of the boulevards. He also required, using a decree from 1852, that the façades of all buildings be regularly maintained, repainted, or cleaned, at least every ten years. under the threat of a fine of one hundred francs. Underneath the streets of Haussmann's Paris – the renovation of the city's infrastructure While he was rebuilding the boulevards of Paris, Haussmann simultaneously rebuilt the dense labyrinth of pipes, sewers and tunnels under the streets which provided Parisians with basic services. Haussmann wrote in his mémoires: "The underground galleries are an organ of the great city, functioning like an organ of the human body, without seeing the light of day; clean and fresh water, light and heat circulate like the various fluids whose movement and maintenance serves the life of the body; the secretions are taken away mysteriously and don't disturb the good functioning of the city and without spoiling its beautiful exterior." Haussmann began with the water supply. Before Haussmann, drinking water in Paris was either lifted by steam engines from the Seine, or brought by a canal, started by Napoleon I, from the river Ourcq, a tributary of the river Marne. The quantity of water was insufficient for the fast-growing city, and, since the sewers also emptied into the Seine near the intakes for drinking water, it was also notoriously unhealthy. In March 1855 Haussmann appointed Eugène Belgrand, a graduate of the École Polytechnique, to the post of Director of Water and Sewers of Paris. Belgrand first addressed the city's fresh water needs, constructing a system of aqueducts that nearly doubled the amount of water available per person per day and quadrupled the number of homes with running water. These aqueducts discharged their water in reservoirs situated within the city. Inside the city limits and opposite Parc Montsouris, Belgrand built the largest water reservoir in the world to hold the water from the River Vanne. At the same time Belgrand began rebuilding the water distribution and sewer system under the streets. In 1852 Paris had of sewers, which could carry only liquid waste. Containers of solid waste were picked up each night by people called vidangeurs, who carried it to waste dumps on the outskirts of the city. The tunnels he designed were intended to be clean, easily accessible, and substantially larger than the previous Parisian underground. Under his guidance, Paris's sewer system expanded fourfold between 1852 and 1869. Haussmann