duct of the inhabitants and the measures to be taken that would be
considered very satisfactory, if enforced, at the present day. The
paving of the streets, which had been commenced under Philippe-Auguste,
had proceeded so slowly that in 1545 the greater portion of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain was not yet paved, and the Cardinal de Tournon, Abbe of
Saint-Germain-des-Pres, undertook the task. A decree of the court, March
30, 1545, ordered the commencement in the Rue de Seine; but when the
cardinal desired to straighten the street lines also, he encountered a
vigorous opposition on the part of the inhabitants. The Parlement was
obliged to come to his assistance, and a decree of the 21st of the
following October directed that all those who had valid reasons for
opposing this measure should appear by means of a procureur, within the
space of three days, to state them.

Five years later, another public-spirited citizen, Gilles de Froissez,
an iron-master, proposed to bring the water of the Seine to aid in the
great task of cleaning the city, and was instrumental in beginning this
good work. In 1605, still another, Francois Miron, paid out of his own
pocket for the facing with masonry of the egout de Ponceau from the Rue
Saint-Denis to the Rue Saint-Martin. Various other open sewers were
gradually transformed into covered ones, but under Louis XIV, while the
total length of the first was only two thousand three hundred and
fifty-three metres, that of the latter, including the long _egout de
ceinture_, or stream of Menilmontant, was eight thousand and thirty-six.

Marie de Medicis, having begun, in 1613, to plant the trees for the park
of her proposed palace on the site of the old Hotel du Luxembourg, was
desirous of securing a supply of water for her fountains, and
arrangements were made to divide that which was to be brought from the
source at Rungis by the Aqueduct of Arcueil. The old one built by the
Romans in this locality--whence its name, _Arculi_--had fallen to ruins;
one Hugues Cosnier had engaged, the preceding year, to construct a new
one in three years, which should bring thirty inches of water to the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, eighteen for the palace and twelve for the
inhabitants. The work was carried out by Jacques Debrosse, between 1613
and 1624; and on his handsome, dressed-stone construction there was
erected another in rough stone, less high but twice as long, between
1868 and 1872.

[Illustration: THE PUMPS OF