_Briare_, &c.—The canal of Briare was begun in the time of Henry IV. and the Duke of Sully, and was completed under Louis XIII. and Cardinal Richelieu. Its length is eleven French leagues, and it forms a communication between the Loire and the Loing, which is one of the tributaries of the Seine. Under Louis XIV. another canal was drawn from the Loire, near Orleans, which flowed to meet the first canal of Briare, near Montargis; and as in summer there was an insufficiency of water in the Loing to supply a considerable navigation, under the minority of Louis XV. they determined to run another canal along the banks of the river to the vicinity of the Seine, which is, properly speaking, the continuation of the old canal of Briare. In this canal there are, in all, forty-two sluices; and in that of Orleans, twenty. In the reign of Louis XV., and under the inspection of the celebrated Belidor, the canal of Picardie was carried out, forming a junction between the Somme and the Oise, which afterwards enters the Seine about five leagues from Paris. _Languedoc._—The famous canal of Languedoc, better known as the Canal du Midi, which forms a communication from the Mediterranean Sea to the Garonne and the Ocean is one of the best known in France. By this canal, for many years, boats have passed in a few days from the one sea to the other, traversing valleys and hills, and ascending to the height of 600 feet above the level of the two seas. The harbours of Bordeaux and Marseilles formerly avoided, by this means, a circuitous route of communication of several hundred miles. This great undertaking, projected under three other kings, was at last perfected in the reign of Louis XIV., after a labour of fourteen years, at an expense of eleven millions of livres, without reckoning the additional expense of two millions more, incurred in re-establishing the harbour of Cette. Andressi first suggested the plan, and Riquet directed almost the whole of its execution. He began the work in 1666. The canal begins at a lake nearly four miles in circumference, which, collecting the waters of Mont Noir, conveys them at Naurose into a reservoir, of very considerable extent, whence the waters are distributed to the right until they meet the Garonne near Toulouse, and to the left as far as the Lake of Tau, which is near the port of Cette. The breadth of the canal is 30 feet, its length is rather over 125 miles, which equals 50½ French leagues. Nearly a sixth part of the canal is carried over mountains deeply excavated; and, at a spot called the Mal Pas, it crosses a rock cut into the form of an arch, eighty toises in length, four toises in width, and four and a half in height. It has one hundred sluices, and a great number of aqueducts and bridges. [Illustration: VALLEY OF THE GARONNE VALLEY OF L’AUDE] [Illustration: PROFILE OF THE PROPOSED CANAL BETWEEN TOULOUSE AND CARCASSONNE]