(which share common features, such as a central geometrical square bordered by covered galleries built with a succession of contiguous arches, each supported by a colonnade, as the arcades of Pylos or Corfu). Pylos's urban framework was designed by Joseph-Victor Audoy, lieutenant-colonel of the military engineering of the Morea expedition, who originated from Tarn, a department of Southwest France. This plan was approved by the governor of independent Greece Ioannis Kapodistrias on 15 January 1831, making it the second urban plan (after that of Methoni) in the history of the modern Greek state. The fortifications of Neokastro were raised, a barracks was built (the "Maison's building" which houses nowadays the Archaeological Museum of Pylos), many improvements were made to the city (installation of school, hospital, church, postal service, shops, bridges, squares, fountains, gardens, etc.), the old Ottoman aqueduct, which had fallen into ruins until 1828, was restored (it then served until 1907), and the road between Navarin and Modon, the first road of independent Greece (which is still used today), was also built by the French engineers. Part of the Morea expedition were also 19 scientists from the "Morea Scientific Mission", whose work proved essential to the ongoing development of the new Greek State and, more broadly, marked a major milestone in the modern history of archaeology, cartography and natural sciences, as well as in the study of Greece. According to one of their population censuses in the province of Navarino in 1829, it had a total of 1,596 inhabitants. Some French merchants and officers of the Morea expedition, who remained in the city with their families after the troops returned to France in 1833, settled in a district located in the north of the city, near a Catholic church that has since been demolished. This district is still called today "Francomahalas" (in Greek: Φραγκομαχαλάς, from Arabic: محلة (mahallah), district) or "Francoklisa" (in Greek: Φραγκοκλησά, church of the French). The French always had a particular interest in the city, and at that time, the greatest French writers wrote texts specifically dedicated to Pylos, such as François-René de Chateaubriand in 1806, Eugène Sue and Victor Hugo in 1827, Edgar Quinet in 1830 and Alphonse de Lamartine in 1832. In 1833, after the departure of the French, the name "Pylos" (in reference to the ancient city of King Nestor) was given to the new city of Navarino by royal decree of the