Connect-Eure : présentation du projet

Congrès international de géographie UGI-IGU – Paris : «Le temps des géographes»
18-22 juillet 2022

Session: “Time scaling issues in geoheritage studies” ↵
19 juillet 2022 – 16h30-18h30 – Panthéon salle 57

– Poster de François Bétard, avec la collaboration de Cédric Beaudoin, Clélia Bilodeau, Eva Chéramy, Céline Clauzel, Fabienne Dugast, Jacques Galland, Hervé Gallépy, Etienne Grésillon, Isabelle Le Tellier, Albert Marsot, Patrick Mulet, Paul Passy
– “
A multifaceted historical, ecological and stone heritage complex into an agricultural-dominated landscape: the 17th-century French Royal Canal Louis XIV (Eure-et-Loir, France)”

 

Abstract

Built at the end of the 17th century (1685-1694), the French Royal Canal Louis XIV is an unfinished hydraulic structure for supplying water to the fountains of the Palace of Versailles, SW of Paris. To divert the waters from the Eure River, the projected 80-km long canal has been excavated on a maximum depth of 2.60 m and a bottom width of 4.90 m, following the contour lines of the low-relief topography. In addition to man-made excavation work, the project has required the construction of earthworks and embankments as well as masonry structures (dams, aqueducts, bridges, tunnels) to compensate for the lower altitude of the plateau and/or to step over the major valleys, including the Eure valley itself. More than three centuries after the abandonment of this gigantic hydraulic work, scattered remnants are preserved throughout a crop-dominated landscape where they form a discontinuous, linear heritage site of multifaceted interests. The Maintenon aqueduct and the Boizard dam, in particular, are part of a stone heritage classified as Historic Monuments. The stone supply for the monumental aqueduct was ensured by sandstone, millstone and limestone quarries located several kilometers East, and transported by boat through a secondary network of navigable canals built in two tributary valleys of the Eure River. West of Maintenon, large embankments and associated excavation pits constitute a complex of anthropogenic landforms underlined by an 8 km-long forest corridor, thus contrasting with the flat topography and open landscape of the surrounding cultivated plateau. The present-day forest ecosystem that colonizes the remnants of the abandoned canal forms a wildlife corridor associated with a rich biodiversity heritage, including patches of calcareous grasslands, bat hibernacula and a dense network of forest ponds. As part of the interdisciplinary research project “Connect-Eure”, a new methodological approach aims to comprehend the imbedded heritages of this canal.

♦ Keywords: Stone heritage, hydraulic structure, anthropogenic landform, historic monument, biodiversity heritage.

♦ References

  • Bétard F. (2021). Le Canal de l’Eure de Pontgouin à Rambouillet : du réseau hydraulique au réseau écologique. In: F. Dugast (dir.): Formation et gestion des territoires de la Préhistoire à nos jours. Approches et perspectives exploratoires autour de la Vallée de l’Eure, Éditions Mergoil, Collection “Archéologie du paysage”, pp. 351-367.
  • Despots G., Galland J. (2014). Histoire du canal Louis XIV de Pontgouin à Maintenon, Association pour l’étude et la sauvegarde des vestiges du canal Louis XIV, CAEL, 44 p.
  • Gallepy H., Galland J. (2021). Le Canal Louis XIV, les traces actuelles. In: F. Dugast (dir.): Formation et gestion des territoires de la Préhistoire à nos jours. Approches et perspectives exploratoires autour de la Vallée de l’Eure, Éditions Mergoil, Collection “Archéologie du paysage”, pp. 333-349.
  • Marsot A. (2021). Le Canal Louis XIV, conception hydraulique et construction. In: F. Dugast (dir.): Formation et gestion des territoires de la Préhistoire à nos jours. Approches et perspectives exploratoires autour de la Vallée de l’Eure, Éditions Mergoil, Collection “Archéologie du paysage”, pp. 309-331.
  • Vernhes J.D., Barakat B., Galland J., Marsot A., Jagu D. (2017). Description géotechnique des vestiges du Canal Louis XIV, Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Seoul, pp. 3235-3238.

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