The Paris Sewers: A City Within a City

The Paris Sewer Museum is dedicated to the sewer system of Paris. Tours of the sewage system have been popular since the 1800s and are currently conducted at the sewers. Visitors are able to walk upon raised walkways directly above the sewage itself. In the past, you could do an underground boat cruise, but cruises were stopped after a bank heist in which the robbers made their getaway via the sewers. No other city in the world has a sewer network like the one found in Paris. It now has 1,300 miles (2,100km) of sewer tunnels underneath Paris. It houses, in addition to the drinking and non-drinking water mains, telecommunication cables, pneumatic cables and traffic light management cables.

An interesting feature of the Paris sewer is that it’s a complete underground network dug under streets and boulevards. Every Parisian street lies atop its own corresponding sewer, complete with its own underground street sign. It is a city within a city, albeit a dank and somewhat smelly city. That sewer collects waste only from that street. Longer streets have more than one collection basin. Victor Hugo wrote about the sewers in Les Misérables, saying there is a mirror of Paris under herself. “Paris has beneath it another Paris; a Paris of sewers; which has its streets, its crossings, its squares, its blind-alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is of mire and minus the human form.”

Becky by the Seine, just across the river from the entrance to the Sewer Museum

“Visit the Paris Sewers” sign, with the Eiffel Tower in the background

Sewer sign with visiting hours

A stylized symbol of Paris, a boat upon the water, at the entrance to the Sewer Museum

Sewer workers going about their job. Sewer workers have benefits others don’t have, like a retirement age of 50 years old, a thirty-hour work week and interest-free home loans.

The Exhibit offers pictures and information on the history of the sewers

“The water in Paris”

Workers in underground gear cleaning secondary sewers

A tunnel with other utility pipes

Street marker for Place de la Resistance--both below and above-ground

Emmanuel Bruneseau was Napoleon’s sewer inspector, whom Napoleon commissioned to explore the tunnels and create a map as the sewers existed in the early 1800s. Until that time, sewers had been assembled without a master plan or written record. Bruneseau spent seven years completing this project.

Galerie Bruneseau

You have to watch your step because you don’t want to slip and fall.

A sandstone tunnel carrying utility lines

Bateau-vanne

The bateau-vanne is a dredge boat that is floated down and dredges the bottom so all the weight of solid material doesn’t clog up the sewers.

A sewer channel with rapidly moving water

You hear the sound of rushing water under the grates and see some pipes dripping with condensation. It’s dark down there, but it is well-lit, and the ventilation is good.

Bateau-vanne from the back of the machine

Sewer channel

A sandstone tunnel brings storm water from a nearby street.

Rue Cognac-Jay

I went to a museum, Musee Cognac-Jay, when I couldn’t find the Picasso Museum. I thought it was about the history of making cognac, but it was actually the name of the person whose art collection was in the museum. Paris streets are often named after famous people.

In 1850, the prefect for the Seine, Baron Haussman, and the engineer Eugene Belgrand designed the present Parisian sewer and water supply networks. Thus was built, more than a century ago, a double water supply network (one for drinking water and one for non drinking water) and a sewer network which was 370 miles long in 1878.This system is a result of the work of the engineer Eugène Belgrand, who was hired in 1850 as a result of a major outbreak of cholera some years before. (Previously, all waste was dumped into the Seine, which was also the source of drinking water for Parisians.) He was ordered to design a complete system for water supply and waste removal. It took an enormous amount of work and many years, until finally in 1894 a law was enacted that required all waste to be sent to the sewers. The French call this the transition from tout à la rue (all in the street) to tout à l'égout (all in the sewer).

A sewer channel with walkway

Equipment to remove solid waste

Equipment on a sewer channel

An Exhibit which describes the history of the sewers

In order to read all the signs describing the timeline of sewer construction, visitors have to stand on a metal grating over an active sewer channel; this arrangement serves to keep traffic moving at a lively pace. Exhibits also show the machinery and techniques used to dredge the sand and solid waste from the channels and the computerized monitoring system.

Eugene Belgrand, the engineer who designed the system for water supply and waste removal

The sign illustrates how the wagon bi-boule cleans the sewers. The flushing action that moves the grit is generated by the ball fitted on the front of an apparatus mounted on rails.

Wagon bi-boule

The sewers in literature

Apart from their primary function, the sewers of Paris have provided material for a number of writers over the years. Victor Hugo spent about 50 pages of Les Misérables describing the sewers based on information he received from his friend Emmanuel Bruneseau. Thus, Hugo’s description of Jean Valjean’s adventures in the sewers, through which he carried the student Marius after he had been wounded, was based on factual information and is still considered historically significant. The sewers also play a role in Phantom of the Opera and in Umberto Eco’s novel Foucault’s Pendulum. A more contemporary reference to the sewers is in Lee Goldberg’s mystery novel, Mr. Monk is Miserable, based on the television series Monk. Adrian Monk, who suffers from severe mysophobia, (a pathological fear of contamination and germs) surprises his assistant, Natalie Teeger, with his desire to see the Paris sewers, calling them a monumental and inspiring achievement in sanitation.

Victor Hugo’s description of the sewers

Jean Valjean carrying the wounded Marius and escaping through the sewers

Ancient Pumping Station

A description of the transport of waste

Machinery for pulling waste transport carts

The waste transport cart

Water analyzing station

The sign describes how the Cleaning Ball works.

Whenever there is a blockage in the cities’ sewage system the French bring in the giant sewage ball to unclog the pipes. The size of the ball used depends on the size of the pipe that must be cleared. The ball is assembled at one end of the pipe, the water pushes the ball and rotates it down the sewer and the ball cleans out the grit.

Cleaning Ball in pipe

I think this ball, on its own stand within its own circular frame, has a simple beauty all its own. It could be an art installation in the Pompidou Museum.

Interior of a cleaning ball

Cutaway view of the cleaning ball

A map of the Paris sewage system

The museum gift shop features fuzzy little sewer rat stuffed animals.

There are more than 70 of these Wallace Fountains throughout Paris. They provided free drinking water to poor residents of Paris in the late 1800s, and they are still functional.