This is The Guardian.

This is The Guardian.

But for the two centuries of the canal's existence, it is often served a different, in fact, opposite function.

It is a dumping ground, a big liquid trash can.

The periodic draining is therefore also an unveiling.

The water recedes, and the stuffed kicked or heaved or fervently dropped into the canal

over the preceding few thousand nights is revealed.

When the canal was emptied in 2016, crowds gathered on foot bridges and along the cane

to watch cleaning crews trudge through the mud and clear out the junk.

There was lots of it.

Matrices, suitcases, street signs, traffic cones, a washer dryer, pettellers mannequin, tables and chairs, baths, toilets, old radios, personal computers.

A number of vehicles, none of them designed to travel on water, were pulled from the mire.

There were baby strollers, shopping carts, at least one wheelchair and several mopeds.

Today the streets are budding the canal in the 10th Aronde Smoam, are among the most fashionable in Paris,

lined with chic cafes and restaurants.

But late at night, the area retained some of the dank atmosphere of bygone years.

When it was a scruffy, catty, popular, and often served as the setting for noir films and detective novels.

In those pub fiction tales, dark secrets emerged from the canal San Martan Merck.

The murder mystery in George Simonyl's Megrie and the headless corpse is set in motion when the police dredge up a dismembered body near the Cade de Velme.

No human remains were discovered during the 2016 cleaning, but workers did find a handgun in one of the northernmost locks.

Later, officials announced that a rifle had also been found.

The most plentiful items in the canal, other than wine bottles and mobile phones, were bicycles.

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