A horse can tow up to 120 times its weight when the load is on the water. Animal traction was then a strategic element in the operation of a canal. The mail-barges or "post vehicles" which transported passengers were boats many metres long with a simple shelter on the deck. These boats evolved to become faster and more luxurious with lounges and very large since the most largest could reach 30m long. Services inside these vessels also evolved with the first class in private salons and second class in a common room. During the heyday of the canal some boats included first class lounges where dinner was served. In the 1820s the Hungarian reformer István Széchenyi visited France and was greatly impressed with the Canal du Midi in France. It inspired him to envision ways to improve navigation on the lower Danube and Tisza, which he implemented later in his career . Curiously, the canal did not really serve its purpose. The economic and political context hindered the economic development that had been expected. After two hundred years of operation, the canal began to suffer from competition from rail and road. It reached its peak in the middle of the 19th century. In 1858 Napoleon III signed a decree entrusting the canal for a period of 40 years to the Chemins de fer du Midi railway company, the owner of the Bordeaux-Narbonne railway line. This act had the effect of amplifying the decline in boat traffic on the canal. The company primarily promoted the railway and placed higher freight rates on commercial traffic in the canal. The Canal du Midi had the highest rates of any of France's waterway. In addition, the railway became smoother and faster than the waterway especially as the Canal du Midi suffered from its limited tonnage. The period before 1859 corresponded to the canal operating without competition while from 1859 the installation of railways in the south of France began. The effect of rail competition is clearly visible in the table with the halving of freight traffic between 1856 and 1879. The traffic then continued to decline gradually. As for the railway, the Bordeaux–Sète railway carried almost 200 million tonne-kilometres in 1860. Management of the canal was taken over by the State in 1898 who made successive investments to maintain its competitiveness. The state removed taxes and tolls which had the effect of reviving traffic on the canal to which reached 80 million tonne-kilometres in 1909. The government tried to revive the renovation of the canal by enacting a legal program to lift the channel to the standards of the Freycinet gauge.