There were still no proper sewers; the river Bièvre served as an open sewer, discharging the sewage into the Seine. The first fire brigades were organised between 1729 and 1801, particularly after a large fire destroyed the opera house of the Palais-Royal in 1781. In the streets of Paris, the chairs in which the aristocrats and rich bourgeois were carried by their servants gradually disappeared and were replaced by horse-drawn carriages, both private and for hire.