Quartier Bercy
History of the Bercy district The history of Bercy is as diverse as the district is today. In 1636, a nobleman had a sumptuous pleasure castle built on the banks of the Seine outside the gates of Paris, complete with French gardens, an orangery, and large ponds. Other noble seats were erected along the Seine, and thus the east of Paris became a polar opposite of Versailles. The French Revolution brought this luxurious period to an abrupt end. From the seigneury emerged the commune of Bercy in the canton of Vincennes in the district of Bourg-Égalité. The nobles were driven out, and prosperous entrepreneurs, such as Jean-Jacques Arthur, a paper manufacturer and friend of Robespierre, settled in the residences.
The area experienced rapid economic growth, due in particular to its favorable infrastructure. Indeed, before the arrival of the railway, the Seine was the main supply route for Paris. The commune of Bercy gradually established itself as a storage and trading center, particularly for wine, as the heavy wooden barrels could be easily delivered by river. More and more wine merchants rented the former residences of the nobility along the Sine and later replaced them with brick warehouses.
At the beginning of the 19th century, around 3,000 boats a year docked in the free trade zone. Craftsmen and restaurants lined up in the immediate vicinity of the warehouses and maintained good relations with the wine trade. During the 19th century, Bercy became one of the most popular and prosperous districts, and even the most important center of the wine trade in France (PLETSCH 2000: 232). The inauguration of the Gare de Lyon in 1847 provided a new impetus. As part of the great expansion of Paris in 1860, Bercy was incorporated into the 12th arrondissement and became one of the four districts forming it. On this occasion, the area was redesigned, and the buildings that had been gradually erected without planning were replaced by perpendicular cobbled streets lined with rows of buildings. By the end of the 19th century, the area had reached approximately 42 hectares, with nearly 6,000 jobs in the warehouses. The demographic evolution in the 19th century shows a strong increase as found in many industrialized suburbs of Paris: from 1,400 inhabitants in 1790 to more than 8,000 in 1841, then 16,000 in the 1890s