How did they get water to Versailles?

Lastly, the Louveciennes aqueduct – 643 metres long – drew water from the Seine and carried it to the Deux Portes reservoir in Versailles. Four years and 1,800 men were required to complete the Marly Machine. The cost was considerable: 3.5 million livres to build it, plus the even higher cost of maintaining it.



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Fourteen hydraulic wheels—each 33 feet in diameter—worked with 251 suction and treading pumps to push water uphill along a set of pipes and two other pumping stations to the Tour de Levant, the first of two towers anchoring the Louveciennes Aqueduct on each end.

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At Versailles, the fountain complex ordered by King Louis XIV used a vast, complicated and highly expensive system of 14 huge wheels, each more than 30 feet in diameter, powered by the current of a branch of the river Seine. A river current is just another manifestation of the power of gravity.

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Access to the Palace and the estate of Trianon is free for visitors under 18 (or under 26 residing in the EU).

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There are several toilets and free changing tables for babies at your disposal all over the Estate. In the Palace, there are toilets and changing tables before the ticket checks in the South Ministers' Wing and after the ticket checks in the basement of the Dufour Pavilion (Entrance A).

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Water displays of the Musical Fountains Show on Tuesdays and some public holidays (Friday April 7th, Monday April 10th, Monday May 8th, Monday May 29th and Friday July 14th 2023) : from 10am to 6.45pm*, 5 minutes every 15 minutes.

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Beds used to be short because people didn't use to sleep lying down because old superstitions considered it to be the position of the dead. So they slept in half sitting position.

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While it smells fine now, hygiene practices (or the lack thereof) in France during Louis XIII's reign meant that the palace smelled like urine, fecal matter, and more. Some claim that a lack of toilets in the palace even led some visitors to relieve themselves behind curtains and pillars.

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The children of the King could only claim a stool in their father's presence. Princesses of the blood were generally entitled to a chair with a back but not to one with arms. Cardinals could sit on a sofa when a prince of the blood was in the room but if the Queen entered he had to move to a stool.

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But where did they stay? Most apartments consisted of a bedchamber, a cabinet and perhaps a wardrobe. The lucky ones could add a few antechambers or had rather large rooms. In this context, the servants' quarters were in the wardrobe.

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