Abstract EN:

This study deals with shipping, navigability and river engineering on the river Loire between Briare and the confluent with the river Vienne, from the end of the 18th century to 1918. This part of the river, which is well connected to the capital, comes within the context of commercial exchanges, including a large part of the territory, some of then supplying the french foreign trade. But navigating on the Loire is very restricting : the rates of flow are irregular, low in summer. To maintain and regulate the fairway become a necessary matter. The intervention of the State and its corps of engineers deprives the Community of merchants (abolished in 1772) of its privileges. Thanks to changes of action in favour of navigability, we can distinguish 3 periods. Before 1820, to maintain the river is the main concern. From 1820 to 1852, because of the innovations of the “marine de Loire” – improvements on sailings boats, steam boats – engineers must build submersible dikes. As they make the fairway narrower, they must make shipping possible all the year round. A special service for the river Loire is created, banks protection and fitting out of ports are encouraged. The disappointing results of the work done on the river, the expansion of the railway, which ruins the shipping on the Loire, cause a crisis in the river engineering. Between 1852 and 1918, plans for building work and ship canal fails. The action of two groups of opinion – one who defend the navigation on the river and the other one who is in favour of the building of a canal – and the boosting of new work to make the lower part of the river navigable would not stop this crisis and the decay of navigation.