VI.3. GARGANTUAN WORKS BRING WATER TO THE SITE

LOUIS MAKES AN INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR ENGINEERS, WHO INVENT THE MOST COMPLEX PUMP YET

(IN 1679-1686)

View of the Machine de Marly by Pierre-Denis Martin,1722 / zoom

But even if all the water had been used for Versailles's fountains and Grand Canal, it would only have supplied a fourth of the needs.

-- Description of difficulties:  Machine of Marly, Wikipedia 

• Half is diverted to another chateau, Marly, a more intimate residence that Louis establishes at the edge of the park...

View of the Chateau de Marly by Pierre-Denis Martin, 1725 / zoom

• And to the fountains of his mistress's chateau. 

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Projected solution: Hydraulic works, which include an aqueduct twice as high as the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral, to reach over 50 miles.

-- Histoire du canal de l'Eure by G. Despots and G. Bouquin

Zoom

Project to deviate the waters of the Eure, 1685-1688 (Site not secured)

About 12 miles actually built (the solid blue line).

Flat-bottomed boats are specially constructed to carry stones from the regions of Champagne and Brie and canals are built to bring lead pipes from England. None of this has any other use. 

Extras: barracks, carts, horses, tools (many are stolen).

Zoom

War leads to abandoning the project. 

Laborers lack water. For that reason and that of the death toll, locals refuse to come. So Louis brings in soldiers, concentrating on regiments that have not repressed Protestants with enough energy (the next page says more). Deserters are sent to the galleys.

Sending the soldiers to war ends construction in 1688. What has been completed is not kept up after 1695. 

"Water was missing no matter what one did,

and the wonders of art that were the fountains dried up."

-- Saint-Simon 

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Next,

VI.4.

Outlawing Protestantism brings capitalists to heel