Channel of Briare

The channel of Briare is one of oldest the channels of France. It is the prototype of all the modern channels.

Construction

It was ordered by Sully, in order to develop the interprovincial trade, to reduce the food shortages (" Tilling and pasture… ") and by bringing back peace in the kingdom there. Its construction began in June 1605 and was completed only in 1642. Between six and twelve thousand workmen worked on this building site which connects the basins of the the Loire and of the the Seine (but it is completed in the Loing) in Montargis.

The adjudication of the building site was made in February 1604, by a setting with the biddings with the candle. Hugues Cosnier, engineer tourangeau, obtained to build the first channel crossing a Watershed. It was thus necessary to use lock S with hopper, invented gradually as of the end of the Middle Ages and developments by Léonard de Vinci. Cosnier is made help Dutch engineers, specialists in hydraulics. A flight of locks was built with Rogny-the-Seven-Locks: it aligns seven jointed locks to catch up with uneven of 24 Mr. Another scale similar, with the Mill-Flaring (Dammarie/Loing) aligns in the same way four jointed hoppers. A third scale was at Chesnoy, and comprised 3 hoppers. Work began in June 1605 and advanced quickly, in spite of the sharp opposition local lords, in particular the Lord of Coligny, small son of the Protestant admiral assassinated at the time of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. But the king Henri IV assassinated in 1610 and disgraced Sully, it did not have there any more a support for work and necessary expropriations. Hugues Cosnier had to give up work in 1611. About 1628, the Marquis Antoine Coeffier Ruzé d' Effiat, friend of Richelieu, were interested in the channel and wanted to start again work with Cosnier, but their successive deaths, in 1629 and 1632, still deferred the completion of work. It then did not miss with the channel more but one ten kilometers in the south of Montargis. Hardest, the passage of the watershed, was made.

In 1638, Jacques and Guillaume Boutheroue and Jacques Guyon propose to resume work, and receive Louis XIII with this intention the letters patent. They create with other noble “Company of the Lords of the channel of Loyre in the Seine”. Work was completed in September 1642. Seriously sick Richelieu was the first famous passenger. It had just made decapitate, in Lyon, the proper son of its friend Ruzé d' Effiat, the young conspirator Five-March.

Being a junction canal (between two different basins), it was not only necessary to build locks of course, but also to conceive a particular Bief, on the watershed, by where would be made the principal food of the channel, by collecting the water of ponds higher located (a channel at summit pond is comparable with a road which crosses a collar, with this difference close the road does not need to be fed out of water: it is enough for him to carry the vehicles.) Indeed, for each passage of Boat, one needs réalimenter the locks from approximately 500 to 1000 cubic meters of water according to the height of the works. pond S were thus dug or increased and connected to the level of the Gazonne (the upper race of the channel of Briare) by a whole network of several tens of kilometers of drains through wood and fields:

the ponds of Turfs, of Boussicauderie and from Chesnoy which are on the level of the summit pond and feed it directly;
the pond of the Main street with Ouzouer-on-Trézée;
ponds of Tilery, the Castle, Cahauderie and Beaurois with Champoulet;
the large tank of the Bumblebee with Saint-Fargeau, on the Bumblebee, an affluent of Loing, increased in 1904;
the tank of Moutiers, on Loing;
and several other ponds of less importance.

To supplement this food, an elevatory factory was installed in Briare in 1895, to drive back the water of the Loire 45 m higher, in the summit pond very close to the lock of Gazonne.

During years 1830, the channel knew an important modernization campaign following the laws imposing Becquey of 1821 and 1822, inter alia, a minimum gauge with the channels. The locks then were extended and lengthened to dimensions of 31m on 5,20m, and the channel deepened for a damping of 1,60m.

During years 1880, the channel, which had been repurchased by the State in 1860, was again modernized following the law Freycinet of 1879. The gauge was increased once again with locks of 39m on 5,20m, and the damping of the channel passed to 2,20m. During this modernization, whole sections of the channel abandoned and were replaced by new, the more direct. Thus the multiple locks of Rogny, Mill-Flaring and Chesnoy were then abandoned with the profit of locks separated on a new layout. By place, the old channel is still quite visible (the Rondo, Mill-Flaring, Venon, Briquemault…)

Modifications

In 1720, the channel was prolonged of Montargis with Buges to be connected to the channels of Orleans and Loing. This portion is named " Neuf" channel;.

The channel was repurchased by the State in 1860.

Between 1880 and 1890, it was carried to the Freycinet gauge, which involved the abandonment of whole sections to the new least sinuous profit.

In 1894 and 1895, in consequence of the passage of the channel to a higher gauge more consuming water, an elevatory factory was built in order to bring water to the channel, with the Bief of division, to mitigate the insufficiencies of the ponds which fed the channel during the periods of dryness.

The " nouveau" side channel with the Loire and the tubular bridge of Briare

To improve traffic circulation on the broad outline ligérienne of Digoin with Briare and its prolongation towards the Paris basin by the channels of Briare and Loing, a Pont-canal out of mild steel was built as from 1890 and was opened in 1896 to allow the side Canal in the Loire (realized between 1822 and 1838), to cross the the Loire much more easily than before, where it was to borrow the bed of the river on one kilometer on the commune of the Châtillon-on-Loire. This tubular bridge, bench with Briare, allowed thus an easier connection, 3 kilometers further in Cognardière, of the Latéral channel with the channel of Briare. It is the work of the engineer-in-chief Leonce-Abel Mazoyer (1846-1910).

The Pont-canal of Briare, which belongs to the Latéral channel in the Loire (and not with the channel of Briare) is established on fourteen piles, built on deep boxes from 5 to 8 meters. On these piles is posed a single metal beam which supports a basin out of U which contains more 13 000 tons of water (2,2 meters of depth). The width of the bridge, tow paths included/understood, is of 11,5 meters; its 662,7 meters length.

In addition to crossing the Loire, the tubular bridge crosses the old Latéral channel of 1838.

Eight valves make it possible to empty the tubular bridge in the event of severe freezing.

List locks

Trip hammer (1642), Rivotte (fine XVIIe), Baraban (1794). All three allowed the communication with the Loire.
Henri IV, Rochereau or Briare (name not fixed).
the Place.
Cognardière.
Venon.
Couranveaux.
Ouzouer.
Mill-Nine.
Fairies.
Notre-Dame.
Small Chaloy.
Turfs It.

(Summit pond)

Old locks: The Rondo. Rogny (lock increases sevenfold)
current Ecluses:
Javacière.
Saint-Joseph.
Racault.
Chantepinot
Rogny.
Holy-Bores.

Dammarie
Picardy.
Mill-Flaring.
(old lock quadruples of Mill-Flaring)
Gazon (formerly double).
Briquemault.
Châtillon.
Lépinoy (formerly double).
Montbouy (formerly two locks).
(Old locks of Chesnoy: 1 single lock, 1 triple lock, 1 single lock)
current locks:
Montambert.
Chesnoy.
Mill of Turns.
Scapegoat.

Sand pit
Tilery.
Maroilles cheese (formerly double).
the Rennet.

(terminus of the channel in 1642. The continuation, named " channel neuf" , in 1720.

was open Anglée.

(connection of the channel of Orleans, 1693)

Buges. Terminus, and prolongation by the channel of Loing (1723).

External bond

Dictionary of the rivers and channels in the Babel project: the channel of Briare

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