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 _prévôt_ 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 Maubuée, and that of the Halles were also watered by this aqueduct of the Pré-Saint-Gervais. The Cité 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 François I, Jean Briçonnet, 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 conduct 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, Abbé of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 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.