CANAL DU MIDI

Designed by Pierre-Paul Riquet (1609-1680) and motivated by the wheat trade, Canal du Midi was shaped by the hand of man. It began the era of the Industrial Revolution by allowing to rally, by its 240 kilometers, the Atlantic Ocean, via the Garonne, to the Mediterranean Sea. Its journey begins in Toulouse and ends in Marseillan - the other part connecting the Atlantic begins in Toulouse and ends in Castets-en-Dorthe (Canal de Garonne). It was made between 1667 and 1694 and two thousand workers were hired from January 1667. This number rose to twelve thousand, including six hundred women, to alleviate the shortage of men. The work was carried out in three major projects: the first from Toulouse to Trèbes (east of Carcassonne) which includes the basins and water supply systems, the second towards the south of Trèbes to the pond of Thau, and the third that was the construction of the harbour of Sète. To address the problem of leveling throughout the course, more than 60 locks had to be built, Riquet was perfectly conscious of helping to forge a symbol of the power of the 17th-century France, while giving the country a functional communication channel. He thus particularly made sure that the quality of the canal's architecture is worthy of this function. The bridges, the locks and the structures associated with them, as well as the tunnel entrances were designed and drawn with a great sense of aesthetic combined with technical constraints, the whole includes no less than 328 works of art and 63 locks. He was also extremely conscious of the impact of his work on the landscape and took great care to ensure that it was properly bordered by trees and by vegetation in harmony with the landscapes crossed. Since 1996, this performance has rightly been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Having the width of 10 to 20 meters and deep of about 2 meters, the canal passes to its highest point at the threshold of Naurouze, at the border of the department of Aude and Haute Garonne in the Lauragais. Its history with Carcassonne was quite complex since, at the completion of the first route, the canal was 2 kilometers from the city. A link between the city and the canal was suggested in 1686 by Vauban but it was only a century later, in 1787, that the construction of a new route was ordered and was completed in 1810 and that wouldl definitely set the canal in its current configuration.