La Machine de Marly


Please visit the updated Machine de Marly website, sans the ASP referneces, at www.marlymachine.org

Sisley's painting of the
1858 Machine de Marly

The street on which the pavillon Dubarry is located, rue de la Machine, derives its name from la Machine de Marly. The "machine" was a civil engineering marvel located at the bottom of the hill on the banks of the Seine. Louis XIV had it constructed to pump water from the river to his chateaux of Versailles and Marly. The construction lasted 30 years and was inaugurated in the presence of the King in June 1684.

Fourteen paddlewheels, each about 40 feet in diameter, were turned by the Seine to power more than 200 pumps, forcing river water up a series of pipes to the Louveciennes aquaduct, a 500 foot vertical rise. In use until 1817, it was subsequently rebuilt and modified, finally ending up as an electrical generator until 1963. The building was demolished in 1968 when that arm of the Seine was rearranged for navigation.

For many people at ASP during the mid 1960's, the building shown here in Sisley's painting, and the pipe running up the hill was "The Machine". Little did we realize that this was only the most recent manifestation, built in 1858. The original Louis XIV Machine included not just an enormous structure on the river itself, but sprawled all the way up the hill, comprising pumping stations, holding tanks, reservoirs, pipes and an intricate system of mechanical linkages to power pumps on the hill from the waterwheels below. Several accounts of the epoque describe the infernal noise this all generated. Sixty maintenance workers were employed to keep it running. Pumping at full capacity, it could add over a million gallons in 24 hours to the Marly reservoir. Nothing of the original machine has survived, but the U shaped building at the bottom of the hill was part of the original complex. Foundation remnants down the hill from the Bellevue building can still be seen, which was the large, mid-slope reservoir.

The chief engineer for the project was Arnold de Ville and the "contractor" was Rennequin Sualem (after whom the quai by the machine is now named). Louis XIV had a small chateau built in 1684 for de Ville as a reward for his work (and certainly to facilitate service calls for the extremely complex machinery). This building is the core of what would become the Chateau Dubarry, which eventually was given by Louis XV to Madame Dubarry. She expanded it, and later outgrew it which led to the construction of the pavillon Dubarry, future home of ASP.

Excerpt from Louis XIV and the Creation of Versailles

More images of La Machine de Marly

Annotated Site Plan of the Machine

Engraving of the 14 wheels

Engraving of the original machine de Marly