Queen Victoria wrote in her journal that by the time the train reached the outskirts of Paris 'our impatience to arrive was very great'. From the Gare de Strasbourg (today's Gare de l'Est) the party travelled by open carriages to the centre of the city, here passing the Porte Saint-Denis. Paris was at this time undergoing extensive modernisation, and many of the new boulevards were still under construction.  

'We reentered open carriages & drove along the beautiful Boulevards, the Rue de Rivoli, & quite new, the Emperor having cleared away many streets, making the new ones quite magnificent' Queen Victoria's Journal, 20 August 1855