Fountains in Paris

Fontaines de la Concorde (1836-1840)Fontaine de la Pyramide, Cour Napoleon I of the Louvre (1988)

The Fountains in Paris originally provided drinking water for city residents, and now are decorative features in the city's squares and parks. Paris has more than two hundred fountains, the oldest dating back to the 16th century. It also has more than one hundred Wallace drinking fountains.^[1] Most of the fountains are the property of the municipality.

In 2017, an investigation by the cultural heritage magazine La Tribune de l'art revealed that more than half of these fountains were not functioning.^[2]

For the list of Paris fountains by arrondissement, See List of Paris fountains.

The Fontaine des Innocents in the 1st arrondissement as it looks today. It was moved in 1788 and made into free-standing fountain, and then moved again in 1858 to its present location in the middle of the Marché des Innocents.The Medici Fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg (1630), was built for Marie de' Medici by Tommaso Francini, a Florentine fountain-maker brought to France by King Henry IV of France. (View of fountain about 1820, after additions by Chalgrin. Source: Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris)

The history of fountains in Paris until the mid-19th century was the history of the city's struggle to provide clean drinking water to its growing population. The building of fountains also depended upon the law of gravity; until the introduction of mechanical pumps, the source of the water had to be higher than the fountain for the water to flow.

In the third century BC, the original inhabitants, the Parisii, took their water directly from the River Seine. By the first century BC, the Roman engineers of the town of Lutetia had built the aqueduct of Arcueil using gravity to provide water for their baths and for their public fountains.

In the Middle Ages, the Roman aqueduct of Arcueil had fallen into ruins and residents once again took their water from the Seine or from wells. By the reign of Philip II of France (1180–1223), two large monasteries existed outside the city walls north of Paris; the Abbey of Saint-Laurent, at the foot of Montmartre, and the Abbey of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. These monasteries received fresh water from two aqueducts; the Abbey of Saint Laurent by lead pipes coming from the heights of Romaineville and Menilmontant, and the Abbey of Saint-Martin-des-Champs by a masonry aqueduct coming from the summit of Belleville. In the first half of the 13th century, these two aqueducts were used to supply water to the first recorded fountains in medieval Paris, the Fontaine des Halles, the Fontaine des Innocents, and the Fontaine de Maubuée.^[3] These fountains did not gush water; water poured out continually in thin streams from bronze masquerons, masks, usually of animals, into stone basins so local residents could fill their vessels with water.

By 1498, when Louis XII of France became King, the water supply of Paris was controlled jointly by the merchants of the city, led by the Prévot des Marchands, and the king. They decided how water would be distributed and were responsible for building public fountains. The water supply of Paris was still very limited; by the end of the 15th century, there were only seventeen fountains providing water in Paris, including five outside the walls. All of the fountains were on the Right Bank; the two aqueducts supplied water, and, as the water table was close to the surface, and it was easy to dig wells there, while on the Left Bank the water table was deep underground and there were no working aqueducts so almost all water had to be carried from the Seine. As a result, the Left Bank had hardly grown since the time of Philip II.^[4]

In the early 17th century, King Henry IV of France decided to bring water to the Left Bank for the university and for the planned Luxembourg Palace of his wife, Marie de' Medici. A new aqueduct was built between 1613 and 1623 to bring water from Rungis. This new aqueduct supplied six new fountains on the Left Bank, including the present-day Medici Fountain, and one on the Right Bank. In addition, five new fountains were built on the right bank using the two original aqueducts. Henry's brought Tommaso Francini, a Florentine fountain maker, to Paris, where he designed the Medici Fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg. In 1636 he became the Intendant general des Eaux et Fontaines, in charge of all royal fountains and water projects. His descendants held this title until 1781.^[5]

Another major contribution of Henry IV was the construction between 1578 and 1608 of La Samaritaine, an enormous hydraulic water pump, powered by a water wheel under the Pont Neuf, which lifted water up from the Seine to a reservoir near Saint-Germain-l'Auxerois, for use in the Louvre Palace and the Tuileries Gardens. Two more pumps were added in 1673. Thanks to the pumps and the new aqueduct, by 1673 Paris, with an estimated population of 500,000 people, had 16 fountains on the Right bank fed by aqueducts, 14 fountains on the Left Bank fed by the new Aqueduct of Arcueil, and twenty one new fountains along the Right and Left banks of the river, fed by the new hydraulic pumps.^[4]

Of the fountains built in the 16th and 17th century, all were either rebuilt or demolished in the following two centuries. Only a few, such as the Fontaine Boucherat, the Fontaine des Innocents and Medici Fountain, all extensively rebuilt, still preserve the character of their time.

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  The Fontaine des Innocents was built in 1549 to welcome King Henry II on his solemn entry to Paris. Parisians could fill vessels with water from the ornamental spouts at street level. (17th-century engraving by Perelle.)
 
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  The Medici Fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg (1630) as it looks today. The basin of water and group of sculptures were added in the nineteenth century.
 
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  Fontaine Boucherat, Rue de Turenne, (1695-1699), represents the work of Jean Beausire, Director of Public Works in Paris for King Louis XIV.
 
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  Six Paris fountains from about 1670; The fontaines of porte Saint-Denis, de la charité and des Petis-Peres Noirs (top); and rue Saint-Louis-au-Marais, porte Saint-Germain and Sainte-Ovide (bottom). (Bibloiotheque d'Art et d'Archeology, Paris)