Écluses des Récollets

You are standing by the Ecluses des Recollets, a set of double locks that serve as a vital stage in the mechanics of the Canal Saint Martin. When Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned this canal in the early nineteenth century, his primary goal was to bring clean drinking water into a city plagued by sanitation crises. These specific locks were engineered to manage the twenty-five meter drop across the waterway, allowing cargo barges to navigate between the higher basin and the lower levels of the city. While the age of freight transport along these canals has long since passed, the lock system remains a functioning piece of nineteenth-century hydraulic engineering that continues to lift and lower boats today.