Narbonne

Narbonne grew near the Mediterranean at the meeting of the Roman roads to Italy and Aquitaine. Its archbishops left a great palace beside the cathedral, while the medieval town spread on both sides of the old course of the Aude. The river's changing course altered the city's connection with the sea, and boats later used the channel known as the Robine.

In the eighteenth century the people of Narbonne sought better access to the Canal du Midi. A connecting canal came into service around 1787, linking the Aude and the Robine to the great navigable waterway. The works renewed an old ambition: to keep the historic inland city connected to the coast and to the river trade of Languedoc and beyond.