Toulouse Archives ExhibitionWarning – don’t read this if you don’t like engineering stuff. But hang on, the man was a visionary. It’s okay, those with imagination can still read on.
Vauban finished it and marvelled at the work. Riquet died the year before, financially ruined. But what a visionary! Conceived down to the last detail so that it all ran smoothly for, say, 4 centuries. Yes, it’s the Canal du Midi. Rodney and I marvelled at the ladder of 7 locks at Béziers (used to be 9, too); Chris walks daily down the Canal de Brienne, which links into it, and the Archives of Toulouse had an exhibition about it and Pierre-Paul (de) Riquet (1609-1680), chief instigator and almost everything else. A man far ahead of his time – he provided excellent wages, housing for the workers, sick pay, paid days off, paid wet days –all unheard of in 17th century France.
The exhibition was a collection of letters and plans, from concept to execution. First, there is the idea. A canal to link the existing river (from Toulouse to the Atlantic coast) to the Mediterranean. Next you need water to be in constant supply, in the dry summers, so you find where the waters part (to the Atlantic and the Med), damn a river to make a huge lake in the mountains and put control gates on it. You also cut channels to ensure a constant supply of water to the damn and to the holding basin where the waters part. This is in parallel to the river systems and there will now be constant water downstream. Whew, water supply under control. Hang on, there’s quite a lot of up-and-down country here, so we need some tunnels to get through hills and some bridges to take the canal across valleys or other waterways and locks to deal with the gradual descents and the areas where there were or are waterfalls…So far, so good. But wait! There are floods some years! The canal can’t ever overflow its banks, because it would then be a river and not a canal. So a very complex system of drains, with huge outlets and massive handles to open the drains is installed in strategic locations, out of sight and below water-level. Of course. How obvious! When you think about it. And somewhere to drain into as well. Yes, of course.
Now, if you’ve got a lock, you’ll have to have a lock-keeper. He’ll need a house. Not a big one but still a house to plan and build. And if you have horses to pull the boats, on account of engines not yet existing, you’ll need stables for the horses, near the lock-keeper’s cottage. Better plan and build those, too... Riquet seems to have thought out everything down to the last detail and worn himself out doing so, as he died not long before it was finished. Vauban didn’t really have much to do, which is probably why it looks like a canal and not a fort! What a man!
(Later: actually Vauban did do some very important additions. See later-La Montagne Noire)
Even the barges were designed to make the most use of the dimensions of this great canal. By, or in consultation with Riquet. Transport moves on, as we-who-took-boats-to-Europe know, but the Canal du Midi, after some repairs and restoration, lives again as a tourist waterway, for motorised barges or boats, its tow paths being used now by walkers and cyclists.
Sorry, no photos allowed, even without flash.
You can click on the poster to make it bigger. Or any photo for that matter.
But here’s a French site on Riquet
http://www.canalmidi.com/paulriqu.html
