The Royal Estate of Marly: Absence, History and Splendor

Horses created for Marly, now in the Marly Courtyard at the Louvre. Photo GLKraut.

The view from the King’s Pavilion at the Royal Estate of Marly is forlorn. Just over four miles from the relentless restoration of Versailles, all that’s left of what was once Louis XIV’s most precious secondary residence is fragments: a cobblestone ramp framed by a stone wall, an outline of a pleasure palace, an alignment of naked trees, a small trooping of trimmed evergreens, water basins without ornaments—scarcely a hint of splendor.

Some of my sense of desolation undoubtedly comes from visiting in the grey-brown damp of winter. I imagine that in warmer, drier seasons one could spend a wonderful morning here playing Frisbee with a Labrador or golden retriever. But I don’t have one.

Still, I’m glad that I’ve come, even in January and despite the complication of getting here. I’ve come to understand the rise and fall of Marly.

The Royal Estate of Marly, located on the edge of the town of Marly-le-Roi, is only 12 miles west of Paris, but it takes an abundance of historical curiosity and a suburban adventure to get you here. Worth it? Not worth it? You be the judge. The bleak landscape certainly has atmosphere. Ruins put grandeur in perspective. And the little museum that recently opened just within the entrance to the estate tells of Marley’s heyday. Other evidence of Marly’s splendor can be seen in Paris, as I’ll explain later. First some background.

The Creation of Marly

King since the age of 4 years and 8 months, Louis XIV took control of the reins of power at age 23, in 1661. He immediately set about developing the palace of Versailles. In 1682, after two decades of construction and landscaping, he declared Versailles the official seat of the monarchy. Though intense construction would continue at Versailles after 1682, Louis XIV simultaneously then set his sights on developing the more private residence of Marly, an easy carriage-ride away.

Corresponding with this period, in 1683, Marie-Theresa, his queen, died, and several months later, Louis married Madame de Maintenon in secret.

As with Versailles, Louis XIV gave much input to plans for the pleasure palace of Marly and to its gardens, basins and fountains. As at Versailles, he followed the construction closely. The lead architect was Jules-Hardouin Mansart, who also marked the latter decades of the 17th century with such monumental works as the Hall of Mirrors, among other developments, at Versailles and the Dome of the Invalides and Place Vendome in Paris. Charles Le Brun, who provided the decorative elements for the Hall of Mirrors, among many other rooms at Versailles, also had a hand in decorating Marly. However, Marly’s brilliance was not of the in-your-face kind as at Versailles but of the luxuriant get-away kind.

Louis first stayed at Marly in 1686, and from then until his death in 1715 this was his primary second home. While the king reveled in the glitz and glamour and omnipresent public at Versailles, he enjoyed frequent breaks at Marly, sojourning at the estate on average every couple of weeks for several days. Here he would spend time with the royal family and with Madame de Maintenon and a relatively limited number of courtiers. The etiquette and the dress code at Marly were more relaxed than at Versailles. “Sire, Marly,” courtiers would plead to the king to allow them to counted among the lucky few. In his final years he would come more often and for longer stays, spending more than one third of the year at Marly.

Garden walks, card games, lawn games and fairground-type rides were among the royal pastimes and especially hunting in the surrounding forest, before his health declined.

Unlike Versailles and other palaces and castles built as a single structure, the constructions on the estate of Marly had a fragmented layout. The king’s pavilion, containing a central reception area and apartments for the royal family, was surrounded by a constellation of 12 smaller pavilions for selects guests.

The Machine of Marly

The pavilions of Marly have been largely forgotten, other than a few glimpses in the Marly Museum. When the history of Marly is evoked today, it’s less to speak of the estate than of its sculpted horses, now in Paris, and its Machine, long gone.

The Machine of Marly was a massive engineering project involving a complex array of pumps and lifts that carried water from the Seine River to feed the insatiable thirst of the fountains and basins first at Marly then also at Versailles. Though pumped from the Seine only two miles away in the town of Bougival, the great feat was to use the force of the river to lift water 531 feet so as to carry it over the hillside and onto an aqueduct that sloped gradually toward Marly, then to Versailles. It was late-17th-century engineering at its finest and likely noisiest.

The quantity of water supplies by the Machine allowed for the operation of cascading fountains at Marly, including one called “The River” that flowed toward the royal pavilion before feeding lower fountains, basins and ponds within the estate’s formal gardens and precisely edged groves. Though in constant need of repair, the Machine as it was more or less designed operated until the early 19th century, when a steam engine was built as its energy source. That was then replaced by a hydraulic process later in the century. Scant evidence of the complex can be seen today by the Seine, where the most visible remnant is the 19th-century pumping station and the rows of trees up the hill that follow the former path along which the water was carried.

A display in the museum on the edge of the estate demonstrates how the Machine operated.

The Horses of Marly

Among the ponds fed by the water network was the Horse Pond or Drinking Pool. At its entrance stood two majestic marble equestrian statues: Mercury Riding Pegasus and Fame Riding Pegasus. They are the work of sculptor Antoine Coysevox in 1702. Several years after Louis XIV’s death in 1715, Coysevox’s horses were placed in the royal garden of the Tuileries in Paris.

Marly was also used by the Louis XIV’s successors, the Fifteenth and Sixteenth of that name, though much less so. Louis XV showed enough interest in Marly to order some restoration work and to stay here occasionally but not enough to detract from the attention he paid to other more modern royal playgrounds that he developed in the middle of the 18th century. Scoring an invitation during Louis XV’s time was easier for courtiers. In place of the equestrian statues of Coysevox in the Tuileries, the king commissioned Guillaume Coustou the Elder, Coysevox’s nephew, to create another pair, called Horses Restrained by a Groom. Both sets are referred to as the Horses of Marly, though the term is particularly used in speaking of Coustou’s pair. Created in created in 1745, these masterpieces of the Rococo period are among the most famous of 18th-century French sculptures. (Coustou’s brother Nicolas also created sculptures for Marly.)

Louis XVI was still less involved in the royal estate of Marly than his predecessor. Nevertheless, he did visit. His final stay took place just three weeks before the storming of the Bastille.

The Marly Courtyard at the Louvre

With the fall of the monarchy, Marly, like Versailles, become property of the French Republic. Statuary, tapestries and furnishings were brought to Paris for public exhibition. Coustou’s horses were placed at the entrance to the Champs-Elysées. Copies stand there today, as the originals have since been brought into the Louvre. So have Coysevox’s.

After visiting the Royal Estate of Marly to feel its absence and to learn its history, I’ve come to the Louvre to admire samplings of that finery. There, in what is now called the Marly Courtyard, Coustou’s horses rear above a collection of brilliant sculptural work from the vanished gardens. As first-time visitors crush toward the must-sees in the Louvre’s Denon (southern) and Sully (eastern) wings, I take the northern escalator into the Richelieu Wing. In the glass covered courtyard, allowing for natural lighting, stands an impressive array of the statuary originally made for Marly. Coustou’s horses are staged in the courtyard as theatrically as the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the opposite wing of the museum, while Coysevox’s horses take flight with Mercury and Fame behind them, and other exquisite works commissioned by Louis XIV toward the end of his reign further display choice samples of the splendor that was Marly.

See this video of the Marly Courtyard produced by the Louvre.

The Dismantling of Marly

While prime pieces of marble artistry were brought to Paris, the furnishings of Marly were sold off by the State. Woodwork was cut up and sold. And in 1799 the estate of Marly itself was sold.

Napoleon bought back the Marly property for the state in 1811. By then the buildings had for the most part been dismantled and sold for scrap. The emperor wasn’t about to rehabilitate a Bourbon adobe anyway. What attracted him to Marly was its forest, prime territory for hunting. The estate therefore became an imperial hunting ground, then after the fall of the Empire a royal hunting ground, and eventually a presidential hunting ground. It remained that way until 2009. Bikers, hikers and Sunday strollers now take to the Forest of Marly.

The Estate of Marly (though not the museum) is now administratively joined with the Estate of Versailles, making for a thought-provoking contrast between the two: on the one hand, the eye-popping views, budget, crowds and commerce of an international bucket-lister; on the other, the ghostly reminder of royal pedigree at what is now essentially a local park and extensive woods.

The Museum of the Royal Estate of Marly

Operated by the local municipality, the museum is dedicated to the history of the estate. Several original paintings and prints and pieces of furniture provide slight glimpses of the estate’s past, but the interest of the museum isn’t so much its historical artefacts as the telling of the history of Marly through its displays, including one that explains the functioning of the Machine. Explanatory notes are only in French for now. Notices in English are planned for the end of the year. Whether you speak French or not, a guide can truly help draw you into the creation and life of this nearly forgotten royal residence. See the museum’s website for guided tour possibilities or to inquire for a private tour.

Musée du Domaine Royal de Marly (Museum of the Royal Estate of Marly), 1 Grille royale – Parc de Marly, 78160 Marly-le-Roi. 7€, free for children under 12. Closed Monday and Tuesday. See website for precise opening times.

Getting to the Estate of Marly

As noted earlier, visiting the Estate of Marly is a suburban adventure, one best reserved for those with an abundance of historical curiosity and a willingness to confront the logistics of navigating the loops of the Seine to the west of Paris.

Consider combining it with other sites in the area, particularly Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the north and the Chateau de Monte Cristo (see below) in Port-Marly, between Marly and Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Including Versailles is an alternative approach due to its proximity both geographical and historical, though I imagine that anyone curious about Marly has already visited Versailles.

Setting aside Versailles then, consider three possibilities ways of a day involving a visit to Marly. All require a GPS or detailed map.

1. From Paris by train

From Paris’s Saint Lazare Station, take the train to the Louveciennes Station, a ride of about 45 minutes. From there it’s a 20-minute (1-mile) walk to the museum, which is at the entrance to Royal Estate of Marly, whose ghosts can then be visited on a stroll. Leaving the estate, you might then take a 30-minute (under 2-mile) walk to the Seine. Not the most beautiful walk either coming or going, though you can pass by the wall surrounding the Chateau de Madame de Barry, 6 chemin de la Machine, now a private property. Madame de Barry was Louis XV’s “favorite” (i.e. official mistress) in the final years of his life. The modest chateau was a gift from the king which she then improved. After the king’s death, and followed by her brief exile to a convent, she lived here from 1776 until the guillotine caught up with her in 1793—a pretty good run. You might time your day to have lunch by the river at La Maison Louveciennes, 2 Quai Conti, 78430 Louveciennes. Return to Paris by train or RER.

2. Exploring the western suburbs by car

You can plan a full day exploring Paris’s western suburbs by a taxi or a car service, if you don’t have your own car.

One possible itinerary if setting out from Paris is to first take the RER (suburban train), line A, to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a 40-minute ride from the center of capital. Visit the castle and its gardens, followed by lunch in town, then take a taxi or car service to the Estate of Marly to visit the museum and ghostly portion nearby. Then take a taxi (though one will not spontaneously appear outside the gates of Marly) or a car service to Monte Cristo. You might ask the driver to take you past the scant remnant of the Machine of Marly by the Seine along the way. Then a taxi or car service (or a 30-minute walk) back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

The Château de Monte Cristo isn’t actually a chateau but rather a large house built in the 1840s to resemble a small castle for the writer Alexandre Dumas, who named it after one of his most famous books and decorated it to his own glory. The house and the smaller castle-like outbuilding that he had built on the property to serve as his writing room are now dedicated to his memory, though he didn’t reside here long. After living high on the hog here for less than two years, a lack of funds led him to sell the property in 1848.

3. Marly and Saint-Germain-en-Laye on a biking day

If you’re into biking—and you needn’t be a long-distance cyclist for this—my top choice for visiting Marly would be by bike. Weather permitting, of course. The 130-acre royal estate is at the edge of the nearly 5000 acres of the Forest of Marly, which is separated by only a mile from the nearly 9000 acres of the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Visited together, a leisurely day of cycling and touring can include both forests, with stops at the Museum and Estate of Marly at the edge of the one forest and at the Castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye near the edge of the other.

If coming from Paris, take RER A to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, whether bringing a bike from Paris (your own or a rental) or renting one in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. You can take a bike on the RER A from Paris during the week outside of rush hour, meaning other than 6:30-9:30am and 4:30-730pm, as well anytime on weekends and holidays. In Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Cyclou rents bikes from the edge of the forest, near the swimming pool about 500 yards from the chateau up Avenue des Loges, though with limited weekday opening times (see their site for details). Also see Bikook for e-bike rental.

Begin by visiting the Castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which houses the National Archeology Museum, and the castle gardens. Then bike at your own rhythm for a couple of hours through the two forests before visiting the Museum and Estate of Marly. You’ll use your GPS or a biking app to navigate through the forests. Route des Princesses is the mile-long stretch of non-forest biking between the two. From Marly it’s possible to bike down to the Seine and/or to the Chateau de Monte-Cristo before returning to Saint-Germain. But that involves street biking, so you might want to just keep this as a forest biking day and return the way that you came.

The Saint Germain Tourist Office, a 3-minute walk from the RER station, 3 rue Henri IV, provides information about the town and about surrounding towns along the nearby loops in the Seine, including Marly-le-Roi. This area is located within the department of Yvelines, which includes the western and southwestern suburbs of Paris.

Château Louis XIV

As you travel about in these western suburbs you might not see the wealth, but it’s there. For example, you won’t be seeing Château Louis XIV unless you’re in the habit of hanging out with Saudi royalty. It’s near Marly, in the town of Louveciennes, in the direction of Versailles. Château Louis XIV is a contemporary echo of Marly and Versailles. It was built on a 57-acre property in 2012 by Emad Khashoggi (read: big money from the Middle East further developed in Europe) as a high-tech version of a 17th-century-style chateau. Three years later, the property reportedly sold for 275 million euros, reportedly to the crown prince of the Saudi kingdom. Press reports at the time called it the most expensive private property in the world.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut