The prices of the necessaries of life were also fixed. The city of Petersburg was well lighted with lamps during the night; a convenience which was first introduced in Paris by Louis XIV., and to which Rome is still a stranger. Pumps were erected for supplying water in cases of fire; the streets were well paved, and rails put up for the security of foot passengers: in a word, every thing was provided that could minister to safety, decency, and good order, and to the quicker dispatch and convenience of the inland trade of the country. Several privileges were granted to foreigners, and proper laws enacted to prevent the abuse of those privileges. In consequence of these useful and salutary regulations, Petersburg and Moscow put on a new face. The iron and steel manufactories received additional improvements, especially those which the czar had founded at about ten miles distance from Petersburg, of which he himself was the first superintendant, and wherein no less than a thousand workmen were employed immediately under his eye. He went in person to give directions to those who farmed the corn-mills, powder-mills, and mills for sawing timber, and to the managers of the manufactories for cordage and sail-cloth, to the brick-makers, slaters, and the cloth-weavers. Numbers of workmen in every branch came from France to settle under him; these were the fruits he reaped from his travels. He established a board of trade, which was composed of one half natives, and the other half foreigners, in order that justice might be equally distributed to all artists and workmen. A Frenchman settled a manufactory for making fine looking-glass at Petersburg, with the assistance of prince Menzikoff. Another set up a loom for working curious tapestry, after the manner of the Gobelins; and this manufactory still meets with great encouragement. A third succeeded in making of gold and silver thread, and the czar ordered that no more than four thousand marks of gold or silver should be expended in these works in the space of a year; by this means to prevent the too great consumption of bullion in the kingdom. He gave thirty thousand rubles, that is, about one hundred and fifty thousand French livres,[110] together with all the materials and instruments necessary for making the several kinds of woollen stuffs. By this useful bounty he was enabled to clothe all his troops with the cloth made in his own country; whereas, before that time, it was purchased from Berlin and other foreign kingdoms. They made as fine linen cloth in Moscow as in Holland; and at his death there were in that capital and at Jaroslaw, no less than fourteen linen and hempen manufactories.