History of the Bateaux-Mouches of Paris

It is easy to understand why cities crossed by navigable rivers have seen their main monuments built on their banks. The virtue of this means of transport, known long before the advent of the wheel, has allowed the erection of the most beautiful historical wonders of the world, and Paris is no exception: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Orsay Museum, the Conciergerie, the City Hall, or even the Notre Dame Cathedral; all these sites have been built along the Seine and delight tourists and lovers who see the history of the City of Light unfold before their eyes during a stroll or a romantic dinner.

A cruise on the Seine directly evokes the "bateaux-mouches," a name that has long crossed French borders and is a Must-Do for any respectable tourist. But behind this common place lies an exciting epic that plunges us back into the great history of France.

Beware! One must not confuse the bateaux-mouches with the Compagnie des Bateaux-Mouches®. The Bateaux-Mouches® are bateaux-mouches, but not all bateaux-mouches are Bateaux-Mouches®, do you follow? And by the way, what is this fly that is the attribute of these famous boats? There are actually two flies, or more precisely one fly and one Mouche that share the bow of the boat.

Origin of the expression "bateau-mouche"
The term "bateau-mouche" originated in the 19th century on the banks of the Saône, in one of the southern suburbs of Lyon, built on former filled river arms to improve the city's sanitation. These river arms, once called "mouches," gave their nickname to this neighborhood, the Mouche district, and it is quite naturally that the boats launched from its shipyards in 1862 were quickly associated with their place of origin: the bateaux-mouches were born thanks to the ingenuity of Messrs. Chaize and Plasson and their passenger transport company, the "Mouches" Company. Plasson then had the very good idea to respond to a call for tenders from the organizers of the 1867 World Exposition for the river service of the city of Paris. Thirty bateaux-mouches were thus transported by the Saône to Paris and delighted the Parisians who quickly adopted this new means of navigation. It must be said that renowned figures honored them, such as Tsar Alexander III and his two young and handsome grand-dukes who frequented Parisian balls and whose actions were reported in detail by the tabloids of the time.

The first printed mention of the bateaux-mouches is attributed to Paul Bert, who in his posthumous work of 1887 describes them as follows: "The bateaux-mouches that transport passengers on the Seine, across Paris and the suburbs, are steam-powered boats with propellers. They carry between 300 and 400 people both in their cabin and on the deck. Due to their speed and the low price of tickets, they provide great service to the Parisian population." (Paul Bert. Reading and Lessons of Things, 1887). In this case, it is not obviously about the tourist use we know today, but rather a real means of transport allowing one to get from one point to another in Paris in no time and at prices that defy all competition.

However, this peak of the Bateaux-Mouches is only short-lived. The technological advances highlighted during the 1867 World Exposition that allowed their emergence fell into disuse with the development of the Metro, which sounded the death knell for transport navigation on the Seine starting in 1900 with the opening of the first metro line connecting Porte de Vincennes to Porte Maillot.

The rise of the Bateaux-Mouches
It took the pioneering and very humorous spirit of a certain Jean Bruel for the Bateaux-Mouches to reappear in their current tourist version after World War II. He indeed bought a model of the Bateaux-Mouches from the World Expo and replicated it in his new river company: the Compagnie des Bateaux-Mouches® was born in 1950 along with the registration of the name Bateaux-Mouches as a trademark. And to ensure a marketing campaign worthy of the name, he allowed himself to invent the myth of the founder of the Bateaux-Mouches: Jean-Sébastien Mouche. In partnership with a famous journalist of the time, Robert Escarpit, a contributor to the newspaper "Le Monde," he wrote a fictional biography: Jean-Sébastien Mouche would be a collaborator of Baron Haussmann and the creator of a police of secret agents, the "mouchards." On April 1, 1953, he held a grand inauguration with the exceptional participation of the Minister of Transport and the Prefect of Paris, who paid tribute to the courage and genius of the fictitious creator of the Bateaux-Mouches. This event was widely covered by the media and marked the advent of river tourism in Paris.

Discover our Bateaux Mouches dinner cruises on the Seine, as well as the Bateaux Mouches lunch cruises and the Seine sightseeing cruises.