Contenu du sommaire : Ville et environnement

The city in the middle of the marshes in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries: theoretical speeches and uses of space Urban historiography describes the modern city as wet and unhealthy due to its ditches and its activities but does not mention the peripheral wetlands of many cities. This paper aims to show how the suburban marshes were presented by doctors who regarded them as an unhealthy space while they were used and exploited for defensive and economical reasons: they enabled intensive market gardening beside cattle breeding. The changes of the 18th century should be contextualized in a longer point of view from, and especially comparing with those of the previous century: the discrepancy between the medical speech and the real uses of space is increasing at the end of the century whereas the medical theories are diffused more systematically and the practices still fit in a fully assumed heritage.

The city and the whims of the river. The Norman example XVIth - XVIIIth century Although the climatic risks in urban environment at the modern time were studied little to date with the difference of the campaigns, the city constitutes one of the privileged entries of the climatic history of our country. In rupture with this historiographic tradition, the present study aims, through the consultation of an eminently urban documentary corpus (memories, accounts, municipal deliberations), to rehabilitate the city like reliable and durable indicator of the heavy tendencies of the climate and the socio-economic changes generated by the floods in Normandy.

Gold and Rubbish. Central Government initiatives in urban waste management in Belgium in the XVIIIth century In the XVIIIth century, the Southern Low Countries (Austrian Belgium) Central Government took an interest in refuse collection in several cities, as Namur and Charleroi. Traditionally, this was a matter for the local police, supervised by the local authorities. This interference in the city government's sphere of activity is not a sign of Enlightment-inspired concerns for public hygiene. In both cities, the Central Government is guided by economic and financial interests: agriculture (manure recovery) and tax (as the sale of refuse increases local tax revenue).

The mercury in Paris: uses and nuisances (1780-1830) Mercury is a metal that became widely used during the first phase of industrialisation of the French capital. Initially restricted to pharmaceutical preparations, gilding and hat making, its use became more diversified as it grew further between 1780 and 1830, particularly in Right Bank quarters where workshops and factories began to multiply: mirror factories, gold foundries, sigillography, manufacturing of chemicals, tool making, hat trade. From the few hundred kilos imported shortly before the Revolution, the annual consumption figure grew to something in the order of ten tons in the 1810s, and rose further still until it had doubled by the Restauration. Mercury then contributed to make Paris both the capital of luxury and the city displaying the highest levels of heavy metal pollution. Its alloys and amalgams made the good and bad fortune of manufacturers. Being the only liquid metal, ‘‘quicksilver'' evaporated, oxidised, and blackened the air of factories and their surroundings. Being a dense metal, its vapour settled and formed deposits, infiltrating and accumulating ubiquitously and dissolving other metals. Causing allergies, nervousness and even epidemics, such as the acrodynia outbreak of 1827-1828, which was the most pernicious, it was used in urban art in both its metallic and saline forms, the first being the most frequent and least toxic because the metal is not stored in the body but ultimately accumulates in the soil, the second being highly dangerous as it concentrates in the viscera, causing paralysis and madness.

A plentiful and inexhaustible resource? Urbanization and water management in the Montreal region in the 19th and 20th centuries This paper examines the conditions surrounding the development of water distribution and wastewater evacuation and treatment installations in the Montréal metropolitan area between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early 1980s. How was water perceived in an urban region where it is ubiquitous? How was water used and made accessible? By analysing the social and political relationships that have influenced the ways in which water was managed at the metropolitan level, we highlight some of the environmental issues raised by looking at how problems emerged differently in upstream (water provision) and downstream (wastewater evacuation) communities. Our analysis suggests that the decisions surrounding the drinking water and wastewater systems have acted both as divisive and cohesive forces among local actors.

Towns and enterprises: actors of urban sanitation situation At the beginning of the XXth century, French authorities sounded the alarm on the poor sanitation situation of their cities. In Paris, the provincial municipal administrations were viewed as responsible, because of their carelessness, for a ‘‘French lateness.'' However, local archives reveal their involvement, uneven indeed, in the issue of urban public health, following the insistence of private companies and the exchange of experience between city administrators and engineers across the country. The history of French urban sanitation projects is a complex one, which tales in the search for expertise, difficult financial arbitrations and the hazards of local, national and international politics.

The lost parliament. The exile of the court of Bordeaux under the reign of Louis XIV Even though the link between city and Parlement is strong during the Old Regime, it is difficult to describe it because of its complexity. But this link appears more clearly when the town and the court are separated. Our purpose is to study the example of the parliament of Bordeaux under the reign of Louis XIV, because this court knew two exiles. The exile itself and his causes are very interesting to understand the royal point of view. It also shows us the place of the parliament, as an administrative institution, with its buildings and economical needs, and as a human group of a hundred rich men.