Brunette Girl Shows Off At The Fountain

The supply of water and the building of fountains in Paris was a subject of prime concern for the new First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, beginning in 1799. In 1802 Napoleon ordered the construction of the first canal bringing water from a river outside the city, the canal d'Ourcq, which was finished in 1822. Napoleon also started construction of the Canal Saint-Denis (finished in 1821), and the Canal Saint-Martin (finished in 1825) which brought enough water for both drinking fountains and decorative fountains.
Napoleon then turned his attention to the fountains. In a decree issued May 2, 1806, he announced that it was his wish "to do something grand and useful for Paris" and proposed building fifteen new fountains. He also ordered the cleaning, repair or rebuilding of the many old fountains which had fallen into ruin, such as the Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons and the Medici Fountain. His engineers built new fountains in the city's major outdoor markets, and installed several hundred bornes-fontaines, simple stone blocks with a water tap, all over the city. In 1812, he issued a decree that the distribution of water from fountains would be free, and anyone who speculated in drinking water would be severely punished.
The early Napoleonic fountains, built before the canals were finished, were modest in scale and supplied with a limited amount of water, which poured through the traditional masquerons, or spouts. The later fountains by Napoleon, including the fountain in the Place de Vosges and the Chateau d'eau, were not used primarily for drinking water, and had water shooting into the air and cascading from the vasques into the basins below.
The fountain of the Chateau d'eau on boulevard Bondi (1812) was the first fountain in Paris where the water itself, and not the sculpture, was the chief decorative element. The Chateau d'eau fountain was also the first monumental fountain in Paris to feature two circular vasques, or stone basins, one above the other on a column, with water overflowing the basins and falling into a larger circular basin below. The novelty and scale of this fountain made it a popular promenade destination of Parisians. The fountain was moved in 1867, and today is located in front of the former Halle from the demolished Paris market of Les Halles located in la Villette.