Fulgence Bienvenüe was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 civil engineer

Civil engineer

A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...

, best known for his role in the construction of the Paris Métro

Paris Métro

The Paris Métro or Métropolitain is the rapid transit metro system in Paris, France. It has become a symbol of the city, noted for its density within the city limits and its uniform architecture influenced by Art Nouveau. The network's sixteen lines are mostly underground and run to 214 km ...

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A native of Uzel

Uzel

Uzel is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. It is about west-northwest of Rennes and north-west-north of Loudéac....

 in Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

, he graduated as a civil engineer in 1872. His first assignment was the construction of various railway lines in the Mayenne

Mayenne

Mayenne is a department in northwest France named after the Mayenne River.-History:Mayenne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. The northern two thirds correspond to the western part of the former province of Maine...

 area. In the course of this work, his left arm was crushed in a construction accident and had to be amputated. He relocated to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1886 and became chief engineer for the Paris Métro in 1896. He would supervise its construction for more than three decades, finally retiring on 6 December 1932.

On 30 June 1933, Avenue du Maine station on the Metro was renamed Bienvenüe in his honor. The naming ceremony took place in his presence; there was a last-minute scramble to repaint the station's new nameboards when it was discovered that the unusual dieresis in his name had been omitted (making the French word for "welcome"). In 1942 the station was linked to the adjacent Montparnasse station, forming a single station named Montparnasse-Bienvenüe

Montparnasse - Bienvenüe (Paris Metro)

Montparnasse — Bienvenüe is a station of the Paris Métro which is a transfer point between lines 4, 6, 12 and 13. It is the third-busiest station on the metro system in Montparnasse at the intersection of the 6th, 14th and 15th arrondissements.-Location:...

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