In the 19th century, the Parisian road network was totally transformed, not only by the two administrations responsible for its management, the Police and the Seine prefectures, but also through the diversification of the vehicles in circulation and the latter’s densification, which added to the public space’s chronic overcrowding. The reconfiguration of the network’s passages – wider, smoother streets, with metalled surfaces, sidewalks, streetlights, all cleared of any activities deemed useless – went with the plethoric development of regulations aiming to control the use of the streets and organise the flood of traffic. Nonetheless streets and their users resisted this standardisation and the imposition of order : streets stayed very lively, at times violent, and always noisy.