Fall from on high

Fountain of Latona/Latone - Palace of Versailles, France The sun breaks through rainclouds over a fountain in the gardens of Versailles. One-time home of Marie Antoinette prior to her execution, the palace and gardens of Versailles were ransacked after the French Revolution. The fountain recounts a story from Metamorphoses by Ovid. Latona/Leto was wandering the earth after giving birth to Apollo and Artemis and tried to drink from a pond in Lycia. The peasants refused to allow this by stirring up the mud at the bottom of the pond. She then turned them into frogs for their inhospitality, doomed to forever swim in the murky waters of ponds and rivers. In order to run the fountains of Versailles the Marly hydraulic machine was built and was possibly the most complex integrated machine of the 17th century. It converted the current of the Seine using 14 paddlewheels to pump water up a 500 foot vertical rise to an acquaduct providing the pressure and volume needed to run the elaborate fountains of the estate.