It is home to many of the city's wealthiest residents, hence its informal grouping in the Neuilly-Auteuil-Passy area. Many embassies are based in Passy.
[edit]Landmark set between the domains of the Lord of Auteuil and the Lord of Passy in 1731Passy and Chaillot as painted from Grenelle in the 1740s by Charles-Léopold Grevenbroeck
Passy was originally a village on the outskirts of Paris. The Château de Passy (no longer existing) had been built in 1381. In 1658, hot springs were discovered around which spa facilities were developed. This attracted Parisian society and English visitors, some of whom made the area, which combined attractive countryside with both modest houses and fine residences, their winter retreat. It was dependent on the parishofAuteuil until 1761.[1]
The Hôtel de Valentinois (at that time the property of Monsieur de Chaumont) in Passy was the home of Benjamin Franklin during the nine years that he lived in France during the American Revolutionary War, when he represented American interests and sought French support for American independence.
Franklin established a small printing press in his lodgings to print pamphlets and other material as part of his mandate to maintain French support for the revolution. He called it the Passy Press.[2] Among his printing projects, he produced comics he called Bagatelles[2] and passports. He developed a typeface known as "le Franklin". He also printed a 1782 treatise by Pierre-André Gargaz titled A Project of Universal and Perpetual Peace, which laid out a vision for maintaining a permanent peace in Europe. It proposed a central governing council composed of representatives of all the nations of Europe to arbitrate international disputes.[3]
He also worked on his scientific projects at a laboratory he shared with others, which had been installed by Louis XV in the Château de la Muette.
When Franklin returned to America, the new American Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, wrote: "When he left Passy, it seemed as if the village had lost its patriarch."[4] To this day, a street in Passy bears the name Rue Benjamin Franklin.
After the French Revolution
[edit]Early 20th-century downstream view (from the Eiffel Tower's second level) of the Seine with Pont de Passy (modern-day Pont Bir-Hakeim, foreground) connecting Grenelle (left) to Passy (right)
After the French Revolution, Passy became a communeofSeine. The population was 2,400 in 1836, 4,545 in 1841, but larger in summer. In 1861 the population was 11,431. Passy's population was 17,594 when it was absorbed into Paris along with several other communities in 1860.[5]
There is now a rue Benjamin Franklin and a square de Yorktown near the Trocadéro.
A lively street in the area is Rue de Passy, which goes from La Muette to the Place de Costa Rica just behind the Trocadéro. It has boutiques and chain stores along its length.
^ abLivingston, Luther (1914). Franklin and His Press at Passy: An Account of the Books, Pamphlets, and Leaflets Printed There, Including the Long Lost 'Bagatelles'. New York: The Grolier Club.[page needed]
^Cohn, Ellen R. (Winter 2010). "The Printer and the 'Peasant': Benjamin Franklin and Pierre-André Gargaz, Two Philosophers in Search of Peace". Early American Studies. 8 (1): 146–172. JSTOR23546604.
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