Impossible engineering: technology and territoriality on the Canal du Midi 9781400833146, 9780691140322, 9780691166650

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Illustrations (page ix)
Acknowledgments (page xiii)
Abbreviations (page xvii)
Introduction (page xix)
CHAPTER 1 Impossible Engineering (page 1)
CHAPTER 2 Territorial Politics (page 15)
CHAPTER 3 Epistemic Credibility (page 36)
CHAPTER 4 New Rome Confronts Old Gaul (page 60)
CHAPTER 5 Shifting Sands (page 91)
CHAPTER 6 The New Romans (page 117)
CHAPTER 7 Thinking Like a King (page 154)
CHAPTER 8 Monumental Achievement (page 176)
CHAPTER 9 Powers of Impersonal Rule (page 203)
Notes (page 229)
Bibliography (page 277)
Index (page 293)

Citation preview

IMPOSSIBLE ENGINEERING

PRINCETON STUDIES IN CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY Paul J. DiMaggio, Michéle Lamont, Robert J. Wuthnow, Viviana A. Zelizer SERIES EDITORS

A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book.

IMPOSSIBLE ENGINEERING Technology and Territoriality on the Canal du Midi

Chandra Mukerji

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Princeton and Oxford ,

Copyright © 2009 by Princeton University Press Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to

Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire 0x20 1TwW

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mukerji, Chandra. Impossible engineering : technology and territoriality on the Canal du Midi / Chandra Mukerji.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-691-14032-2 (hbk.: alk. paper) 1. Canal du Midi (France)—History. I. Title. HE445.M52M85_ 2009 386'.4809447—dc22

2009004677

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Minion Printed on acid-free paper.

press.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America

1098765 4 32

In memory of my father and to Cathy

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CONTENTS Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii

Abbreviations xvii

Introduction xix

CHAPTER 1 Impossible Engineering 1 | CHAPTER 2 Territorial Politics 15 CHAPTER 3 Epistemic Credibility 36 CHAPTER 4 New Rome Confronts Old Gaul 60 CHAPTER 5 Shifting Sands 91 CHAPTER 6 The New Romans 117

CHAPTER 7 Thinking LikeaKing 154 CHAPTER 8 Monumental Achievement 176 CHAPTER 9 Powers of Impersonal Rule 203

Notes 229 Bibliography 277

Index 293

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ILLUSTRATIONS Figures

1.0 Canal du Midiin fall xvii

11 MapofLanguedoc 1 1.2 CanaldeBriare 3 1.3 Portrait of Pierre-Paul Riquet 4 1.4 Detail ofa portrait of Jean-Baptiste Colbert 8 2.1 Colbert presenting the Canal du Midi to the king 15 2.2 Riquet demonstrates his project to experts 29 2.3. Map of the siege of Landau, 1713 31 2.4 Forest survey map by Louis de Froidour 33

2.5 Estiennearpenteurs 34 2.6 Estiennearpent chains 34 3.1 Salt pans on the Atlantic coast 39 3.2 Windmill on the Lauragais ridge 40 3.3. View from St. Félix to the Laudot and Fresquel rivers 41 3.4 Detail of the area between the Sor and Fresquel rivers 44

3.5 Riquet’s mill by Pont-Crouzet 45

3.6 Rigoles dela montagne anddelaplaine 46 3.7. Detailofwatersystem 47 3.8 Route of the Canal du Midi to la Robine from the manuscript map of 1665 54 3.9 Carte du Reservoir de St. Feriol [Ferréol] construit dan le valon de

Laudot 55 3.10 Left side detail of the “Plan Géometrique de la Rigolle faite de

Pinvention d...1665, Andréossy 57 |

3.11 Right side detail from the “Plan Géometrique de la Rigolle faite de

Pinvention d...1665, Andréossy 58 4.1 Ruins ofa Roman town by Saint Bertrand 63 4.2 Roman-style wall 64 4.3 Roman-style wall near the pont-canal de Répudre 64 4.4 Detail of a bridge over the Canal du Midi with a Roman arch and

wall 65 4.5 Mill for the Canal du Midi with Roman corners and arched

doorway 66 4.6 Map of the area of the first enterprise 67 4.7 Fortress wall profile, Mallet 71 4.8 Levees on the uphill side of the Canal du Midi 72

4.9 Wall and tunnel system for the dam at Saint Ferréol 73 4.10 Reservoir at Saint Ferréol 74 4.11 Octagonal basin at Naurouze with a street plan 75

4.12 Map of Toulouse with possible routes for the Canal du Midi, | Bellefigure 79 4.13 Plan for double locks with curved walls for the Canal du Midi 82 4.14 Curved lock wall at Fonseranes 83 4.15 Roman retaining wall at the Butte Saint Antoine, Fréjus 84 4.16 Stone footing under the lock door at Montgiscard 84 5.1 La Radelle, Canal du Bourgidou, and Canal de Silveréal by Aigues Mortes, detail of the map of the second enterprise 94 5.2 Ecluze de Plashandael, Pons dela Feuille 104 5.3 Escluze de Bousinghe, Pons de la Feuille 104 5.4 Enclosures for cofferdams and jetties, Pons de la Feuille 105 5.5 Dredging machines, Pons de la Feuille 106 5-6 Map of the second enterprise to Béziers 110 5.7 Town and harbor at Sete (Cette) in Nolin, Carte Royal de Languedoc, 1697 112 5.8 Coastal étangs, detail of a map of the second enterprise 112 5.9 Early plan for the port of Sete (Cette), Louis de Froidour 114

6.1 LateplanofSéte 122 6.2 Jettee by Pons de la Feuille 123 6.3 Pont-canal de Répudre 124 6.4 Plan for the pont-canal de Répudre 124 6.5 Open area of the Fréjus aqueduct by the Siagnole source, following the contours above the river 126 6.6 Virgin shrine by the source of Argelés-Gazost 135 6.7 Two mills anda laundry stone by Oustu 138 6.8 Weir onthe Neste River 138 6.9 Sluice gates by Mazere-de-Neste 139 6.10 Fréjus aqueduct detail, showing grooves for sluices to drain the

aqueduct near Siagnole 140 6.11 Central laundry at Mazeére-de-Neste 140 6.12 Canal du Midi entering the mountains 142 6.13 Canal cut into a rock ledge by Poilhes 143 6.14 Canal, following the contours 144 6.15 Inlet with silt barrier and skimmer near Le Répudre 145 6.16 Settling pond with silt barrier near Trébes 145 6.17 Settling pond, Cheust 146 6.18 Cheust mill 147

6.19 Cheustlaundry 148 6.20 Laundry by the Argelierlock 148 6.21 Upper half of the Fonseranes staircase 149 6.22 Account book for Fonseranes, April 24,1678 150

xX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

6.23 Fonseranes staircase schematic drawing on the “Carte Royal de Languedoc, 1697, Nolin 151 6.24 Top lock at Fonseranes, facing Béziers 152

7.1 Castelnaudery basin 161

7.2 Malpastunnelentrance 164 7.3 Drained lake at Montady viewed from the oppidum of Ensérune 165 7.4 Use of mines to attack a fortress, M. Belidor 166 8.1 Plan and elevation for the percée des Cammazes ou votite de

Vauban 188 8.2 Water intake ca. 1690 with settling pond and silt barrier, looking more

Roman 188 8.3. Epanchoir de Bagnas or de Vauban 190 8.4 Drains on the Laudot by the rigole dela plaine 191 8.5 Interior of the Malpas tunnel with new masonry in back 192 8.6 Carte du Canal Royal de Communication des Mers en Languedoc, Francois Andréossy 193 8.7. Detail of Carte du Canal Royal de Communication des Mers en

Languedoc, Francois Andréossy 194 :

8.8 Left side of the Canal Royal de Languedoc by Nolin, 1697 195

8.9 Jeudu Canal Royal 196 8.10 Detail of the Carte Royal de la Province de Languedoc by Garipuy, 1774, including the étang de Montady and the Malpas tunnel 197

9.1 The system of impersonal rule 205 9.2 Canal bridge with circle reflection 226 Tables

5.1 Summary of proposed expenses and income for the second

enterprise 96 9.1 Strategics and logistics as forms of power 215

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XI

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply grateful to all those who have helped with this book. Perhaps the most important is the archivist at the Archives du Canal in Toulouse, Charles Vannier, who made the research both possible and often a pleasure. His patience and generosity over the last decade have been admirable. Iam also indebted to Antoine Hennion for helping me to get access to the Archives du Canal through the Centre Sociologie de l’Innovation, and for both taking me into his family, and treating me to good conversation and good wine whenever I have been in Paris. Pamela Smith has been my intellectual guiding light and great friend as I worked on this project. At the Folger Library, she and Pam Long helped me think about distributed cognition and history, and at both Kew and Pomona, she encouraged my use of landscape

history in the history of science as an extension of material culture studies. , Karin Knorr-Cetina has importantly shaped my sociological analysis in this book, illuminating the role of epistemic authority and the struggles over it that animated the political history of the Canal du Midi. Michele Lamont has not only encouraged my interest in French history but also usefully probed my ideas about the relationship of science and technology studies to cultural sociology. Steve Shapin served as a fine ally and intellectual friend while he was in San Diego and I was working on this book. His ideas about the social bases of credibility and the authority of gentlemen drew my attention to the political importance of impersonal measures of knowledge— detachment of ideas from their authors. Dissociating gentlemen from this vital source of power was crucial to the growth of technocratic authority and the development of modern state administration in seventeenth-century France. Steve Epstein has been particularly helpful in my efforts to think about peasant knowledge and technical expertise. We taught a seminar together on formal and informal knowledge that was not only tremendous fun but also clarifying about the politics of knowledge and social rank. Andy Lakoff was equally important to my thinking in this book, but in his case, about impersonal rule and technocratic authority. We taught a seminar on technology studies together in which he pushed me to think more clearly about modernism, rationality, and transformations of the natural world. Patrick Carroll has conspired with me for years to make sense of state formation and materiality, and provided endlessly interesting conversations on the subject. Jim Griesemer helped me consider the difference between formal collective memory (canonical stories of the Canal du Midi), and the practices of linking past and present in processes of innovation. Ed Hutchins, Carrol Padden, and Mike Cole have stimulated and shaped my thoughts on xiii

social cognition. Claude Rosental helped me think (again) about knowledge and practices of social authority, tracing the demonstrations and verifications of engineering efficacy on the Canal du Midi and their links to shifts in epistemic culture. I am grateful to Cathy Bacquet too. With her dedication to women’s history, she pushed me to keep looking for data on the peasant women engineers, even driving me around the Pyrenees for weeks to look for water systems, old maps of the region, and old locals who would talk to me. I would also like to acknowledge the support and intellectual help of my colleagues in science and technology studies at the University of California at Davis: Joan Cadden, Joe Dumit, Susan Kaiser, Carolyn de la Pefia, Marisol de la Cadefia, and Jim Griesemer who were great friends while I was there. I also learned a lot from members of the cultural studies program and technology reading group, Patrick Carroll, Fran Dyson, and Caren Kaplan. In

the period when technology was becoming more central to science and technology studies, we made it central to our conversations. I have also been influenced by many students: Suzanne Thomas, Rick Jonasse, Charis Thompson, Bart Simon, Tarleton Gillespie, Sue Fernsebner, Fred Turner, Chris Henke, Matt Ratto, Lonny Brooks, Kate Levitt, Marisa Brandt, and Terra Eggink. And I am grateful to Veronika Nagy, who served as my research assistant in France for more than a year, and Etienne Pelaprat, who corrected my French on the manuscript. Many individuals have given me good counsel, including: Kristin Luker, Fred Block, Tia DaNora, Jeff Alexander, Julia Adams, Deborah Davis, Gabrielle Hecht, Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Sharon Hays, Doug Hartman, Eliza-

| beth Long, Ed Hutchins, Jeff Minson, Lesley Stern, Susan Smith, Sheldon Nodelman, Newton and Helen Harrison, David Bloor, Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer, Londa Schiebinger, Harold Cook, Simon Werrett, Carol Harrison, Ann Johnson, Michael Gordin, Kathy Pandora, Grace Shen, Cathryn Carson, Pam Long, Paula Findlen, Peg Jacob, Lynn Hunt, Mary Terrall, Sharon Traweek, David Turnbull, Helen Verin, Héléne Mialet, Luc Boltanski, and Laurent Thévéenot; my colleagues, present and former, Carol Padden,

Michael Schudson, Vince Rafael, Mike Cole, Leigh Star, Geof Bowker, Gary Fields, Lisa Cartwright, David Serlin, Morana Alac, Andy Lakoff, Naomi Oreskes, Nancy Cartwright, Charlie Thorpe, and Mary Walshok; and my French colleagues Bruno Latour, Luce Giard, Marie-Noélle Bourguet, Ravi Rajan, Daniel Dayan, Dominique Pasquier, and particularly Louis Quéré, who was kind enough to invite me to lecture at the Institut Marcel Mauss. I also want to thank my family and friends who helped with this—my

father, Dhan Mukerji, and his wife, Marian, Kenneth Berger, Stephanie Berger, Bekah Fisk, Doug Van Horne, and Daisy Nieto. I also want to thank my “crew who navigated down the Canal du Midi with me so I could take pictures: Cathy Bacquet, Rich Ortiz, and Marty and Stevie Malley. I want to

XIV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

thank my husband, Zach Fisk, too, not only for his interest in this project but also for buying me a good camera and (even) the Clément collection of Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s letters. Others may love mystery stories, but a good letter from the seventeenth century is what I crave. It’s amazing to be witha

man who gets that. ,

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XV

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ABBREVIATIONS ABR Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhéne

ACM Archives du Canal du Midi

AHG __ Archives Départementales de la Haute-Garonne ,

AHMV Archives Historique de la Marine, Vincennes , BNF Bibliothéque Nationale de la France

CCC Cing Cents de Colbert EPC Archives de l’Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées

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