The documents left by the authorites in charge of regulating artisanal and industrial polution shed light on the industrial history of Paris during the French Revolution. After a phase during which the Muncipality concentrated its policing powers in Paris previously held by several bodies, the State and its local administrative echelons (notably the Bureau Central, and later the Prefecture of Police) took charge of the regulation and fi ght against the problems and polution engendered by different aspects of production. This action, oscillating between liberalism on one hand and the concern for public health on the other, attests to the expansion of certain industrial sectors (for example, chemistry or metalurgy using powerful acids) and the new installations. Generally, the public action dealing with regulating polution went hand and hand with industrialization in the capital rather than slowing it down.