A detailed report has been preserved, setting forth the condition of the
streets of the capital, made by Anne de Beaulieu, Sieur de
Saint-Germain, to the king, in April, 1636. Everywhere, _ordures_,
_immondices_, _bouès_, and _eaux croupies et arrestées_, the latter
proceeding from the broken sewers; in the quartier Saint-Eustache, the
égouts were stopped up, as everywhere else, "which causes the aforesaid
waters to stagnate and to rise nearly to the church of Saint-Eustache
and to give forth such a stinking vapor, in consequence of the
carriages, carts, and horses which pass through the aforesaid waters,
which is capable of polluting the whole quarter, and the same rising and
stagnating of water is caused in the Rue du Bout du Monde as far as the
aforesaid Rue Montorgueil; and it is to be remarked that the stench of
the aforesaid waters is much more stinking and infectious in this
locality than in others, because of the butchers and pork-butchers who
have their slaughter-houses on the aforesaid _esgout_ (the égout of the
Rue Montmartre), and that the blood and the garbage and other matters
proceeding as much from the aforesaid slaughter-houses as from the
sweepings of the houses."
In 1670, the city established the two pumps at the Pont Notre-Dame to
raise the river-water, which, elevated "to the height of sixty feet and
to the quantity of eighty inches, was conducted into different quarters
of the city by pipes six inches in diameter." Two mills which were
standing on this site were purchased by the city, which diminished
considerably the expense and hastened the completion of the work. These
pumps were enclosed in a building of the Ionic order of architecture,
the door of which was decorated with a medallion of Louis XIV, and with
two figures sculptured in bas-relief by Jean Goujon, one representing a
naiad, and the other personifying a river. These had previously
ornamented an edifice in the Marché Neuf which had been demolished. An
inscription by the poet Santeuil completed the decoration of this
building. These pumps were restored and reconstructed in 1708, and
finally abandoned in 1854.
The most important reformation effected in the eighteenth century was
the reconstruction, throughout its whole length, of the great main sewer
and the construction of a reservoir for the water with which to flood
it. This was decided upon in 1737, and completed in 1740. Sewers were
constructed also in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple and Rue de Turenne, the
open ditch Guénégaud was covered over, and the Invalides and the École
militaire were supplied with water. A police ordinance of January 9,
1767, forbade the inhabitants to put out in the streets any broken
bottles, crockery, or glassware, or to throw them out of the windows;
all individuals were forbidden, also, by the eighth article, to throw
out of the windows in the streets, "either by night or day, any water,
urine, fecal matter, or other filth of any nature whatsoever, under
penalty of a fine of three hundred livres." The Parisians objected
strongly to this interference with their usual habits, and this question
of sanitation remained long unsolved; in 1769, the Contrôleur Général,
M. de Laverdy, proposed to establish at the street corners _brouettes_,
or small, closed vehicles, in which could be found _lunettes_ for the
benefit of the public. "The contractors promised to turn in a certain
sum to the royal treasury," says the author of the _Mémoirs secrets_,
"which transformed the affair into an impost worthy of being compared to
that which Vespasian laid upon the urine of the Romans."
This idea, much derided at the time, was the germ of the modern
_cabinets inodores_, those very useful institutions which do so much to
disfigure the streets of Paris. In 1845, small cabinets of this
species, mounted on wheels, could be seen on the Place de la Concorde,
drawn about by a man, who stopped when signalled by the passer-by, but
these soon disappeared. By a special law, passed February 4, 1851, the
establishment of _lavoirs publics_ was authorized in several quarters of
Paris, and these establishments have continued to multiply.
The problem of supplying Paris with good drinking water is not yet
completely solved, though immense progress has been made within the last
sixty years. The cholera epidemic of 1832 did much to arouse the
municipal authorities to the necessity of radical reform both in the
water-supply and in the system of sewage. At this date, the city was
furnished by the pumps in the Seine, by the selenitic water drawn from
Belleville, from the Pré-Saint-Gervais and from Arcueil, and from the
canal de l'Ourcq,--inferior in quality and insufficient in quantity. The
public fountains had long been the great resource of the inhabitants,
and these were frequently architectural constructions worthy of their
importance,--the Fontaine des Innocents, that of the Birague--now
disappeared, that of the Arbre-Sec, of Gaillon and of Grenelle. The
_porteurs d'eau_ were robust young fellows, mostly from Auvergne, who
carried about the Seine water in two metal buckets by means of a neck
yoke, and delivered it in the loftiest houses. At night, the
water-casks, always filled, were stationed at various points, so as to
be available in case of fire;--the first water-carrier who reached the
scene of conflagration received a reward of twelve francs. The _eau de
Seine_, filtered, was retailed at ten centimes the _voie_, or two
pailfuls, of ten or fifteen litres, twenty times the price it is to-day;
the poor preferred to use the water just as it came from the river,
polluted as it was by the sewage.
As late as 1608, the only resource available outside the Seine water
and that of wells was that furnished by the two little aqueducts of
Belleville and the Pré-Saint-Gervais, constructed by Philippe-Auguste
about the beginning of the thirteenth century. This supply was called
_les Eaux du Roi_, and was dispensed graciously by the monarch to the
grand seigneurs and the rich monasteries. The aqueduct of Belleville,
which was falling into ruin, was partly reconstructed by the _prévôt_ of
the merchants in 1457. Henri IV, in 1598, granted the first concession
for a fixed price, which was the origin of the custom of paying for the
municipal water-supply. At the end of the eighteenth century, the city
was furnished by the "Eaux du Roi," which included that brought by the
aqueduct of Arcueil and drawn from the _pompe de la Samaritaine_
(1606-1608); and by the "Eaux de la Ville," from the aqueduct of
Belleville and the pompes Notre-Dame. The Eaux du Roi were ceded
outright to the city in 1807; their administration is confided to the
Préfet of the Seine, under the authority of the Minister of the
Interior.
In 1802, the first attempt to seriously increase the volume of water
supplied the city was made by drawing on the little river Ourcq. This
canal brings a supply to the Bassin de la Villette, which serves as a
reservoir to distribute it through Paris by means of the aqueduct of the
Ceinture and large mains. The necessity of securing a larger supply, and
a much purer one, was strongly felt by Baron Haussmann, who did so much
for the embellishment of the city during the Second Empire, and in
conjunction with the Engineer-in-chief of the navigation of the Seine,
M. Belgrand, the present system was inaugurated. The latter found means
of solving the problem after a careful study, in 1854, of the basin of
the Seine. The bed of gypsum on which Paris is built furnishes neither
water of a good drinking quality nor sources high enough to bring it
into the city at the requisite altitude; it was therefore necessary to
go outside this basin, extending from Meulan to Château-Thierry. At
present, Paris is furnished with potable water by three aqueducts,--that
of the Dhuis, a hundred and thirty-one kilomètres in length, constructed
from 1862 to 1865, running from a source nearly due east of the city;
that of the Vanne, a hundred and eighty-three kilomètres, 1866-1874,
from the southeast, and that of the Avre, a hundred and eight
kilomètres, 1890-1893, from the west. A fourth is to be built, of a
length of seventy-two kilomètres, which will draw its supply from the
valley of the Loing and the Lunain, a little west of Vanne.
When the city was enlarged by the annexation of the surrounding
communes, in 1860, the municipal administration signed a contract with
the _Compagnie générale des eaux_, which then held similar contracts
with several of the communes both within and without the walls. By this,
the city obtained the control, not only of its own water-supply and
distribution, but also of that previously established by the company.
The general management of the distribution is in the hands of the
Compagnie, which collects the subscriptions, constructs branch pipes
from the public conduits to the façade of the dwelling to be served, and
turns the gross receipts into the municipal treasury, less its
commission. To it, or to the _bureaux d'inspection_, all complaints are
to be addressed. The purer _eaux de source_, brought by the aqueducts,
are reserved for domestic use; the _eaux de rivière_, from the Seine and
the Marne, are elevated to the altitude requisite to serve the higher
quarters of the city by eleven _usines_, within and without the walls.
The river-water is served by means of gauges and meters; the eau de
source by meters only, which are officially examined and verified by the
Municipal Laboratory, established in the Palais du Bardo, in the Pare
Montsouris. This laboratory also analyzes this water, that of the
drains, the sewers, and the wells, and reports to the municipal
administration. With a view to the diffusion among the people of correct
hygienic ideas, the Préfet of the Seine appointed, March 21, 1898, a
commission of savants, architects, and hygienists to draw up a series of
measures the most practical available for rendering dwelling-houses
healthful.
The general distribution is effected from the eighteen reservoirs fed by
these various sources; the eau de source is furnished on the public
streets by six hundred and seventy-three fountains established against
walls, etc., and by ninety-seven of the "Wallace fountains;" the water
of the Ourcq and of the rivers is furnished by thousands of _bouches
d'eau_, on the sidewalks, in the streets, etc., for service in case of
fire, watering the streets, the innumerable lavoirs, etc. The monumental
fountains, such as those of the Place de la Concorde and du Châtelet,
which play every day from ten in the morning to six in the afternoon,
are furnished by the canal de l'Ourcq, whilst that of the Trocadéro and
its cascade, that of the Place d'Italie, and the luminous fountain of
the Champ de Mars, which function only on fête-days and Sundays, are
supplied by the Seine water. The fountains of the Luxembourg are fed by
the Arcueil aqueduct. The water-pipes throughout the city are generally
carried in the upper part of the égouts,--on curved shelves in the
smaller ones, and on upright stems carrying a curved holder in the
larger ones. In the grand _galerie du Boulevard Sebastopol_, for
example, the water of the Ourcq is carried on one side in an
eighty-centimètre main, and that of the Seine on the other in a main one
mètre, ten, in diameter.
[Illustration: MUNICIPAL PARIS: POST OF THE OCTROI AT THE BARRIÈRE DE LA
CHAPELLE SAINT-DENIS.