The canal was built between 1666 and 1681, under the reign of Louis XIV. Using only the manpower of 12,000 men (including 600 women!), the construction was lead by Pierre Paul Riquet. He was a rich tax farmer in charge of collecting the French salt tax “gabelle” in
Languedoc. The canal was originally built to transport goods and avoid the long sea voyage around Spain, which at the time lasted a whole month. Pierre Paul Riquet persuaded the king’s finance minister to accept his project. He began by building a 700 m x 120 m dam, (which at the time was the largest civil engineering work in Europe) to supply the canal with water. The canal comprises a tunnel, several bridges and 103 locks, being 30.5m long, and 11m wide, what prevents the walls from collapsing. It was opened under the name of “Canal Royal de Languedoc” on May 15, 1681… a few months after Riquet’s death. It was supposed to cost 3,360,000 “livres” (the French currency at the time) but the construction eventually amounted to more than 15 millions. The project left Riquet with considerable debts, as he poured 2 million “livres” from his own wealth into the construction. His family inherited the Canal, but the debts were paid off only after a hundred years. Commercial traffic on the canal continued until 1980 when it began to decline rapidly, until the 1989 closure. The Canal du Midi runs down along picturesque villages you can discover. They have kept the charm and gastronomy they had at the time of the construction. In 1996, the Canal was declared a UNESCO world heritage.
History of the Canal du Midi