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Hero refuses to wash the body of Leander. Thisbe stops her nose in the presence of Pyramus and says: "Phew!" Jean Valjean found himself in the presence of a fontis. This sort of quagmire was common at that period in the subsoil of the Champs-Elysees, difficult to handle in the hydraulic works and a bad preservative of the subterranean constructions, on account of its excessive fluidity.
Sometimes a fontis was three or four feet deep, sometimes eight or ten; sometimes the bottom was unfathomable. Here the mire was almost solid, there almost liquid. In the Luniere fontis, it would have taken a man a day to disappear, while he would have been devoured in five minutes by the Philippeaux slough. The mire bears up more or less, according to its density.
Ab opposito autem praedicti fontis natatorij habetur imago lapidea, rudi et vetusto opere sculpta, deformiterque detrita, quae manus Absalon nuncupatur, cuius ratio lib. 2. Regum monstratur.
"'Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis Dormio dum blandae sentio murmur aquae; Parce meum, quisquis tanges cava marmora, somnum Rumpere; sive bibas, sive lavere, tace."* "Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep, And to the murmur of these waters sleep: Ah, spare my slumbers; gently tread the cave, And drink in silence, or in silence lave."
"'Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis Dormio dum blandae sentio murmur aquae; Parce meum, quisquis tanges cava marmora, somnum Rumpere; sive bibas, sive lavere, tace."* "Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep, And to the murmur of these waters sleep: Ah, spare my slumbers; gently tread the cave, And drink in silence, or in silence lave."
The work was more than unhealthy; it was dangerous. It is true that they had four months and a half of rain, and three floods of the Seine. The fontis which Jean Valjean had encountered was caused by the downpour of the preceding day. The pavement, badly sustained by the subjacent sand, had given way and had produced a stoppage of the water. Infiltration had taken place, a slip had followed.
The fontis were due to different causes: the friability of the soil; some landslip at a depth beyond the reach of man; the violent summer rains; the incessant flooding of winter; long, drizzling showers.
It also frequently happened, that the interior ravages were not revealed by any external scar, and in that case, woe to the sewermen. When they entered without precaution into the sewer, they were liable to be lost. Ancient registers make mention of several scavengers who were buried in fontis in this manner.
In huius foresti capite sub monte Polembo, est ciuitas dicta Bolemba, et sub eodem monte fons qui dicitur Iuuentutis. Aqua huius fontis reddit odorem et saporem quasi de omni genere aromatum, nam singulis pene horis immutat odorem, et saporem.
The government corked up the "Fontis" such is the name of that territorial bankruptcy and the gardens that border the street, destitute of passers-by, were reassured the more easily because the tax list did not weigh on them.