Fonseranes Water Slope

A water slope (French: Pente d'eau) is a type of canal inclined plane built to carry boats from a canal or river at one elevation up or down to a canal or river at another elevation.

Fonseranes Locks (French: écluses de Fonseranes, les neuf écluses) are a flight of staircase locks on the Canal du Midi near Béziers. They consist of eight oval-shaped lock chambers, characteristic of the Canal du Midi, and nine gates, which allow boats to be raised a height of 21.5 metres (71 ft) over a distance of 300 metres (980 ft). The flight was originally built as an eight-rise, which together with the ninth lock (the écluse de Notre-Dame, 710 metres (0.44 mi) to the northeast) allowed boats to cross the Orb river on a level and re-enter the canal further downstream. The "nine locks" name dates from this time. However, in 1858 an aqueduct was built to replace the crossing of the Orb. Boats now enter and leave the lower end of the flight through the side of chamber seven, which is permanently kept at its upper water level. The flight is therefore effectively made up of six locks. The lower gates of the seventh chamber are now permanently closed; the eighth chamber and the ninth lock, the pre-1858 route descending to the Orb, are disused. This side exit from chamber seven causes some confusion in describing the flight of locks. While most sources now ignore the disused eighth chamber, some still describe the flight as a seven-rise, despite chamber seven being permanently at the lower canal level. In 1983 the Fonseranes inclined plane was built adjacent to the locks, to allow commercial traffic and boats too large for the locks to bypass them. Unfortunately the project encountered technical problems, and after many years of attempting to solve them the inclined plane was abandoned in 2001. Traditional buildings such as the stables and the lock keeper's house still remain. These and the locks themselves have made the site the third most popular tourist destination in Languedoc-Roussillon, after the Pont du Gard and the town of Carcassonne. Though Pierre-Paul Riquet rightly receives much credit and acknowledgement for the creation of the Canal du Midi, we may forget that many individual parts of the canal were built by subcontractors other than Riquet. The subcontractors for these locks were two illiterate brothers, Michel and Pierre Medailhes. Many of the workers were women.

The Orb Aqueduct (French: Pont-canal de l'Orb, Pont-canal de Béziers) is a bridge which carries the Canal du Midi over the Orb in the city of Béziers in Languedoc, France. The aqueduct is 28 metres (92 ft) wide, 12 metres (39 ft) tall and at 240 metres (790 ft) is the longest on the Canal du Midi. Prior to the opening of the aqueduct in 1858, the Canal du Midi traversed a short section of the Orb itself. The opening of the aqueduct allowed boats to avoid the river, which was unpredictable and sometimes dangerous, and often caused extended delays. For example, in 1779 exceptional floods caused the river section to be impassable for seventeen days. Various schemes were proposed to bypass the Orb; an aqueduct of over 1 km in length was proposed in 1739 and in 1756 a plan to carry the canal in a tunnel under the Orb was put forward. However, neither proposal was implemented. In April 1854, the Chief Engineer of the Canal Company, M. Magues, prepared designs for the present aqueduct together with new channels to take the canal from the side of the seventh and second lowest chamber of the Fonserannes Lock, across the Orb and to rejoin the original course of the Canal du Midi. The plans involved the construction of two new locks, the Orb Lock and the Béziers Lock, as well as a canal basin to the east of the Orb. Permission for the new works was granted by a decree of Emperor Napoleon III in June 1854 and the construction was completed by May 1856 and opened for use in 1858. The aqueduct is built of stone with seven spans and carries the canal in a masonry trough sealed with a layer of concrete. There are towpaths on each side of the waterway and underneath are two arcaded walkways. The walkways are now not accessible except for maintenance. The concrete seal was replaced in 1951 but otherwise the original structure is intact.

Béziers Cathedral (French: Cathédrale Saint-Nazaire-et-Saint-Celse de Béziers) is a Roman Catholic church located in Béziers, France. The edifice dates from the thirteenth century, having been erected on the site of an earlier building that was destroyed during the Massacre at Béziers in the Albigensian Crusade. The cathedral was formerly the seat of the Bishopric of Béziers, which was dissolved by the Concordat of 1801 and annexed into the Diocese of Montpellier.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Béziers (Lat.: Biterrensis)was situated in southern France, in Languedoc, west of the Rhone River. The diocese was in existence by the beginning of the 5th century. It was a suffragan (subordinate) of the archdiocese of Narbonne. In 1790, during the French Revolution, the Catholic diocese of Béziers and several others were suppressed by the Constituent Assembly, and their territory assigned to a new Constitutional Diocese of Hérault, whose schismatic bishop was seated at Béziers. The Catholic diocese of Béziers was abolished by Pope Pius VII in 1801, and never revived. It is no longer an independent diocese, and is part of the Diocese of Montpellier.

The Musée des Beaux-Arts is a museum in Béziers, founded by the town's archaeological, scientific and literary society and opened to the public in the Hôtel de ville in 1859. It moved to Auguste Fabrégat's hôtel particulier, left to the town by him in 1879. In 1966 Gustave Fayet's family gave their hôtel particulier at 9 rue du Capus to the town and early in the 1980s that building became an annexe to the museum, mainly housing the works by the sculptor Jean-Antoine Injalbert which were left to the town by his widow in 1934. By 2030 an art and history museum will occupy the former episcopal palace after it was vacated by the Palais de Justice.

The Hôtel de Ville (French pronunciation: [otɛl də vil], City Hall) is a municipal building in Béziers, Hérault, southern France, standing on Place Gabriel Péri. The building was designated a monument historique by the French government in 1935.

Béziers station (French: Gare de Béziers; Occitan: Gara de Besièrs) is a French railway station that serves the town of Béziers in the Hérault département of southern France. It is on the Bordeaux–Sète railway.

The arrondissement of Béziers is an arrondissement of France in the Hérault department in the Occitanie région. Its INSEE code is 341 and its capital city is Béziers. It has 152 communes. Its population is 321,879 (2021), and its area is 3,091.2 km2 (1,193.5 sq mi). It is the southernmost of the arrondissements of the department. The main cities in the arrondissement, with more than 10,000 inhabitants in 2019, are Béziers (78,308 inhabitants) and Agde (29,600 inhabitants).

The canton of Béziers-2 is an administrative division of the Hérault department, southern France. Its borders were modified at the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015. Its seat is in Béziers.

Stade de Sauclières (French pronunciation: [stad də soklijɛʁ]) is a stadium in Béziers, France. It is currently used for football matches and is the home stadium of AS Béziers. The stadium holds 2,004 spectators.

Béziers (French: [bezje] ; Occitan: Besièrs) is a city in southern France. It is a subprefecture of the Hérault department in the Occitanie region. Every August Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, which is centred on bullfighting. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event. The town is located on a small bluff above the river Orb, about ten kilometres (six miles) from the Mediterranean coast and 75 kilometres (47 miles) southwest of Montpellier. At Béziers, the Canal du Midi passes over the river Orb by means of the Pont-canal de l'Orb, an aqueduct claimed to be the first of its kind.