed them. They now fill ten industrial sacks... and have become part of his art installations. A million tiny love stories, locked away in a warehouse, waiting for their next chapter.