WATERLESS VERSAILLES

"THE SADDEST AND MOST GRACELESS OF PLACES  

Without a view, without woods, without water, without land, because all was quicksand or swamp. One cannot come to the end of the monstrous defects of a palace that was so immense and so immensely expensive."

 -- The Duke of Saint-Simon, memorialist, Louis XIV and his Court,

my translation (slightly shortened) and underlining. 

 

Louis builds his Xanadu on a swamp that brings malaria, dysentery and pleurisy: "It was forbidden to speak of the dead, that the heavy labor and, still more, the miasma killed." 

-- Saint-Simon

# # #

An aspect that should have made the site impossible: absence of water.

Building the Chateau of Versailles by Adam Frans van der Meulen, 1669 / zoom

The painting shows no water, which is brought in barrels. 

After wells are dug and a small river diverted, Versailles uses more water than does all Paris, but there is still too little for fountains and the Grand Canal.

-- Water per Parisian, for all uses: one liter a day

(Pascal Payen Appenzeller, historian of Paris)

• Eventually there is enough for special occasions...

     The Apollo Bassin in the Park of the Château de Versailles  by Adam Perelle? , end 17th century / zoom

•  Even today the full waterworks are reserved for weekends during the tourist season, and special occasions;

                                                                  Versailles, Perspective of the Famous Canal, 2010 / zoom

Even today, the full water display is exceptional.

So Louis sends out an international call for engineers, who invent the most complex pump ever yet built (in 1679-1686). 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 

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

• 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. 

# # #

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

Now.

War leads to abandoning the project. 

Laborers lack water. Because of that and the death toll, locals refuse to come. So Louis brings in soldiers, concentrating on regiments that have not repressed Protestants with enough energy (please read on). 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 

 Web site of the Museum of Primal Arts

The Opéra Garnier is not named after fallen Napoleon III, but his initials and those of the Empress are repeated in gold along the whole facade; the Pompidou Center; the François Mitterand Library; the Jacques Chirac Museum of Primal Arts.

-- Versailles is thought to have absorbed a third of all taxes for 30 years:

 Athenaïs by Lisa Harding, 2002.

But those edifices did not take up

a third of the national budget.

In a modern context Versailles 

would be an aberration --

place it in its own. 

*     *     *

Next,

The logic of pharaonic spending

THE LOGIC OF PHARAONIC SPENDING

VERSAILLES EXTENDS THE ROYAL FUNCTION OF DESTROYING POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS WEALTH AND MAKING RICHES CIRCULATE

Louis is acting as a king is meant to, though he sees it as expressing grandeur.

# # #

The dispersal of wealth follows the usual pattern: It...

• Is public: Versailles is open to all and crowds come each day.

• Emphasizes royal might: The giant complex is built around an axis that symbolizes the endless power of monarchy.

Versailles in 1668 by Pierre Patel, toward 1668, zoom

The straight line begins with what is now the long, straight avenue de Paris (the painting show the part nearest the chateau). Its origin: the 12th-century space in front the royal tombs and the short straight street that leads to the first royal place.

• Makes riches circulate: At least 1000 nobles can be welcomed at one time with their servants and horses. Other estimates are 4000 and even 10,000.

# # #

Nobles need the king's help to "hold their rank" because economic growth is marginalizing them.  It undercuts the value of revenues from land and they lose their privileges if they enter trade, for which their education and way of life do not prepare them.

• They must come in person, but "paying" court is extremely costly.

Only the grandest are lodged at the chateau, so most pay an exorbitant rent in Versailles or the accessible new neighborhoods of Paris (explained here and here).

They must acquire the sumptuous court dress with its four changes a day, hire servants and furnish their liveries, maintain a coach and horses, become part of a clan and gain the support of the powerful. 

The king encourages gambling for high stakes. It is considered sociable and is the only time when one can sit down.

A courtier says he loves watching dogs gnaw bones, because they are authentic. 

• Louis cannot reward all courtiers tangibly, so honors are prizes as well: 

The king's levée by Maurice Leloir

A courtier will be rewarded perhaps. With backing, he may be introduced to the king and even admitted to his ceremonial rising or bedtime. Without it, he is one of hundreds who jostle each other so that Louis will notice them, as he majestically passes through the Hall of Mirrors on his way to mass each morning.  

Then they analyze every remark, gesture, look, to decide whom to flatter or avoid. "Knowing one's court" is essential, but takes time, which means expense. 

Success is uncertain: Saint-Simon is allowed to hold a candlestick after three years, and then, once.

Compensation: being part of a superior world that is inaccessible to other mortals.

-- The Court Society by Norbert Elias, 1974.

That important study stresses the psychological aspect of these rites,

but omits redistribution as a royal function.

Olafur Eliasson

Buy Protestants' — capitalists' — wealth is growing although they pay double taxes.

-- Les Enragés de Dieu ("God's enraged") by Louis Blond,  p. 290.

Besides their control of the production as mentioned they are:

• Shipowners of the major Atlantic ports(of Normandy, Bordeaux and La Rochelle).

• Exporters of Bordeaux wine.

• Initiators of production split between specialized establishments.

• Employers of 3-4 million Catholics.

-- Blond, p. 286.

Versailles takes containing growth
farther than ever yet imagined. 
But when capitalism expands regardless,  
Louis turns to violence. 

 *     *     *

Next,

Was outlawing Protestantism meant to bring capitalists to heel?

WAS OUTLAWING PROTESTANTISM MEANT TO BRING CAPITALISTS TO HEEL?

"ONE KING, ONE FAITH!" LOUIS FORBIDS PROTESTANTISM*

TO ALMOST ALL CATHOLICS' ACCLAIM 

*He revokes the decree tolerating Protestantism that ended the civil wars (the Edict of Nantes in 1594).

Penalties for being Protestant have increased since the start of the reign, and dragoons billeted in Protestant homes behave with
increasing violence. Now Louis tells them they may do anything to Protestants except kill them, unless they convert.

Zoom

New missionary sent on the order of Louis the Great throughout the kingdom of France to bring the heretics back to the Catholic faith [illegible] 1686.

Much of the kingdom's most dynamic population leaves. 

Europe's first exodus means that 50,000 families emigrate, in spite of men being sent to the galleys and women imprisoned if caught:

• Voltaire's description of their impact abroad shows their economic clout:

Près de cinquante mille familles, en trois ans de temps, sortirent du royaume, et furent après suivies par d'autres. Elles allèrent porter vers l'étranger les arts, les manufactures, la richesse. Presque tout le nord de l'Allemagne, pays encore agreste et dénué d'industrie, reçut une nouvelle face de ces multitudes transplantées. Elles peuplèrent des villes entières. Les étoffes, les galons, le chapeaux, les bas, qu'on achetaient auparavant en France, furent fabriques par eux. Un faubourg entier de Londres fut peuplé d'ouvriers français en soie ; d'autres y portèrent l'art de donner la perfection aux cristaux, qui fut alors perdu en France. On trouve encore très communément dans Allemagne l'or que les réfugiés y répandirent. Ainsi la France perdit environ cinq cent mille habitants, un quantité prodigieuse d'espèces, et surtout des arts dont ses ennemis s'enrichirent. La Hollande y gagna d'excellents officiers et des soldats. Le prince d'Orange et le duc de Savoie eurent des régiments entiers de réfugiés. Il y en eut qui s'établirent jusque vers le cap de Bonne Espérance  [... ]  Les Français ont été dispersés plus loin que les Juifs.

-- Le siècle de Louis XIV de Voltaire, ed. 2015, pp. 612-613.

• In Reims, the number of looms is halved.
• Hat making moves to England and Holland.
• Over half the watchmaking moves to Switzerland.
• Previously busy ports decline.
• In Sedan, there are no skilled workers.
• In Lyons, 9,000 out of 12,000 silk weavers leave.

France takes two centuries to recover.

Les enragés de Dieu, p. 296.

• People with French names in Protestant countries are often those Protestants' descendants (as I am — Catherine Aubin, a name extremely common in France ).  

Protestants who convert keep their fortunes and are honored and rewarded. Each day the king receives hundreds of names. Sincerity is impossible. That doesn't matter. 

# # # 

At first glance the prohibition seems pointless — the heroic time of war has passed, and Protestants are fitting in:

Fathers send their sons to Jesuit schools, their daughters would rather marry a Catholic than stay single, moralists cannot keep girls from dressing up, boys from drinking and gambling with Catholics in taverns and youth generally from going to dances, the theater, participating in the Carnaval... 

As well, paying pastors' salaries and their trips to synods is expensive and some Protestants  refuse.

-- Histoire des protestants de France, dir. Ph. Wolff, 2001, p.75.

  

The edict is thought the aberration of an aging bigot isolated in Versailles.  

But if one translates "Protestants" by "nascent capitalists" 
and understands that their activities transform society* — as those of Muslim producers did those of animists* — a practical reason for making them convert appears. Is ending Protestant (capitalist) practices the real goal?

*As shown for Djimini here, for Bornu and Logone here, for Islam as interpreted by the 19th-century savannah theocracies here.

Must the converted stop working on holidays? Lending at interest? Investing money? Emphasizing austerity? Show their sincerity by donating to the Church and spending ostentatiously? In short, must they take up the traditional obstacles to growth? 

The subject has not been broached to my knowledge.  

Destruction and authority coincide, as ever:

Ceiling, Royal Chapel of Versailles by Antoine Coypel, 1689 / zoom

The image of God is directly over the king's pew.

Instead of being represented by light he is shown as an energetic patriarch, like the king.  

# # #

Like the Mauritanian nobles who raid producers for market

doesn't Louis mean, "We only want to keep you in your little corner?"  

And while the Dahomeyan king massacres captives to keep producers from obtaining them, Louis violently eliminates the producers themselves.

Like the public that cheers as the executioner brandishes heads and Senufo who approve what they admit are Nambolossé's  "crimes," most French people acclaim the forced conversions and the terrible punishment of Protestants captured in flight.

Kings protect their societies by violence when peaceful methods fail. Their subjects support them. 

# # #

The lasting effect:

By dominating multinationals' skyscrapers, 

the Grande Arche de la Défense 

proclaims State control of capitalism. 

France still regulates business

 more than most Western countries do. 

Claude Abron

*     *     *

Next,
Detour:
A faith specific to France

DETOUR: A FAITH SPECIFIC TO FRANCE

IN OVERWHELMINGLY CATHOLIC FRANCE, PERSECUTION BRINGS A PROTESTANTISM THAT IS INVIGORATED AND LASTING 

Mass conversions take place in spite of the prohibition when a pastor slips through the frontier. 

(In 1691)

"My God, I will go will go wherever you call me, I will console your afflicted children as long as you give me life, strength and freedom, or in prison, in the midst of your people or among your enemies, in life or in death."

-- Journal of pastor Jean-Gardien Jivry, 

cited in a family document by Antoine Jaulmes, 1999,
source of this account

Adapted from a Google map

Givry succeeds in escaping to England a few months after Protestantism is forbidden, and becomes a pastor in Plymouth. He returns to France to preach to Protestants "under the cross" (persecuted).  

His first results are disappointing: In Saint-Quentin, he preaches only twice, to 25-30 people each time, and does not give communion, the way of affirming one's faith. But delegates arrive from the countryside, inviting him to preach.

Preaching in the Desert by Max Leenhard / zoom © Le Musée du désert (The Protestant Museum)

"The desert:" Protestant term for the time when Protestantism was forbidden

Jibry's experience was often repeated.

So he preaches in a remote valley for four hours, at night, by firelight and torchlight. 

Members of 110 families from seven villages come, about 500 people: "All were papists by birth, whom God had called as by a miracle to knowledge of his truth." But since the delegates have heard of Givry's arrival and know where to find him, some must be Protestants forced to convert.

To let them think over their commitment, Givry says to make no decision until a second meeting, the following Sunday. Then he warns them again of the persecution to which conversion will lead. Yet "they said that nothing would ever lessen the love of truth that God had let them experience." He accepts their abjurations, but does not give communion: "I thought they should have more time to think over what I had said."  

Givry leaves, and goes elsewhere to preach. He is arrested and dies in prison.

What explains this mass conversion? The people are farmers,

who in the evenings and winters are often weavers as well.  

So they are artisans in part.

Do they dislike the former Protestants of Saint-Quentin, middlemen who do not respond to Givry's call?  

As well, imagine the effect of a sermon by a fervent and eloquent pastor, at night, lit by fires and torches, on people used to the monotony of rural life.  

The prohibition itself is counter-productive: Jivry says that many feel that such brutally-imposed Catholicism cannot come from God.  

Whatever the immediate reasons for conversion,
persecution reinforced or motivated their faith.

*      *      *

Next,
Detour:

Memories of persecution and wartime rescue of Jews

DETOUR: MEMORIES OF PERSECUTION AND WARTIME RESCUE OF JEWS

"COME IN, COME IN!" 

The Protestant welcome to the first Jewish refugee starts

Europe's most important rescue of Nazis' victims, Spanish Republicans, opponents of the French puppet government and especially, Jews.

# # #

Protestants maintain themselves in isolated regions, such as these mountains of south-central France. The rural population of 5,000

is roughly the same number as the people saved.

Diaconesses de Reuilly

Dogs bark if strangers appear, which lets refugees hide should police raid.

The burg with which the rescue is associated: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (pop. 15,000 in 1940). The overwhelmingly Protestant population remembered its own persecution and welcomed the hunted, including Catholic priests during the Revolution. 

The Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem honors civilians who helped Jews. It honors 47 individuals in this out-of-the-way region and in a remarkable announcement, the population as a whole.
 

Another element, the engagement of the dozen pastors. Particularly eloquent: André Trocmé, pastor of Le Chambon.

A descendant of the valley proprietor the last page mentions, he is sent to this obscure parish as punishment for his pacifism.

The Bible is in Washington's Holocaust Museum.

"Weapons of the spirit,"
the first sermon of the Resistance 

On the Sunday after the signing of the Armistice, Trocmé preaches resistance with "weapons of the spirit."

He, his wife Magda (who says, "Come in, come in!" when a refugee knocks on their door), his associate Edouard Thies and the schoolmaster Roger Darcissac mobilize the population to succor all who flee the Nazis. 

It accepts immediately and unanimously. 

Trocmé asks his cousin, Daniel Trocmé, to head a shelter for 20 children whose parents have been deported. Daniel tells his parents why he accepts:

Weapons of the Spirit

Since this morning the die is cast. André has written that he counts on me. 

Le Chambon means for me a kind of contribution to rebuilding our world  [...] a positive response to a vocation, a call that is quite intimate and almost religious — in a way even entirely religious — the future will say whether I was equal to the task or not — and will say so only to me, for it is not a matter of worldly success [...].

 I choose it so as not to be ashamed. 

-- September 9, 1942

Later he describes

seeking clothes for the children in neighboring towns...

taking care of their health, carving them wooden shoes, dealing with the authorities, handling the accounting,* making the heating system work, keeping in touch with parents when there are any, telling stories, directing a chorale, managing the sequels of a fire. André adds later that he would bring them hot soup at school at noon and at night cut up old tires to make soles for shoes. At first Daniel says that he often feels alone but later, "We are coming together as a family." 

*Funds came from Quaker, pacifist and Jewish associations by roundabout routes. 

When the couple heading a refuge for young men finds the job too dangerous and retires, Daniel agrees to manage it as well.

The young men at the refuge.

At dawn on May 23, 1943, the Gestapo surrounds the refuge.

Daniel is at the children's home when a boy rushes up on his bike, shouting "Mr. Trocmé, the Germans are here. Leave!" He could escape into the forest. But he goes to the young men instead. He is responsible for them.

Henry Aubin

The children's refuge, a few steps from the forest.

The Gestapo arrests them all. Daniel dies in the gas chamber of Maïdenek, an extermination camp in Poland. He was 32.

-- This information comes from an account based on Daniel's letters
written by his brother, Charles Trocmé, in 1976.

Protestant silence: "We do not praise people for doing their duty."

-- The Deputy Mayor at Le Chambon,

explaining why no street or plaque honors a rescuer by name,
though such plaques are common in France.

Others tell the story:

.

-- Weapons of the spirit by Pierre Sauvage, 1987,

an award-winning documentary made when one could still interview the rescuers.

-- Daniel's choice: full chapter on web,
"We only know men: the rescue of Jews in France during the Holocaust"
by Patrick Henry, 2007.

-- Magda et André Trocmé, figures de résistance,
 by Pierre Boismorand, 2007.

-- Le Village des Justes by Emmaneul Deun, 2013

The Plateau by Maggie Paxson, 2019

Why the Citizens of a French Plateau Saved Hundreds during the Holocaust,

Forward, 2019.

The Jewish survivors gave the town a plaque
and a small museum opened in 2014.
But the population still says nothing,

because they only did their duty. 
André and Daniel Trocmé are Catherine Aubin's uncles.

*     *     *

Next,
The end of brakes on gain — almost