Parisian Garbage from 1200-1789
The Isle de la Cite, Paris's urban core in 1200 AD, used the Seine
to
clean the city. The Seine was also strategically used by industries who
placed themselves along its banks to benefit from the particular chemicals
dumped by their upstream neighbors. The quantities of dumped chemicals
was not in amounts large enough to kill the fish, but it helped purify the
water from the other garbage. Tanners and dyers were often on opposite
sides of the island; skinners, furriers and glovemakers locate themselves
downstream from the dyers to benefit from the dumped alum. Urine and
feces were used industrially in paper-making, dying and making saltpeter,
as a replacement for the scarcer alum, in processes requiring humidity
and fermentation. What Andre Guillerme refers to as the "fungal economy"
lasted until the 18th century. The richness of the city could be measured
by
its stench.
Tannery on the Bievre, a tributary of the Seine,
later diverted (inside city limits) to flush out the sewers.
Photographed by Eugene Atget @ 1900
Phillipe Auguste (1180-1223) established the royal gallows of Montfaucon
north of Paris, serving not only as the gallows but also the town dump.
Thousands of people were hung there; those that died while being tortured
were left hanging to rot until their bones fell. Their remains would then
be
dumped into a pit along with the household waste, excrements and rubble.
Like the Christian denial of burial to criminals, the smell that emanated
down to Paris served as a subtle deterrent to crime. This practice also
continued well into the 18th Century. Parent-Duchatelet, the early 19th
Century hygienist, refers to Montfaucon as the "Epicenter of Stench."
The long periods of war from the 14th to the 17th century limited the
physical expansion of Paris to its fortifications. The accumulation of refuse
in the streets reached the point that in 1348 Phillipe VI de Valois passed
an ordinance requiring the citizens to sweep in front of their doors and
to
transport their garbage to dumps or risk fines and imprisonment. He
established the first corp of sanitation workers to clean the streets. Even
with ordinances issued every few years, these brought little relief and
were difficult to enforce. Garbage piled up in the streets, making some
completely inaccessible. Finally in desperation, the King made Nobility
set an example, and people began to follow the orders, (but now they
dumped their waste on public property and out of the way places.) In the
15th century, Charles IV created official dumps outside the city walls,
with
names like Trou Gaillard and Trou Bernard, but the situation inside the
walls still did not improve much. In the late 16th century, these dumps
became so tall and large that they were fortified, fearing that enemies
would use them to point their canons down on the city.
Eugene Atget Photo of the Paris Wall and (sewerage) moat @ 1900
in the 13th Arrondissementthat became the Boulevard Kellerman
In 1404, the dumping of garbage in the Seine reached the point that the
authorities threatens to charge the riverains--people making a living by
the river--for cleaning it up. Tanners and butchers were forced to move
downstream as the dumping of carcasses, blood and by-products could
no longer be supported.
Animal excrement, especially from horses, was still present in enormous
quantities in the street, though the mixture of mud and dung was carted
off by the street cleaners and used as fertilizer. In 1674, a decree states
that
feces must be separated from other wastes at the dump, in order to begin
manufacturing poudrette or human guano--a greasy, powdery, flammable
substance made by open-air fermentation of human sewage. Valued as a
fertilizer, it was toxic to breathe and incredibly foul smelling for miles
around.
With sieges no longer a threat, an intolerance of the smells emanating from
local dumps developed in the Nobility. In 1758, a decree stated that the
future dumps must be outside of Paris. In 1761, Montfaucon moves further
out from the encroaching city and becomes the primary dump for Paris. It
becomes the only dump after 1781. The large-scale production of poudrette
and vast slaughterhouses were also located here. The carcasses found a
convenient home. The estimated 270,000 cubic meters of mud removed
each year from the Parisian streets were destined for Montfaucon and imply
a certain and lingering social disregard for Enlightenment in regards to
hygiene. In fact, an ordinance of 1780 once again forbade people from
throwing water, urine, feces or household garbage out the window.
