Recollects Convent (Versailles) (an annual theater event organized by the city of Versailles). During the period 1672-1673, as part of the design for his new Court of France, at what was then a royal hunting lodge at Versailles, Louis XIV decided to demolish Saint-Julien, the only church in Versailles at that time, and construct a convent for the Recollects, (an order so favored by the king he chose army chaplains from them) in the new town to be situated on the opposite side of the Palace, in today’s Notre-Dame area. In 1682, the Court of Louis XIV was installed at Versailles, and Jules
Palace of Versailles Marly— the Machine de Marly that fed the fountains— was possibly the biggest mechanical system of its time. The water came in from afar on monumental stone aqueducts which have long ago fallen into disrepair or been torn down. Some aqueducts, such as the unfinished Canal de l'Eure, which passes through the gardens of the Château de Maintenon, were never completed for want of resources or due to the exigencies of war. Despite enormous investment in canals and machinery for hoisting water, Versailles never had a sufficient water supply for its hundreds of fountains. When the King promenaded in the