The Grenelle bridge rested its weight on massive foundations sunk at its midpoint into the Allée des Cygnes, the least-known of the capital’s three river islands, almost a kilometre long but only ten metres wide.
At its westernmost tip stood the younger – and smaller – sister of New York’s Statue of Liberty. A quarter of the size of the original, it was nonetheless cast from a model made by the same sculptor and had taken up residence in Paris a mere three years after its more famous sibling had arrived in America.
