The New Rome: Infrastructure and National Identity on the Canal du Midi

Before France was a nation, France was promoted as a New Rome and the French as descendents of ancient Gaul. Under Louis XIV, the idea of becoming French was not generally appealing because of opposition to monarchical power. But a campaign to make France a New Rome inadvertently provided a basis for French national identity. The Canal du Midi, one of the infrastructural projects for the New Rome, came to define France and stand for French native genius. By the nineteenth century, Pierre‐Paul Riquet, the canal’s entrepreneur, had become a national hero; the New Rome and the French nation had become one.