In 1862, in order to give the finishing touches to the unification of the territory of Paris, enlarged in 1860, an administrative commission headed by Charles Merruau, secretary of the prefecture, was put in charge of giving a semblance of order and organization to the city’s street names. With a top-down point of view committed to celebrating city worthies, the commission started out by reviewing the generic names of all passageways and went on to make propositions. In this way, it asserted both the “Empirisation” of the capital’s streets and the “glorious and legendary” history with which the Second Empire wished to identify. The establishment of the Third Republic was to instate a round of “debaptism”, led by the town council in conflict with the Prefect, putting aside the most flagrant allusions to the imperial family and confirming an eclecticism which was to endure.