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- Pierre Paul Riquet had the dream to join the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

- A crazy dream and a costly bet.

- He will die ruined without having seen the work of his life finished.

- We are in 1661.

- The project to join both seas has been in the air of the time for over a century.

- After the Garonne, navigable up to Toulouse, the digging of a canal is needed from Toulouse to the Mediterranean.

- Riquet has also a great idea; he finds how to feed it by using the waterway of the Black Mountain.

- Colbert the King’s finance intendant see a two-fold interest in it, the transport of goods and of armed forces.

- Four years are needed to go from dream to reality.

- In October 1666, a royal edict allows the works, the whole world gets enthusiastic.

- The canal was, at the time it was built, the first European public works company.

- The 18th century that got passionate for architectural and technique issues could only be marveled by what the canal was.

- Marveled by this titanic venture, an enormous project accomplished by a true army of over 12,000 men,

- a project reconstituted by Michel Adge thanks to documents that remained unexploited until then.

- Over 40,000 pieces that can be counted that slept in the bureau of archives of the canal in Toulouse.

- It ranges from the list of workers to the suppliers’ bills,

- the accounting book with the approval of the accounts at the end of the exercise and we can find extraordinary things such as small bills that were folded and dirtied in a pocket

- and in which, for instance, Sir de Saint Féréol, who was the workshop boss, de Saint-Ferréol would ask the accountant de Revel:

- “Sir Valentin … please garant thise boy 2… Big rowing boats as it is for Saint Ferreol’s rings.”

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- First essential step of the project:

- feeding.

- The waters are harnessed on both hillsides of the Black Mountain, where pluviometry is the highest, over 2 meters per year.

- 2 channels are built, to consolidate the slope of existing streams.

- The channel of the mountain and that of the plain meet somewhere between Revel and Saint-Félix Lauragais.

- The water then runs down to the Naurouze, the highest point where the waters split between Toulouse and Carcassonne.

- At the heart of the device, a large regulation basin that gets the waters from the mountains in winter and releases them in summer.

- Saint-Ferréol, the first large dam of all times.

- Other reservoirs were created later, the Lampier in 1781 then in the 20th century, the Cammazes, then today Montbel in Ariège.

- The feeding being safe, the canal is dug.

- The first part will link Toulouse to Trebès,

- then in 1669 the following in decided on, from Trebès to the sea.

- But from 1673, everythnig goes wrong.

- The works are slow and cost a fortune, Riquet’s finances are in a bad state.

- At his time, people had no experience with this kind of works.

- The estimation the Quervide Knight prepared had the entrepreneurs cautious.

- When he built the aqueduct of Répudre or Saint-Ferréol, Riquet knew where he was heading but financially and technically, he didn’t know what difficulties he would find.

- The result was:

- the note has been over estimated.

- Riquet dies in 1680, leaving behind over 4 million pounds debt.

- Inaugurated during the first months of 1681, the canal runs from Toulouse to Castelnaudary and from Bézier to the pond of Tau.

- At the turn of the 19th century, river traffic is at its climax and Riquet’s descendants pocket the benefits.

- All along history, the parts of the canal changed several of owners,

- destined to assure the wealth of the family destiny, Riquet’s work has been in the hands of the Republican State since 1896.