Water supply to the palace gardens of Versailles

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The water supply to the Palace Park of Versailles was provided by a complex system of reservoirs , pumps, pipes and aqueducts , with which the water features in the Park of Versailles Palace were operated. It was only a matter of supplying the numerous pools and fountains of the park with the necessary water, but not of supplying the, at times, several thousand people who lived or worked in or near the castle, carried out with other measures.

The original castle stood in a slightly hilly area with a few smaller ponds or marshes with only a few rivulets. When Louis XIV. 1661 began with the expansion of the Castle Park and his landscape architect Le Nôtre with François Francine , its director general des eaux et fontaines royales (director general of water pipes and wells), always more pools , cascades , decorative fountains , water features and fountains create the water required for this had to be directed to the park from ever greater distances. Finally, the (incomplete) construction of the 110 km long Eure Canal was supposed to put an end to the water scarcity.

The work did not proceed continuously. The money requirements of the wars waged by Louis XIV ( Dutch War (1672–1678), Palatine War of Succession (1688–1697), Spanish War of Succession (1701–1714)) always had priority and led to the interruption of work.

The expansion of the castle park was also associated with a rapid development of pipeline technology , which has largely been forgotten since ancient times . Lead pipes were used in place of the wooden pipes that were still widely used at the time, and cast iron pipes were used for the first time in France from 1671 .

The park at the time of Louis XIII.

That of Louis XIII. A small hunting lodge built between 1631 and 1634 only had a comparatively modest park. Only the Étang de Clagny (pond of Clagny) directly north of the castle and a small pond in the area of ​​the later Potager du roi (vegetable garden) were available for its water supply . A horse-powered pump lifted the water to a height sufficient to provide the pressure required for the small fountain by gravity alone.

Extensions under Louis XIV.

Etang de Clagny

Louis XIV had these systems modernized in 1664. Le Vau built a wooden water tower in which a new pump designed by Denis Jolly delivered the water to a water container sealed with lead sheets by François Francine . This pump was driven by two gappers with one horse each. Later, François Francine created an elevated basin with a capacity of 580 m³, from which his water features in the Grotte de Thétys were supplied. Afterwards, water was pumped from the Étang de Clagny step by step from three windmills with bucket chains to a sufficient height to supply the northern part of the castle park. On August 17, 1666, Louis XIV celebrated the first great water festival ( Grandes eaux ). In 1667, three clay-sealed basins with a total capacity of 5000 m³ were created north of the castle. Today's Rue des Réservoirs commemorates them.

La Bièvre

The king's wishes for more water features and fountains required the supply of further large quantities of water. Therefore, in the years 1668 to 1674, the Bièvre river in the south of the castle park was dammed into an artificial pond ( Étang du Val , roughly corresponds to today's Ètang de la Minière ). From there, a reciprocating piston pump named Launay Mill after its builder carried water to the Satory plateau. This pump was soon supported by five windmills with appropriate bucket chains. From the Satory plateau, the water was led to the castle park with underground pipes and a culvert . For the first time in France, cast iron pipes were used for the culvert .

Actions within the park

During these years, the Réservoir du Trèfle with a capacity of 12,260 m³ was built at the Grand Trianon . In addition, construction of the 1.5 km long transverse axis of the Grand Canal began. Le Notre had been warned of the difficulties of the then swampy, uneven terrain. In order to carry out the very precise leveling required for the creation of the large body of water , Louis XIV called on the Académie des Sciences he had founded two years earlier . H. Abbé Picard had to interrupt his astronomical research in order to survey the area.

When the Étang de Clagny threatened to dry out, a windmill pump was installed to bring water back there from the Grand Canal.

In addition, large canals were built to collect the water in the north of the castle park, but they could not meet the water needs and could not prevent the Etang de Clagny from drying out.

In 1672 François d'Orbay had three reservoirs of around 3,400 m³ built under the terrace of the castle, in which the water from the water features on the terrace was collected and returned to the reservoir of the Grotte de Thetys with a pump driven by two horses.

The pump designed by Denis Jolly was modernized in 1674, the two gopels were now driven by three horses each. This enabled 2,920 m³ of water to be pumped per day, which earned the system the name Grande Pompe .

After the Grand Canal was completed in 1678, the surrounding rivulets were discharged into it.

Derivation of the Loire?

To solve the problem of the water supply, Riquet , the builder of the Canal du Midi , which was completed a few years later (1681) , even suggested diverting part of the Loire at Briare . Riquet had concluded from the greater flow velocity of the Loire that it must be higher than the Seine and probably also than the hill of Satory south of the Palace of Versailles. In 1674 Colbert immediately had the idea checked by Abbé Picard , who had already measured parts of the palace park to be created using the latest methods. Picard quickly ascertained the low altitude of the Loire, and the plan was off the table.

Étang de Trappes and Étang de Bois d'Arcy

When surveying the surroundings of the castle park, Abbé Picard found that the area around Trappes and the Bois d'Arcy in the southwest of the castle park are higher than the castle park itself. Two streams draining this area therefore became the Étang de in the years 1675 to 1677 Trappes (today's Étang de Saint-Quentin) and Étang de Bois d'Arcy dammed and their water led to the Satory plateau by a pipeline.

Elevated reservoir and terrace basin as part of the expansion of the castle

To make room for the castle to be extended to the north, the Tethys Grotto and its water basin and the three reservoirs north of the castle were demolished in 1684. In their place, the two still existing elevated tanks were built along the Rue des Réservoirs and two basins were created on the palace terrace.

Machine from Marly

The Machine de Marly with the Louveciennes aqueduct on the hill

Louis XIV saw the solution to the supply problem in the Seine . The river was 8 km from the castle and its water had to be raised by more than 160 m, but the absolutist ruler could not see any insurmountable obstacles in it. He was persuaded by Arnold de Ville's proposal to build a huge pumping station driven by water wheels on the slightly dammed up southern arm of the Seine below Louveciennes and near Marly-le-Roi , with which the water initially turned into a wooden tower, later conveyed to the aqueduct of Louveciennes on the high bank and from there into the great Bassins de Marly and Bassin de Louveciennes , from where underground lines could supply the parks of Versailles and Marly-le-Roi Castle . All of these construction phases had to be recreated.

The actual Machine de Marly was built by Rennequin Sualem between 1681 and 1684 . It consisted of 14 water wheels with a diameter of 12 meters each, which drove a total of 250 pumps that carried the Seine water uphill through cast iron pipes in three stages. At that time it would not have been possible to overcome the high pressure to pump the water directly onto the hill. For this reason, a pumping station with a corresponding intermediate storage was installed above the first and second third of the slope, with which the water was finally pumped into the Louveciennes aqueduct. These pumping stations were driven by the power of the water wheels, which was transmitted via complex rods.

The Machine de Marly was inaugurated on June 13, 1684 in the presence of the king. It soon became apparent, however, that it could not perform as expected and that the system, which was largely made of wood, required very extensive maintenance and repair work. Since its performance continued to decline over the years, it was ultimately only used to supply the Marly-le-Roy castle park.

Piece d'eau des Suisses

Piece d'eau des Suisses

In the years 1679 to 1682 the Piece d'eau des Suisses , a 13 hectare large and 1.70 m deep reservoir was created. It takes its name from the Gardes suisses that were used to excavate the basin.

Étangs inférieurs

Aqueduct of Buc

Between 1681 and 1686, Ministers Colbert and Louvois established the Ètangs inférieurs (lower ponds) between the Bièvre and the Yvette , i.e. H. the ponds of Saclay and Orsigny, the Trou salé and the Pré Clos are connected by a pipe to direct their water to the castle park. To do this, the Bièvre valley had to be crossed, for which a 580 m long culvert was planned. However, the lead pipes could not withstand the high water pressure. Instead of the culvert, a 24 m high dam with foundations on which the aqueduct of Buc was built was therefore built according to the design by Jules Hardouin-Mansart under the direction of Thomas Gobert of the Régiment Royal de Normandie .

The water from the aqueduct of Buc was directed to the newly created Gobert Réservoir at Parc aux cerfs (deer garden ) east of the then small town of Versailles and then via the likewise new Réservoir de Montbauron to the elevated tanks on the Rue des Réservoirs .

Étangs supérieurs

Between 1684 and 1685, the Étangs supérieurs (upper ponds) were connected to one another. Starting near Rambouillet with the La Tour pond , the small differences in altitude between the Perray , Saint-Hubert , Hollande , Coignières and Mesnil Saint-Denis ponds were used to direct their water to the existing Étang de Trappes . It turned out, however, that this could not be used to remedy the water shortage during periods of drought.

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Maintenon Aqueduct

Louvois , who became Surintendant des Bâtiments, Arts et Manufactures de France after Colbert's death in 1683 , had a number of smaller rivers examined. Philippe de La Hire determined in 1684 when leveling the Eure that the place Pontgouin ( ) in what is now the Eure-et-Loir department was higher than the Étang de Trappes and thus also higher than the water features. World icon

Based on the plans drawn up by La Hire and Vauban , the construction of the canal began in 1685, which cut off an arch of the Eure from Pontgouin, crossed the Eure at high altitude on an aqueduct at Maintenon Castle and then past Rambouillet via the Étangs supérieurs to the Étang de Trappes and over the existing lines to the castle park. At times 30,000 men were employed on the project. With the beginning of the Palatine War of Succession ( French Guerre de la Ligue d'Augsbourg ) in 1688, the work was stopped. They were not resumed after the end of the Nine Years' War.

literature

Web links

Commons : Water supply to the palace gardens of Versailles  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Le Plombier-chauffagiste: Transport et gestion de l'eau dans l'histoire. on passerelles.bnf.fr
  2. ↑ Le Roi: Travaux Hydrauliques de Versailles sous Louis XIV ... , p. 62
  3. ↑ Evocation du projet de détournement de la Loire on the website of the Château de Versailles
  4. ↑ Jean Picard described the surveying work carried out in: Relation de plusieurs nivellements fait par ordre de sa Majesté par M. Picard . In: de la Hire (ed.): Mesure de la Terre . Imprimerie royale, Paris, p. 284 ( full text in Google Book Search).
  5. ↑ La Machine de Marly on marlymachine.org (English)
  6. ↑ La machine de Marly on H2o.net
  7. ↑ Note No. IA78000477 on Base Mérimée
  8. ↑ The former Gobert Réservoir was converted into the Jardin des Étangs Goberts in 2014 on the newly created Square des Francine
  9. ↑ The Réservoir de Montbauron is located between Avenue de Paris and Avenue de Saint-Cloud
  10. ↑ Roughly : Minister of Construction and Trade
  11. ↑ a b Le Duc de Noailles: Histoire de madame de Maintenon et des principaux événements du règne de Louis XIV . tape 2 . Comptoir des Imprimeurs-Unis, Paris 1848 ( full text in the Google book search).
  12. ↑ Carte Particuliere du Canal de la Riviere d'Eure depuis Pontguin, jusques a Versailles ou sont exactement remarquéz les aqueducs, les estangs, les ponts et autres travaux qui sont deßus et aux environs avec les pays circonvoisins. Dediée au Roy par… Hubert Iaillot, Geographe Ordinaire de Sa Majesté. Historical map of the canal route in two parts, on BnF.Gallica