THOUGH many Parisians are unaware of it, the large esplanade in front of the Gare du Nord has been known since 1987 as the Place Napoleon III.

Very logically, his rehabilitation began in that decade, when neoliberalism became unquestioned dogma. The shady adventurer, gang leader and author of the December massacre underwent a surreptitious mutation into the Saint-Simonian philanthropist, a pioneer of the modern banking and industrial system.

This is why the municipal council, then presided over by Jacques Chirac [the right-wing mayor of Paris, later French president], almost clandestinely gave Louis-Napoleon's name to a major Paris square.

Perhaps there was already enough glorification of his victories in Italy – Magenta, Solferino, Turbigo – and Crimea – Alma, Malakoff, Sebastopol, Eupatoria. Note that no street celebrates the disastrous Mexican expedition. Even the battle of Camaron, a "great deed" of the Foreign Legion, has no street in Paris.

The facade of the Gare du Nord was a masterpiece. It is a shame that no-one stops to contemplate it, whereas crowds throng in front of the facade of Notre Dame, whose statuary is no older than that of the railway station.

This facade has three storeys, their decor composed of fluted Doric columns and statues. Metal grilles have been installed between the columns implanted on the pavement, to prevent the homeless from protecting themselves from wind and rain.

Higher up, on the middle level, statues of northern cities alternate with columns – at the corners, the effigy of Douai on the Boulevard Magenta side and that of Dunkirk on the side of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. The upper level is a wide pediment supported by a curved arch and framed by colossal pillars. Its ascending stages culminate with a figure of Paris.

On the sides, statues represent the northern capitals — Berlin, London, Brussels, Amsterdam. These proud and elegant women, dressed in the antique style, were sculpted by artists now forgotten but are a match for many exhibited in the Musee d’Orsay.

Despite its attractions, the Gare du Nord has hardly been an inspiration to writers or artists. In this field, the palm goes without contest to the Gare Saint-Lazare. The difference in treatment received by these two stations is not hard to understand. When painters and writers left Paris to take the air, they went to Normandy, to Balbec, to Giverny, to Honfleur, rather than to Maubeuge or Armentieres. Many of them lived and worked close to the Gare Saint-Lazare — Mallarme between the Lychee Condorcet and the Rue de Rome, Manet on the Rue d’Amsterdam, Caillebotte on the Boulevard Malesherbes.

The Gare du Nord is the last station whose surroundings still recall the destination of the trains that leave from here: A la Ville d’Aulnay, Au Rendez-Vous des Belges, La Tartine du Nord, A la Pinte du Nord — only fast-food joints and Chinese restaurants escape this spell. The Gare Montparnasse, at the time of the famous photograph of a locomotive suspended in the void, was the centre of a Breton quarter in which Beecassine could have felt at home. The construction of the Tour Montparnasse, the commercial centre and the new station has left only a scattering of creperies.

Around the Gare de Lyon there is scarcely any southern touch, though it is perhaps not accidental that the former Auvergnat quarter — the Rue de Lappe, the bottom of the Rue de la Roquette, where a dance hall, Au Massif Central, occupied what are now the premises of the Theatre de la Bastille — grew up around here.

Among the several brasseries opposite the Gare du Nord, the Terminus Nord used to be one of the most agreeable. It then fell into the same hands and suffered the same fate as the Bouillon Julien, as well as Bofinger, La Coupole and Le Balzar — standardisation of menus, impersonal reception, disappearance of those peculiarities that made each of these a meeting place with its regulars, its customs, its particular dishes.

Out of all of these, it is the old Balzar that I miss the most — the others, in fact, I rarely went to, least of all La Coupole, too marked by memories of Sunday lunch there with my parents. But Le Balzar’s celeriac remoulade, calf’s head and breaded pig’s feet were peerless, the waiters elegant and friendly, the globe lamps lit women in a radiant light and, sometimes, you might see Delphine Seyrig or Roger Blin coming out of the theatre. The passage of years may have embellished these souvenirs, but I could certainly find witnesses to confirm that Le Balzar was indeed an enchanting place.

The bulk of the Gare du Nord gives an impression of unity. The recent extension, set back and in a judiciously subdued architecture, does not disturb this. But this external unity is a mask. Throughout its extent, the station is divided into three levels, one the same as the street and the others below. This demarcation is far more than simply spatial, as upper and lower no more communicate with one another than the world of the living and that of the shades did in the time of Ulysses.

The upper level is impeccable. Beneath the great glass roof the signs are clear, the seats are comfortable, a kiosk offers a choice of the foreign press, the cafes are clean and welcoming. This is where the Thalys trains leave for the northern capitals, as well as the Eurostar, protected by a security system like that of an airport. The travellers are executives, businessmen and women, tourists — white, clean and well-dressed.

Going down, level -1 is no worse than the Chatelet station of the RER. It is the vast level -2 that needs to be seen. The ceiling is low, the colours dark, the lighting dim, the signs incomprehensible and the announcements inaudible. As there are more than 40 suburban train lines, the result is a gloomy labyrinth. Those who arrive every morning and leave every evening, from Goussainville, Luzarches, Persan-Beaumont or Villiers-le-Bel, know where they are, but all others wander across the platforms looking for the train to take them to Chatelet or out to Roissy.

The population on this lower level are, in the great majority, black. The videos taken during the station’s periodic riots show angry black crowds, yet only a few Arabs, which illuminates the difference between the two populations.

The blacks, more recent arrivals and hence more fragile in status, are pushed out miles from anywhere, whereas the Arabs are well settled in the communes of the inner suburbs, Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, Gennevilliers, accessible by Metro. As for the whites here, they are haggard tourists trying to decipher announcements as mysterious as ancient oracles and muscular railway police whose brutality is well known to the “users.”

It is impossible to attempt here what Anna Maria Ortese admirably succeeded in doing in her Silenzio a Milano — spend the night on a bench observing the humanity that chooses a railway station as refuge amid the brutality of life.

Impossible, because there are no benches here.

Reproduced by kind permission of Verso Books. A Walk Through Paris is published on March 27 at the special price of £10.39 from the Verso website , verso books.com