iege 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 Etat 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 Imperial.

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 Liegois, 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.

The history of Marly-le-Roi appears from the chroni