The rue Champlain cut through a shantytown that had sprung up in the 1860s and 1870s as legions of working poor moved away from the inner city. A stronghold of the left, the area remained among the least modernized parts of Paris for decades. The photograph conveys what one author claimed in 1870, that Paris was in essence two cities quite different and hostile: the city of luxury, surrounded, besieged by the city of misery. By carefully placing a young manperhaps an assistantoverlooking the sprawl of shacks toward the edge of the distant city, Marville created a powerful image of isolation and loss.
