Royal Palaces and Parks of France

by M. F. Mansfield

Here he lived five mortal days of anguish preceding his departure for Rochefort on that agonizing exile from which he never returned.

After the divorce Josephine preserved the property as her own particular residence, and in 1814 received there the celebrated visit of the allied sovereigns. History tells of a certain boat ride which she took on a neighbouring lake in company with the Emperor Alexander which is fraught with much historic sentiment. It was this imprudent excursion, in the cool of a May evening, that caused the death of the former empress three days later. It was from this bijou of a once royal abode that Napoleon launched his famous proclamation to the army which the arrogant Fouché refused to have printed in the "Moniteur Officiel." Upon this Napoleon sent the Duc de Rovigo to Paris for his passports and the necessary orders which would enable him to depart in peace. The next moment he had changed his mind, and he changed it again a few moments afterwards. As the result of the Prussians' advance on Paris by the left bank of the Seine Napoleon was obliged to accept the inevitable, and with the words of General Becker ringing in his ears: "Sire, tout est pret," he crossed the vestibule and entered the gardens amid a painful calm on his part, and an audible weeping by his former fellows in arms who were lined up to do him honour. He embraced Hortense passionately, and saluted all the personages of his party with a sympathy and emotion unbelievable. With an eternal adieu and a rapid step down the garden walk to the driveway, he at last entered the carriage which was awaiting him and was driven rapidly away. Some days after the Allies pillaged and sacked Malmaison. Its chief glory may be said to have departed with the Corsican.

Under the Restoration, Prince Eugene had a sort of "rag sale" of what was left. The lands which Josephine had bought of Lecouteaux were sold to the highest bidder and the exotic shrubs and plants to any who would buy, the pictures to such connoisseurs as had the price, those that were left being sent to Munich. A Swedish banker now came on the scene (1826) and bought the property—the chateau and the park—which he preserved until his death twenty years later. Then it went to Queen Christina, and was ultimately purchased by Napoleon III.

In October, 1870, during the siege of Paris, General Ducrot sought to make a reconnaissance by way of Malmaison, and so weak was his project that the equipages of the King of Prussia and his État Major invested the environs and made the property their official headquarters.

Near by is a fine property called "Les Bruyeres," a royal estate of Napoleon III. It was created and developed by the emperor and was always referred to as a Parc Impérial.

Perhaps the most banal of all the royal souvenirs around Paris is that gigantic mill-wheel known as the Machine de Marly, down by the Seine a few miles beyond Malmaison, just where that awful cobblestoned roadway begins to climb up to the plateau on which sits the chateau of Saint Germain and its park.

Because it is of unesthetic aspect is no reason for ignoring the famous Machine de Marly, the great water-hoisting apparatus first established in the reign of Louis XIV to carry the waters of the Seine to the ponds and fountains of Versailles.

It was a creation of a Liègois, named Rennequin Sualem, who knew not how to read or write, but who had a very clear idea of what was wanted to perform the work which Louis XIV demanded. For a fact the expense of the erection of the "Machine," and the cost of keeping its great wheels turning, were so great that it is doubtful if it was ever a paying proposition, but that was not a sine qua non so far as the king's command was concerned. It had cost millions of livres before its wheels first turned in 1682, and, if the carpenter Brunet had not come to the rescue to considerably augment the volume of water raised (by means of compressed air), it is doubtful if there would ever have been enough water for the fountains of Versailles to play even one day a year, as they do now every happy Sunday, to the delight of the middle-class Parisian and the droves of Cookites who gaze on them with wonder-opened eyes.

The water was led from the Machine de Marly to Versailles by a conduit of thirty-six arches where, upon reaching a higher level than the gardens, it flowed by gravity to the fountains and basins below. This aqueduct was six hundred and forty-three metres long, and twenty-three metres high. It was a work which would have done credit to the Romans.

A far greater romantic sentiment attaches itself to the royal chateau of Marly-le-Roi than to the utilitarian "Machine," by which the suburb is best known to-day.