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The Canal du Midi
 This 360-km
network of navigable waterways linking the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic
through 328 structures (locks, aqueducts, bridges, tunnels, etc.) is one of the
most remarkable feats of civil engineering in modern times. Built between 1667,
and 1694, it paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. The technical
achievement was previously unimaginable, and was the brainchild of Pierre-Paul
Riquet.
Pierre-Paul Riquet,
was
born in Béziers
29th June 1609 (some sources say 1604) He became a rich tax-farmer
in the Languedoc region, and knew the region intimately.
Tax farming was
originally a Roman practice,
where the burden of tax
collection was
assigned by the State to private individuals. In essence, these individuals paid
the taxes for a certain area, and for a certain period of time. They then
attempted to cover their outlay, by collecting money or saleable goods from the
people within that area. Hence tax farming. Riquet was appointed collector in
1630. He was given permission by the King to levy his own taxes, and became
wealthy.
The Canal du
Midi is a 240 km long, and flows between Sete,
and Toulouse where it connects with the Canal de Garonne, and forms together
the Canal des Deux Mers, joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
The Canal
de Garonne, connects Toulouse to Castets-en-Dorthe.
The village lies at the junction of the Canal
de Garonne and
the River
Garonne.
The remainder of
the route to Bordeaux uses
the Garonne River.
The
Mediterranean port of Sète, which was founded as a port for the Royal fleet, by
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the finance minister of Louis XIV. It also serves as the
eastern terminus of the Canal du Midi.
Sete formed
a junction between the
Étang de Thau and
the sea.
The Étang de Thau or Bassin
de Thau is
the largest of a string of étangs (lakes)
that stretch along the Languedoc-Roussillon coast
from the Rhône
River to
the foothills of the Pyrenees.
It is the second largest lake in France.
The Canal du
Midi was built to serve as a shortcut between the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean. Louis
XIV was
keen for the project to proceed, largely because of the increasing cost, and
danger of transporting cargo and trade
around southern Spain where pirates were common, thus avoiding the
long sea voyage, a trip that in the 17th century took a month to complete. Its
strategic value was obvious, and had been discussed for centuries. The major
problem was how to supply it with enough water in a hostile, and arid landscape.
The logistics were
immense, and complicated, so much so, that other engineers including the ancient Romans had
discussed the idea, but not proceeded with it.
Navigating around
many hills and providing a system that would feed the canal with water through
the dry summer months, gave Riquet the biggest headache. Advances in lock engineering
and the creation of a 6 million cubic metre artificial
lake, the Bassin de St. Ferréol,
provided
solutions. 12,000 workers
toiled for fifteen years to create the Canal.
The Bassin
de Saint-Ferréol was
created as the result of building a large earth dam at St. Ferréol, in the Montagne
Noire. For Pierre
Paul Riquet it
was
an integral part of the Canal
du Midi. Riquet needed
to provide a sufficient water supply to allow the locks to
function all year round, even in the dry summer season. The dam was begun on 15
April 1667, and was completed in four years. It was the first dam, built
specifically, to supply water to a navigable canal, and was by far the greatest
single work of civil engineering undertaken during the building of the Canal
du Midi. The Bassin
de St. Ferréol, was connected to the Canal du Midi by a channel over 25 km long.
At its peak 12,000 labourers
worked on the project, including over a thousand women, many of whom came
specifically to work on the water system. The women labourers were surprisingly
important to the canal's engineering.
Many came from the Pyrenees, where
many canals criss-cross the Pyrenees, constructed over a thousand years ago in
the time of the Visigoths, and used for irrigation.
Hydraulics and water flow had been maintained as a living tradition by country
women over centuries.
Hydraulics
in France was mainly concerned with mining and problems of drainage. Building a
navigational canal across the continent was well beyond the formal knowledge of
military engineers, but the peasant women maintained, a knowledge of hydraulic
methods that were useful for the building techniques employed in the
construction of the canal. They not only perfected the water supply system for
the canal but also threaded the waterway through the mountains near Béziers,
using few locks, and built the eight-lock staircase at Fonserannes.
At
Béziers,
Fonserannes, les
neuf écluses, is a staircase
of eight locks that brought the canal down to the river Orb, from a
height of 21.5
metre, over a distance
of 300 metre.
The locks had to be cut from solid rock, and descended a hillside whose gradient
varied. All the locks had to contain the same volume of water, but could not
have precisely the same shape. Surprisingly, this amazing piece of engineering
was subcontracted out to two illiterate brothers, the Medhailes, and was built
successfully by a workforce composed mainly of women.
The Canal also crosses
over the river Orb, and to
accomplish this feat, a pont-canal (bridge canal) was built.
The Canal du
Midi was opened officially as the Canal Royal de Languedoc on May 15,
1681. It was also referred to as the Canal des Deux Mers (Canal of Two
Seas). It eventually cost over 15 million livres, of which nearly two
million came from Riquet himself, leaving him with huge debts. He died in 1680,
just months before the Canal was opened. His sons inherited the canal, but the
family's investments were not recovered and debts fully paid for over 100 years.
The design
of the Canal included the first canal passage ever built through a tunnel at
Enserune (the 173 metre (568 ft) long Malpas Tunnel). Colbert halted work on
the tunnel after a few
metres of digging in hard rock revealed a very brittle sandstone subject to
slippage. Riquet's detractors took adva ntage of this situation to impede the
project. Colbert announced that he would send royal commissioners to decide the
canal's future. Chevalier de Clerville, architect to Louis
XIV, suggested crossing the River
Aude rather
than tunnel through the hill. Riquet, however, maintained his preference for a
tunnel because of the extra problems that crossing the River Aude would create.
Riquet's response
was to ask his master mason, Pascal de Nissan, to continue tunneling in secret
despite the risk of collapse. In less than eight days the tunnel was complete
with a concrete ceiling throughout.
Another first was the
Agde Round Lock, that connects to the Hérault River in
Agde. It was unique because it was round, which allowed a boat to turn around,
and the fact that it has three sets of lock gates, each with a different water
level. It was built in 1676 of volcanic stone, and was originally 29.20 metre in
diameter, 5.20 metre deep.
The lock is no longer round,
but more oval. It was altered during a program begun in 1978 to enlarge the lock
to allow for barges up to 38.50 meters long.
During the 1970s a
modernisation program took place. The original lock gates that were originally
made of oak were changed, and several multiple chamber locks were converted into
single "deep" locks with concrete side walls. The introduction of electric and
hydraulic systems for lifting the sluices, and the opening of the gates took
place, and modern gates are now of metal construction.
At each lock there is a lock
keeper's house, with a cast iron or a masonry sign showing the name of the lock,
and the name and distance to the adjacent locks in each direction. The locks are
still operated by lock keepers, and passage is only possible when they are in
attendance. The locks are open every day, except 1 January, 11 November and
25 December, from 08:00 until 17:30 out of season and 08:00 until 19:00 in the
summer peak; all locks are closed 12:30 – 13:30 for lunch.
Initially the canal was used
by small sailing barges, with easily lowered masts, and hauled by gangs of men.
By the middle of the 18th century, horse towing had taken over, and steam tugs
came in 1834 to cross the Étang. By 1838, 273 commercial vessels were regularly
working the canal, and passenger and mail boats continued a brisk trade until
the coming of the railways in 1857. Commercial traffic continued until 1980 when
it began to decline rapidly, and ceased altogether during the drought closure of
1989. Now the Canal du Midi is the most popular pleasure waterway in Europe,
where tourists hire holiday cruisers, and some floating hotels.
Barge and cruiser
holidays can be taken from many places along the Canal.
Portiragnes,
Colombiers,
Le Somail,
Homps,
Castelnaudary,
Trebes
and
Capestang are some
of the best starting points.
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