Hotels Saint-Pol and des Tourelles, they were constantly protesting to
the municipality of Paris; Louis XII, Francois I, and Henri II vainly
attempted to secure the removal of the egout Sainte-Catherine; this
unwholesome neighborhood even caused Francois I to change his property
of Chanteloup for the locality of the Tuileries." In 1473, the Parlement
ordered the Lieutenant Criminel to clear away the filth which obstructed
the entrance to Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet and along the course
formerly traversed by the Bievre, and three years later a more general
effort at reformation was made. The main streets, the surroundings of
the Palais, were submitted to a sort of system of cleaning, the cost of
which was defrayed by a tax laid upon the inhabitants thus favored. The
aqueduct of Belleville had been constructed in 1244, to supply the
fountain of the monastery of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, and afterward
furnished water to most of the fountains of Paris; in 1457, it had been
repaired by the _prevot_ of the merchants, and thus supplied a means of
cleansing the streets. In 1265, there was existing a fountain in the
upper part of the Faubourg Saint-Denis, known as the Fontaine
Saint-Lazare, and fed by the aqueduct of Saint-Gervais--from
Romainville, near Vincennes--constructed in the last years of the reign
of Philippe-Auguste. The fountain of the Innocents, that of Maubuee, and
that of the Halles were also watered by this aqueduct of the
Pre-Saint-Gervais. The Cite and the quartier Saint-Jacques were for
centuries the most pestilential quarters of the capital, and, despite
the various measures taken to ameliorate them, it was not till the reign
of Henri IV that the evil was effectively attacked by the widening of
the streets so as to permit the noblesse and the bourgeoisie to traverse
them in carriages.

To such a height had the deposits of refuse outside the city walls
attained, that, in 1525, during the panic that prevailed in Paris at the
news of the captivity of Francois I, Jean Briconnet, President of the
Chambre des Comptes, secured the passage of an ordinance directing their
razing, as from their summits an enemy could command the city walls!
During this reign, however, considerable progress was made in cleansing
and embellishing the capital; the king particularly enjoined upon the
municipality the importance of paving and sweeping the streets, and a
royal edict of November, 1539, prescribed minute regulations for the
con