“What the ruins of Paris shall be” Urban embellishments in Nerval’s journalistic writing

The changes experienced by the city of Paris during the 1830s and 1840s find a regular echo in Gérard de Nerval’s journalistic writing. The analysis of a small number of articles published between 1838 and 1846 reveals the gradual politicization of nervalian discourse on urban “embellishments”. The importance of the Parisian theme on the formation of Nerval’s sensibility – whose well-known tendency to nostalgia actually conceals a subtle socio-cultural reflection – is also demonstrated.