PARIS.- If the Olympic Games have made of Paris a midsummer night’s dream, perhaps the Pont du Carrousel has been its heart: a dimly lit bridge over glittering water, a merry-go-round of incarnations as the weeks have passed.

The broad bridge spans the center of Paris, leading from the Quai Voltaire on the Left Bank of the Seine River to three vaulted openings into the Louvre courtyard on the Right Bank. It has always been a place for lovers to linger, joggers to pause, selfie seekers to snap and Paris wanderers to succumb to wonderment.

There are few better places to drink in the city. The Grand Palais and Eiffel Tower rise to the west. To the east loom the domed Académie Française and, in the distance, Notre-Dame Cathedral, now almost restored after the 2019 fire. The cleaned-up river is ever-changing, now churning after a downpour, now glassy still.

France was in a somber mood through much of the summer. Then the Paris Olympics began two weeks ago, replacing social fracture with patriotic rapture, dissolving fences of division into bridges of understanding, none more unifying than the Pont du Carrousel, at least for now.

From the bridge, crowds gaze nightly at the airborne Olympic cauldron. It is suspended from a hot-air balloon, to form a golden orb trailing misty swirls above the Tuileries Garden in front of the Louvre in what looks like a visitation from some benign extraterrestrial power. Seen from the bridge, the balloon hovers tantalizingly over one wing of the Louvre as if to announce a season of magic.

“What a joy!” exclaimed Thomas Bordeaux, a publishing executive, as he took photographs from the bridge the other night. “I have never seen my city so beautiful.” He had fled Paris at the start of the Games, like many Parisians fearing crowds or even terrorist violence, but returned this week after concluding he had made the wrong call.

Living close to the bridge, I have observed the joyous crowds on it and wondered if they know its murderous past. I will get to that.

The bridge was inaugurated by King Louis-Philippe in 1834 as the Pont des Saints-Pères, only to be blown up a century later to make way for the current bridge, built a little farther west to align with the Louvre entryway. It has always adapted to change, but rarely at the pace of recent weeks.

In the 10 days before the Games, a stand spanning the bridge was erected for the elaborate July 26 opening ceremony. Workers toiled long hours to build the bleachers that disfigured the bridge but offered one of the best views of the flotilla carrying thousands of drenched athletes.

No sooner was that over than the stand was dismantled by crews working through the night. Kristen Faulkner of the United States swept across the bridge Sunday in a culminating moment of the women’s cycling road race to take the gold medal. Rapturous crowds cheered her and the other leaders of the race as they emerged onto the riverfront from the Place du Carrousel, the square between the wings of the Louvre Palace that gave the bridge its name.

On Saturday, Olympic marathon runners will cross the Place du Carrousel, so named in 1662 after Louis XIV hosted festivities there to mark the birth of his son, before turning down the Right Bank at the Pont du Carrousel, without traversing it, as they head west toward Versailles.

To their left as they turn, the athletes might notice a small bronze plaque attached to the low stone wall at the entry to the bridge. It reads, “To the memory of Brahim Bouraam, 1965-1995, victim of racism, assassinated here on May 1 1995.”

May 1 is a national holiday in France, the country’s Labor Day. Supporters of the extreme-right, anti-immigrant National Front (now the National Rally) had gathered in 1995 at the nearby golden statue of Joan of Arc, the martyred 15th-century military leader. She has been used by the party as a symbol of the battle to keep France French, free of immigrants.

From the statue, they marched to the Pont du Carrousel. Bouraam, a 29-year-old Moroccan immigrant who worked in a grocery store, had decided to enjoy his holiday strolling along the Seine to meet a friend at the bridge. The meeting never happened. A group of National Front extremists confronted him, hurling abuse. He was shoved into the river and drowned.

President François Mitterrand, a few weeks before the end of his 14 years in office and a few months before his death from cancer, came to the spot to express his sorrow. He tossed a bouquet of lily of the valley into the Seine.

Afterward, for many years, the episode was largely forgotten. Jean-Marie Le Pen’s hate-filled National Front began its tortuous journey toward his daughter Marine Le Pen’s National Rally of today, which vows, and vows again, that racism is gone from its agenda.

I met Said Bouraam, 39, the thoughtful son of the murdered man, this week at the bridge. He pointed to the plaque and said, “For me, this is all that is left of my father.”

He was 9, and living in Morocco with his mother, when a family friend delivered the news. He hardly knew his father but wanted to follow in his footsteps, so he came to France in 2007, later becoming a citizen. “Commemorating my father is important,” he said. “It’s the only way to fight forgetfulness.”

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, whose fervent belief in the Olympics as a means to uplift Paris and unite people has been vindicated, now conducts an annual commemorative service at the site.

Bouraam works for the Paris police and is “proud of keeping people safe and this Olympic fête happy for everyone.” He does not believe that the ideas of the National Rally have changed. But, he told me, “I feel no hatred, no desire for vengeance.”

One of the assailants, Mickaël Freminet, served an eight-year prison sentence; three others received lighter prison terms.

So, in these bright and beautiful Olympic days, I have two images of the Pont du Carrousel and two images of France: the joyous capacity to come together that has made these Olympics so remarkable and, lurking still, the violent division that made the weeks before the Games so difficult — and which could quickly return.

“We are a country that likes to flagellate itself,” Gabriel Attal, the departing prime minister, told me in an interview. “When we compare ourselves with others, it’s more often to despair than to console ourselves. But we are also a country that likes to be proud of itself, and we see that now.”

France has shown the world what it can be; pride and patriotism are rekindled, and Paris has cast its spell once more. “The atmosphere is so great, really nothing to do with regular Paris life!” said Lucie Breillat, 26, who works for a cosmetics company, as she stood on the bridge.

There is an old carousel in the Tuileries, not far from where the Olympic cauldron and balloon are during the day. Once, in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic, I went there.

The park, like Paris, was deserted, but the carousel still turned. Round and round went colorful horses, an ostrich, a car, a plane, a ship and a couple of Cinderella carriages. My partner and I chose horses. The music was North African. There were a couple of children.

The carousel seemed a little miracle in 2021. Paris would be back, I thought then, never imagining how transformative the Olympics might be nor the degree to which Paris survives and incarnates tolerance precisely as a result of bitter and violent experience.

The Pont du Carrousel, viewed from all its angles, is that Paris, whose hold on the human imagination explains why “We’ll always have Paris” is the most famous line in the movies.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.