Sugar Gets Around: Les Halles

Les Halles was the site of Paris' wholesale fresh food market from the 1100s until the 1960s. It was the principal setting for Emile Zola's 1873 novel "Le Ventre de Paris" ("The Belly of Paris").

Among Les Halles' many renovations before its complete demolition was the expansion over the former Cimitière des Innocents--which had gotten so full that an underground partition wall collapsed in the 1780s, spilling mud, bones and adipose corpses into a restaurant cellar--and Napoleon III's personal insistence on the construction of indoor metal building, inspired by London's Crystal Palace and Paris' Gare de l'Est train station. Les Halles was completely demolished in 1973, and now is an open space with gardens, playgrounds, and performance spaces sitting atop an underground parking lot.

It was in this repurposed space that Sugar discovered "Écoute" ("Listen"), by Henri de Miller (1986). 

He's telling her she's a very good girl. Unfortunately, Sugar does not yet understand French.

The sculpture sets right in front of l'Èglise Saint-Eustache, a 16th century gothic church. Inside the church is a set of stained glass windows depicting hogs and sausages--a gift from Les Halles' charcutièrs (sausage makers). It also has a holy water font depicting Pope Alexander II sitting atop the damned as they are cast into Hell. Not as subtle as the sausage glass, but visually interesting, nonetheless.

Some of the damned.