Beyond Tabikat · Places
The Canal du Midi
The seventeenth-century waterway that runs through the landscape of Tabikat and the later Kat’s Gift novels.
The Canal du Midi plays an important role in Tabikat and the following books. Located in the South West of France, this significant feat of seventeenth-century French engineering connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. Before its construction, cargo ships had to make a time-consuming and potentially hazardous journey around the Iberian Peninsula.
King Louis XIV’s finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, arranged funding for the work, which was designed and led by engineer Pierre-Paul Riquet. The trench for the canal was dug by hand by about 12,000 workers. The project is famous for its use of local female experts in hydraulic management, who informed the design and construction of the locks. Unusually, the canal runs through a tunnel, the Malpas Tunnel, near Béziers.
The canal is 150 miles (240 kilometres) long and includes 63 locks. Some are multiple lock staircases, such as the ones at Fonseranes and Trèbes, the latter of which features in CopyKat.
Nowadays the canal is a recreational facility, and many holidaymakers take boats along the waterway itself or cycle along the towpath. The path is lined with plane trees, originally intended to provide shade for the horses pulling the barges and their cargo and crew. Maurice Vacher sits beneath them as he tries to work out what George Harvey is up to. As mentioned in Tabikat, the canal separates the Corbières and Minervois wine regions.
Frossiac, where the Vacher brothers live and work and where George Harvey sets the cyber trap for Egzon Paloka, is a product of Harriet Redfern’s imagination. It is based on a number of the villages and small towns, such as Castelnaudary, Trèbes, La Redorte, Argens-Minervois and Homps, located along the canal. Carcassonne, with its medieval citadel and local airport, and Trèbes, with a three-lock staircase, are real places.
Isabella Hall uses her interest in cycling as a cover for her activities in Frossiac. The cycle hire facility in the later books in the series is fictional, but there are many opportunities to make cycle trips along the canal, and the model used by Guy Vacher is imagined and based on these.