Its history now covers more than four centuries.

 

 

Starting with the Renaissance, the merchants’ provost and the councillors of Paris were concerned with the difficult provisioning of their city.  The heaviest loads could be transported with the minimum effort by waterways. From 1529 to 1636, the Ourcq river was developed over some forty kilometers between Silly-la-Poterie (in the Aisne department) and its confluence with the Marne near Lizy-sur-Ourcq.  The natural bed of the river was straightened, and dams and canal works were constructed.  Cerals, wood for heating and construction, and stones for building, were thus routed from the fertile duchy of Valois and the forest of Retz (Villiers-Cotterêts).

Supplying water to Paris by the Ourcq canal
Around 1800, Napoléon Bonaparte, as First Consul, decided that Parisians, who lacked water, should have good quality water in sufficient quantity.

 

The project of Pierre-Simon Girard
and the law of 29 Floréal year X (19 May 1802)
Bonaparte, First Consul, decided by the law of 29 Floréal year X to create the Saint Martin, Saint Denis and Ourcq canals.  The project of Pierre-Simon Girard was retained to solve Paris’ drinking water supply problems and problems of navigation in the capital.  The project also had the advantage of creating a set of canals cutting a loop in the Seine.  This was to allow vessels to avoid the delicate crossing of the center of Paris and making it possible to establish ports.  The first meandering of the Seine was cut by the system consisting of the Saint Martin canal, the downstream part of the Ourcq canal (Villette basin) and by the Saint Denis canal.