During the Revolution of 1848, the provisory government thought it prudent to deprive the pompiers of their muskets; and in April, 1850, the President of the Republic disbanded the battalion and reorganized it, retaining a small proportion of the former members. Down to this date, it had been recruited from the engineers and the artillery of the army, but since then, from the infantry only. In 1860, the annexation of the banlieue necessitated a new reorganization; the successive augmentations of the force brought its total effective, in 1866, up to a regiment of twelve hundred and ninety-eight men, divided into two battalions of six companies each. The efficiency of the organization was greatly augmented by the introduction of steam fire-engines in 1873.
BY the law of December 29, 1897, all the communes of France were authorized to suppress their octroi duties upon "hygienic beverages," wines, ciders, beers, perry, hydromel, and mineral waters, and replace them by others, after December 31, 1898. As the entrance duty upon these boissons hygiéniques constituted a very important fraction,—in Paris, in 1895, sixty-eight million five hundred thousand francs out of a grand total of a hundred and fifty-five million six hundred and one thousand,—the question of supplying this deficiency in the municipal budget is exciting discussion. In case the octroi is not suppressed altogether, the communes are obliged to diminish the tax in certain proportions, according to their population and their locality,—the cider-producing departments standing on a different footing from the wine-growing ones. To replace the octroi, they are given their choice of five other taxes—upon alcohol, or upon horses, dogs, billiards, clubs, and various other articles of luxury. It was generally predicted in Paris that the consumer of alcoholic beverages would not experience any benefit from the removal of this tax.
Under the ancient régime, the octroi, like most other imposts and duties, was in the charge of the fermiers généraux, who obtained the royal authorization to enclose Paris within a wall to facilitate its collection. Consequently, one of the first manifestations of the Revolution was the demolition of these barrières by the people, on the very day of the taking of the Bastille. On the 1st of May, 1791, at midnight, all the gates of Paris were thrown open to the hundreds of vehicles, boats, and barges which had been waiting for weeks for this moment of free entry; a triumphal mast was erected in honor of the Assemblée and to celebrate the abolition of "the most odious of tyrannies;" the National Guard, under Lafayette's orders, paraded around the demolished barriers in the midst of the universal rejoicing. But, seven years later, the necessities of the municipal finances constrained many of the thus emancipated cities, Paris included, to return to the system of levying a tax on articles entering their gates, and the masons continued the work of enclosing the capital again within walls.
Many difficulties attended the levying of this impost; "as soon as night fell," says M. Maxime Du Camp, "the city was literally taken by assault; the tavern-keepers of all the villages of the suburbs set up their ladders against the city wall, and the casks of wine, the bottles of brandy, butcher's meat, pork and vinegar, were lowered by means of ropes to the confederates who were waiting for them inside, in the chemin de ronde. Should some ill-advised customs clerk undertake to interfere with these fraudulent practices, he was set upon, beaten, gagged, and the introduction of the prohibited commodities continued undisturbed. They did even better; they excavated tunnels, which, passing under the exterior boulevards, under the wall of fortification, under the chemin de ronde, opened communication between the inns of the banlieue and those of the city; it was a veritable pillage,—the octroi was sacked." These violent measures have been replaced in the present day by more suitable ones, and the musée des fraudeurs, in the administration centrale of the octroi, contains a very curious assemblage of objects used in this contraband service. Alcohol was the favorite object of smuggling, and it was carried into the city in rubber corsets, worn under the blouse, rubber petticoats which would contain as much as thirty litres of the liquid, and were known as mignonnettes, false backs, false calves, false stomachs, and false upper arms, mostly in zinc. The women would not hesitate to appear as plantureuses wet-nurses, or as in an interesting condition; the vehicles were mined and hollowed with concealed receptacles, and even the collars of the harness; the blocks of granite, the rolls of carpet,—all the arts of the smuggler were employed. That very general popular disposition to consider the evasion of a customs duty as a trivial offence is as common in France as elsewhere.
At all the gates of the city, in the railway stations, and at the river entrances of the capital, the posts of the octroi are established, and the formula of address of the green-uniformed officials is generally the same: "You have nothing to declare?" Foreign visitors are especially advised against the carrying in their baggage of tobacco and matches, the manufacture of these being a government monopoly; French allumettes are very bad, but it is better to throw away your cherished boxes of neat wax-matches before entering the barriers. With these exceptions, the officials are tolerant of the introduction of contraband articles in small quantities,—a half-bottle of ordinary wine, two pounds of fish caught by hook and line, a pound of salt, a bundle of hay or straw, etc. The agents act under the authority of the Préfet of the Seine; the objects submitted to this duty, intended for local consumption, are designated by the Conseil Municipal and approved by the government. The officials have the right of search; dutiable objects to be carried through the city are entitled to "escort" by the agents of the octroi, or they may pay the tax at the entrance with the privilege of having it refunded when leaving. All the communes of the Department of the Seine, considered as the banlieue of Paris, have the right of levying an entrance duty upon brandies, spirits, and liquors. The penalties provided for smuggling are the confiscation of the article and of the means used in its transportation; a fine of from a hundred to two hundred francs, and even imprisonment, if the attempt has been made by means of escalade or subterranean proceedings, or with prepared methods of concealment. All dutiable articles must be declared, no matter how small the quantity carried.
As both the city and the State are interested in the collection of this tax, the agents have a double mandate to execute their duties, and the contraventions of the law are pursued at one time in the name of the public Treasury and the octroi, and at another in the name of the Préfet of the Seine. Each gate of the city has its peculiar class of produce to tax, according to the locality to which it gives entrance; and the daily receipts vary to an astonishing degree. At the Orléans dépôt, the duties on merchandise have reached a hundred thousand francs a day and fallen to five hundred; the Porte de Saint-Denis ranges from fifty thousand francs to four!
To the establishment of the octroi municipal et de bienfaisance by the Directory is due that of the great dépôts or entrepôts of wine and alcohol on the quais of the Seine,—the importers finding it very inconvenient to pay the duties upon all their casks on their first arrival. They are, therefore, allowed to store them, under the supervision of the octroi, and pay as they are sold. When the ancient corporation of the crieurs jurés announced throughout the city the arrival of a shipment of wine, the purchasers would throng to the banks of the Seine; when Louis XIV granted the first authorization to establish a halle aux vins, on condition that the profits should be divided with the Hôpital Général, the site selected was the Quai Saint-Bernard, the entrepôt of Bercy being then a market outside the city walls. The latter, on the site of the ancient Halle des Hôpitaux of the seventeenth century, developed greatly after its incorporation within the city limits; it is at present divided into two sections, Le Grand Bercy and Le Petit Château. The city is the proprietor, and rents spaces to applicants, generally for a year at a time. The octroi is stationed at every gate of exit, and at numerous posts within the enclosure. Not only is the wine stored here, but it is blended and assorted in great tuns, and there is also storage for alcohol, liquors of all kinds, and oil. The huge enclosure is very carefully policed, not only for the detection of thieves, but also of fraudulent practices; at night there are four rounds, of which the second and third are made by guardians armed with revolvers (a recent innovation), and accompanied by eight shaggy watch-dogs.
AMONG the scientific establishments of the city may be mentioned the observatory established on the top of the Tour Saint-Jacques, the beautiful fragment remaining of the old church of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, demolished in 1789. In the vaulted open chamber of the base of the tower stands a statue of Pascal, who, from the top of it, repeated his experiments on the weight of the air; and on this top—only fifty three mètres from the pavement—there has been in operation for the last seven or eight years a meteorological observatory. The varying conditions of the atmosphere, the winds, and the smoke which pollutes it, are closely investigated, weather predictions are hazarded, and the observers even descend into the sewer at their feet, under the Rue de Rivoli, to investigate and analyze the subterranean air. About 1885, M. Joubert, the director, established here a gigantic pendulum, to repeat the experiments made by Foucault at the Panthéon in 1851, and afterward a water-barometer, the only one in existence. The incongruity of this modern scientific apparatus on top of this mediæval tower, among the four monsters of the Evangelists at the corners, is rather amusing,—even the statue of Saint James himself carries placidly an anemometer on his back.
Another of these minor municipal details—and possibly a more affecting one—is the official Dépôt des Marbres, established adjoining the official museum of the Garde-Meuble at the end of the Rue de l'Université, by the side of the Champ de Mars. Here are deposited irreverently and in various stages of dilapidation all the official statues, royal, imperial, and republican, that have out-lived their day. "The marble of the statues of the State," said a cynical sculptor, "has the peculiarity of cracking after only a very short period of use." Some of these official marbles have had a longer period than others; but they all end here. Our illustration shows a corner of this depository,—at the angle, Napoleon III, sculptured by Iselin; behind him, a relief representing the return of the ashes of his great uncle; in the foreground, the Imperial eagle, with his fiery glance forever dimmed, and, at the left, a seated figure of Louis XVIII. Kings, potentates, and powers, official allegories, emblems, and symbols, are all set down here together, at the mercy of the weather. In the adjoining grand central pavilion are accumulated the official portraits of these departed rulers, including very many of the late Emperor and Empress,—"all the old rattles of France, all the playthings that she has broken."