Compagnie des eaux de Paris

The Paris Water Company (French:Compagnie des eaux de Paris) was a French company founded in 1778 that ran a steam engine-driven water distribution service which pumped water from the Seine into the city of Paris. This joint-stock company was listed on the Paris Stock Exchange. It was at the heart of the great stock market speculations under Louis XVI. Until 1770, two dilapidated hydraulic machines, the Notre-Dame and de la Samaritaine pumps, provided the water needed for consumption in Paris. The water did not flow continually from the fountains, which were shut off at night, and some districts, such as Montmartre and Les Invalides, did not have any access to drinking water at all. The Compagnie des eaux de Paris was founded in 1778 under the status of a limited partnership by the Périer brothers, Joseph and Casimir Pierre Périer, protegés of the Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, who had invented a centrifugal pump. Their idea was to serve private houses, for a fee, by connections to the water of the Seine, pumped at the level of the plain of Chaillot. They wanted to supply commercial fountains where water would be sold directly to private individuals who took out a subscription, then to install "fire pumps" in Paris in the form of taps to fight fires and clean the streets. In 1781 they imported from England a steam engine invented by James Watt to pump water from the Seine, and brought the industrial tools for the Chaillot fire pumps. The pump began to work after that. Their network supplied the town of Chaillot (now district of Chaillot) on the right bank and the “” district, in the current Quai d'Orsay, on the left bank, with respectively 4,100 and 1,300 m3 of water per day. The company was authorized by letters patent of Louis XVI on February 7, 1777. It was the first truly private company listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, even though it depended on a public market. In the 1780s, the actions of the Compagnie des Eaux de Paris were the object of the speculation characteristic of the pre-revolutionary period, as were those of the Caisse d'Escompte and the new Compagnie des Indes, refounded in 1785. Its fragility caused a series of offensives against the Périer brothers, after the price reached a peak in the summer of 1786. The banker Étienne Clavière and his many friends in finance supported a competitor, the , created by (1740-1794) in 1787.