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| Toni – On the covered canal |
7:46 AM – Toni (Adelaïde, Australia) is a runner of very good level. The running had essentially for objective to visit Paris and it is thus with a quiet pace that we crossed the city, in 12 kph… (Quiet pace? Yes, for Toni!). We left the garden of the Luxembourg to discover the east of Paris and notably the covered part of the Saint-Martin canal.
In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the creation of the canal to improve the supply of Paris in drinking water. Later, between 1860 and 1862, the Baron Hausmann, Prefect of the Seine, within the framework of his big works of improvement of Paris, covered the canal on a big part (the current boulevard Richard Lenoir).
As for main avenues and boulevards of Paris, these works also answered the objective to make easier the military interventions. Troops left to repress a rebellion would have been slowed down by an open-air canal, even crossed by bridges! A covered canal, this is better…
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| The open-air canal part (in the upper left label, the 10km of the 10th arrondissement, around the canal) |
