"The Carrousel bridge" is one of the poems of Rilke. It says not on the bridge, and about a blind man standing on it, but without names are not to understand the tragic nature of the plot. Because the blind is on the bridge leading to the Louvre, in the heart of Paris, in the center of the beauty that he sees.

Rilke wrote about an old, converted the Carrousel bridge, but it doesn't matter – the place was practically the same. The crossing in front of the arch of the Carrousel was built by Royal decree of Louis-Philippe I 1831. The construction was entrusted to the engineer Antoine-Remy Polanco, the person prone to innovation and thoughtful risk. At that time the majority of the Parisian bridges were drooping, but he put arched, used a relatively new material – iron in combination with wood. Prop design was decorated with a large iron ring, which the Parisians immediately began ironically called napkin rings. At each corner of the bridge on high pedestals were a stone allegorical sculptures in the classical style Louis Petit – female figures representing Industry, Abundance, Paris and the river Seine.

In 1883 the bridge was closed for six months to update the wooden elements. Even then, the experts recommended to replace them with the iron, but only did it in 1906, using concrete. Despite the restoration, the bridge, too narrow and too low, outdated for the twentieth century. It was decided to build a new, slightly moving it.

Engineers Henry Lange and Jacques Moran, developing the project, sought to preserve the silhouette of the old bridge, already familiar to the townspeople. In addition, they have abandoned the use of metal due to the close proximity of ancient buildings – the Louvre, the Pont-Neuf and the Pont Royal. Thus, the three-arch bridge Carrousel, leading directly to the gate of the Louvre, doesn't look modern. Though concrete, it is faced with stone, and at the entrances at him, still standing on their pedestals carefully preserved Industry, Abundance, Paris and the Seine.