Parisian Sanitation from 1789-1900
The ever-increasing size of the working class and "dangerous"
class--
ie. the displaced proletariat of Adam Smyth's novel capitalist theories
--
were feared and mistrusted by the bourgeoisie throughout the 19th
Century. The popular revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848 illustrate
the people's protest and control over political and social orders. Paris
had around half a million residents at the turn of the 19th century.
By 1830, the population neared a million; by 1890, the population
neared two million. The industrial revolution attracted workers to
urban centers, creating large, overcrowded slums and expensive
residential areas. The poor lived in furnished buildings, called
ameubles, which were frequently subdivided abandoned homes of
the rich. The rooms were continually divided; floors were sometimes
added, creating six-foot ceilings. Stairs were often nothing more than
ladders. Water was only available in the streets; few had cesspools.
As O. Du Mensil wrote in 1878, "... the humidity was constant,
ventilation and lighting insufficient, the dirtiness sordid;...the courts
and air shaft were infected by the accumulation of decaying garbage
and the stagnation of rainwater and household waste, which remains
and putrefies there; the privies, when they exist were in sufficient
in number; their filthiness revolting." Such housing conditions
encouraged the cholera and tuberculosis epidemics that spread
throughout the slums in the 19th century.
Eugene Atget, Photo of a typical water supply for a building
on the Rue du Figuier in the 4th Arrondisement @ 1900.
From 1805-1817, the engineer Bruneseau explores the unmapped
sewers of Paris in the hopes of reforming them. The sewer's political
connection was symbolic of the "moral disintegration and political
upheavals", as Victor Hugo says; Hugo's fictional Bruneseau in Les
Miserable portrays the engineer as the explorer. Politically, the sewer
was considered a dangerous place, as it was an unsupervised place
which harbored enemies of the state. In the 1820s and 30s, public
health experts like Parent-Duchatelet studied Montfaucon, the sewers,
and prostitution. Scientific exploration of these subjects, it was hoped,
would make people realize that refuse could be reasonably controlled.
The cholera epidemic of 1832 killed 20,000 Parisians. The transmission
of the water-borne disease was not known until the 1850; instead, it
was believed to be through the odorous "miasmas". Popular riots
were
initiated against the rich, the doctors and the state. The ties of revolution
and disease became further entrenched; therefore, a well maintained
sewer, it was believed, would combat disease and revolution.
Eugene Atget, Photo of the Gaillon Fountain, 1907
The hygienists notice that the deaths from cholera was highest in 20
percent of the Paris's area that contained over 50 percent of the
population, especially on the Isle de la Cite and around the Hotel de
Ville. Serving the Bourbon Monarchy, the Count de Rambuteau,
Prefect of the Seine from 1833-1848, layed the groundwork for
Haussmann. He made the outlying areas absorb the central density
and made the streets cleaner by constructing fountains, sewers,
urinals and hydrants. The monumental quality of these fountains was
for the public good; a generous token of urban goodwill considering a
simple faucet could have served just as well. These important structures
were, after all, supplying the most important substance for life: water.
The urinals, nicknamed after him, also attempted this civic ideal,
considering its base purpose, through ornamentation. 39 km of water
mains and 217 hydrants--which provide a constant stream of water to
clean the gutters--existed in 1832; by 1850, 358 km of watermains and
1837 hydrants exist. This lead to the development of English-style
raised sidewalks and roof gutter leading to street gutters.
Urinals photographed by Marville in 1870 and 1865
In 1844, a law stated that the police were now responsible for the public
health. A tax was established according to the length of the facade of the
building and was intended for street cleaning. This made enforcing the
law much easier and much more effective.
The 1848 revolution ended with Napoleon III in power, as the candidate
backed by the upper-middle class who now wielded significant power.
From 1853 to 1870, Haussmann, the Prefect of the Seine, transformed
much of Paris for the interests of the middle class; however, his
ordinance of 1852-- mandatory cleaning of the facade of buildings--was
viewed as socialist by the landlords. His planning attempted to create
sanitation though open space, at the cost of systematic demolition of
much of the old city. He and his engineer Belgrand financed these
projects through deficit financing in anticipation of Paris's growth. His
projects could not have happened otherwise, and Paris could no longer
afford to ignore the problems of fresh water and sewers anymore. He
doubled the water supply through the construction of the aqueducts of
Yonne, Vanne and Dhuis. Their design was also heavily influenced by
the Romans.As a result, the cholera epidemics became less frequent
and less severe after the 1850s.
In the 1860s, horse drawn tipcarts began collecting garbage from
sidewalks. Until the 1870s, all the household garbage was dumped
into the street between eight and nine p.m. and picked up the following
morning. A regulation passed in 1870 stipulated that garbage be put out
in the morning instead, much to the relief of anyone outdoor past eight.
In the 1870s, the presence of cesspool cleaners on the street was no
longer tolerated. Engineers, including Mille and Durand-Claye, push
for "tout-a-l'egout," ie. all in the sewer. The arguments for
and against
were fought through out the 1870s and 1880s; those against it were
the cesspool cleaning companies and a large part of the medical
establishment. Louis Pasteur favors dumping at sea because the
treatment did not kill the organism well enough. Others felt the sewer
system was too large and slow to handle human sewage, which would
fester and infect the air with disease causing "miasmas". (The
odors
from the dumps in the 1880s were blamed on the sewers.)
Eugene Poubelle became Prefect of the Seine in 1884 and created the
final laws governing the garbage collection and street cleaning, building
on the earlier regulations about sweeping in front of the building and
not throwing anything out the window. Poubelle took these rules much
much further. Angry landlords retaliated by giving his name to the
garbage can.
These improvements in sanitation lead to a general improvement in
the control of epidemics. Typhoid and cholera killed fewer people,
but tuberculosis was on the rise (11,023 in 1880, 12,376 in 1894).
TB was the only disease directly linked to buildings. The overcrowded,
unhygienic slums and the lack of sunlight due to the narrow streets
and tall buildings causes the disease to spread as the population and
overcrowding continued to increase. In 1883, a regulation was passed
for furnished buildings to have one toilet for every twenty people.
early faucets from Diderot's encyclopedia
In 1892, cholera's final major reappearnace raised public support for
"tout-a -l'egout." Poubelle passed an ordinance that landlords
must
provide sewers to dispose of excrements and must pay for the service.
In 1899, the beltway sewer was closed, ending the dumping of
untreated sewerage in the Seine.
The transition from "tout-a-la-rue" to "tout-a-l'egout"
occured over a
period of five hundred years. The benefits of fresh water, sewers and
garbage collection contributed to a general improvement in health and
life expectancy, as well as making the city cleaner and more enjoyable,
but romantic nostalgia for the past often ignores the incredible stench.
