What was the boat journey to Paris like way back when?

May 8, 2007 11:30 AM

What was the boat journey up the Rhone (and the Saone and down the Seine) to Paris like in the old days, before the internal combustion engine and the damming of the river? Where were the portages? How long did it take? Any resources greatly appreciated, from memoirs to histories to (well researched) novels, online or off.
posted by languagehat to travel & transportation (6 comments total)

I think Neal Stephenson talked about this in The Confusion.
posted by Uncle Jimmy at 11:53 AM on May 8, 2007

Not a direct answer (sorry) FWIW, but I believe Ferdinand Braudel explored the scale and economy of the French inter-modal waterway system in the second volume of his Civilization & Capitalism. You may want to look at that for a quick overview of how pre-motorized water transport worked.

Also, I seem to remember that the use of ferry transport (both into and out of Paris) figures somewhat prominently in Flaubert's Sentimental Education. You may find some interesting descriptions therein.
posted by Chrischris at 11:55 AM on May 8, 2007

In Lord Hornblower, Horatio sails up the Seine as far as Rouen I think. Might be some description of navigation and shoals, but I really don't remember.
posted by Killick at 1:42 PM on May 8, 2007

The guides fluviales published by Editions du Breil, 11400 Castelnaudary, France have so many delicious historical tidbits about life on the water (particularly the canals) that their bibliography for issue 7, Midi - Camargue, might be helpful:

Joseph DE LALANDE, Des canaux de navigation, 1778.
Lilianne FRANCK, Une rivière nommée Lez, 1982, Imprimerie de la Charité.
Michel ADGÉ, Les ouvrages d'art du canal du Midi, 1984.
Albert CALMETTES, Les canaux de la Robine, de Jonction et du Midi, 1897.
Jean-Denis BERGAS et Michel ADGÉ, Le canal du Midi, 1989, Tallandier.
posted by jet_silver at 8:20 PM on May 8, 2007

Proper references depend on the desired boat and time period; pre-internal combustion engine covers a lot of ground. Period travel communications seem to mostly address a river's towns and inhabitants, rather than the experience of the river itself. Understandable, nowadays nobody giving the highlights of road trip talks overly much about the highway they drove on. Anyway, I'll toss out a few references that address some part of the topic and which can be accessed online, maybe a couple will stick.

William Edward Mead's 1914 book The Grand Tour of the Eighteenth Century France listed horse-drawn barge travelling times in the chapter on Water Travel in France (approximately page 32). A "barge which carries you from Foutainbleau down the river to Paris, being drawn by three of four horses, runs in ten or twelve hours...about forty-eight English miles. For going from Rouen to Paris by boat one allowed thirty-six hours". The chapter also talks briefly about boat travel on the Rhone.

If you wanted to go earlier than that, E.S.Bates' 1912 book Touring in 1600 has an "On The Water" chapter which talks about boating on the Rhone and around Paris, starting at page 82 through page 85.

The author Tobias Smollett wrote an amusingly crabby book (the crabbiness is apparent from casual reading and is also mentioned in Wikipedia's write-up) Travels through France and Italy about travelling around Paris, including several observations on boat travel on the Rhone and Seine.

If you're more interested in commercial traffic, James Stephen Jeans 1890 book Waterways and Water Transport in Different Countries, Chapter VII, The Waterways Of France, talks a lot about the canals and various water transports statistic of France generally and Paris specifically, e.g. "The Seine carried 1,979,00 tons to Paris in 1886", with tonnage tables and other such fascinating trivia.

Other potential information resources are John P Hiester's Notes of a Travel: Being a Journal of a Tour in Europe where he devotes an entire section to his 1841 steamboat travel on the Seine from Havre to Rouen (he takes a stage from Rouen to Paris).

James Edmund Scripps in his 1882 book Five Months Abroad mentions, among other things that "St. Denis is on the river Seine, two hours by boat below Paris, although only four miles by wagon road...Navigation as far up as Paris is inconsiderable, and the river at that point is filled mainly with floating baths".

Actually, several historic figures, including Victor Hugo and Mark Twain, have made brief mention in their writings of traveling to or from Paris at least partway on a boat.
posted by mdevore at 3:32 AM on May 9, 2007

Thanks, everyone! I'm giving mdevore Best Answer for obvious awesomeness, but I love you all.
posted by languagehat at 9:52 AM on May 10, 2007