Tea at Trianon: La Machine de Marly

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, April 16, 2021

La Machine de Marly

From World in Paris:

La Machine de Marly was built between 1681 and 1684 to pump the water from the Seine River and then bring it to Château de Versailles and Château de Marly (the King’s weekend castle). This technical challenge was taken up by engineers from Liège, who applied pumping techniques used in the Liège mining industry at Marly but in unprecedented proportions. La Machine de Marly was a marvel of civil engineering. It was located on the Seine River banks, at the foot of the Hill of Louveciennes in Bougival. It was considered a World Wonder at the time, and it may have been the most extensive system of integrated machinery ever assembled to that date.
Fourteen wheels (like Louis XIV), twelve meters in diameter, moved more than two hundred and fifty pumps to bring up 5,000 m3 of water per day. The water was then directed by gravity through an aqueduct (Aqueduct de Louveciennes) to three successive reservoirs used to feed Versailles and Marly’s water games. This super machine – also called the Eighth World Wonder -, soon became a manifesto of King Louis XIV’s grandeur, a propaganda tool. The Machine of Marly was visited by tsars, queens, American presidents, and other important people. (Read more.)