Baron Pierre-Paul Riquet de Bonrepos

1604-1680

French Engineer

French engineer Baron Pierre-Paul Riquet de Bonrepos designed and built the Languedoc Canal, sometimes called the Canal du Midi. The latter, which connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, has been called the greatest civil engineering feat between Roman times and the nineteenth century.

Riquet worked as a tax collector under King Louis XIV, during whose long reign he became interested in a problem that had long perplexed French civil engineers: how to construct a means of travelling by boat from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean. The relatively narrow width of the land between the two bodies of water made this a tempting prospect, as did the fact that two rivers at either end—the Garonne and the Aude—already provided part of a waterway. Without the canal, vessels from southern France had to sail all the way around the Iberian peninsula, where they faced a number of dangers, to reach the country's western coast; with the canal, boats could travel between coasts without ever leaving France.

In 1662 Riquet, already 58 years old, went to French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert with a proposal for the building of the canal. He quickly won Colbert to his side, and the powerful minister then went to work on his behalf with Louis and other figures whose support and permission would be required. Work finally began in 1665.

The remaining 15 years of Riquet's life would go into the building of the canal, which by any standards was an awe-inspiring creation. On the way to its highest point, 26 locks raised it some 206 feet (63 m); then at the summit, it ran for 3 miles (5 km) before beginning a descent of 620 feet (189 m) over the course of 114 miles (183.5 km). Other features included a reservoir to provide water for the summit during the dry season, as well as the 515-foot (157-m) Malpas Tunnel, which was 22 feet (6.7 m) wide.

In digging the latter, necessary in order to breach a rocky promontory near Bézier, Riquet became the first engineer in history to use an explosive—specifically, black powder—to blast away rock. Malpas was also the first canal tunnel ever built, and given the fact that explosives had never before been used for blasting, Riquet was exceedingly daring to do so.

The building of the canal took a considerable toll on its creator, and by 1680 his body had given out. The canal was nearing completion, and he was in the middle of work on the harbour of Cette (now called Sète) on the Mediterranean when he died on October 1. Workers continued putting on the finishing touches during the course of more than a year: thus the canal opened in 1691, but was not fully completed until 1692.

JUDSON KNIGHT