Unknown Paris- Part 2

 
Some of Paris's best known features were designed by Brits. This is one of the 100 or so Wallace Fountains installed in Paris in the 1870s by a British philanthropist, Richard Wallace, to supply the city’s parched residents with clean drinking water. At the time, most Parisians were quenching their thirst with water drawn from the Seine, which was also the main sewer. Understandably, many preferred cheap wine.
Fearing for their health and their sobriety, Wallace paid for a clean water network to be installed. The four statues on each of his fountains represent simplicité, charité, bonté (goodness) and sobriété. They’re all identical, as if Wallace wanted to convince Parisians that goodness and sobriety were the same thing – some hope.