Strange indeed is the attraction of the forest for
the minds of men. Not one or two only, but a
great chorus of grateful voices have arisen to spread
abroad its fame. Half the famous writers of
modern France have had their word to say about Fontainebleau.
Chateaubriand, Michelet, Beranger, George Sand, de
Senancour, Flaubert, Murger, the brothers Goncourt,
Theodore de Banville, each of these has done something
to the eternal praise and memory of these woods.
Even at the very worst of times, even when the picturesque
was anathema in the eyes of all Persons of Taste, the
forest still preserved a certain reputation for beauty.
It was in 1730 that the Abbe Guilbert published his
Historical Description of the Palace, Town, and Forest
of Fontainebleau. And very droll it is to see
him, as he tries to set forth his admiration in terms
of what was then permissible. The monstrous
rocks, etc., says the Abbe ’sont admirees
avec surprise des voyageurs qui s’ecrient aussitot
avec Horace: Ut mihi devio rupee et vacuum nemus
mirari libet.’ The good man is not exactly
lyrical in his praise; and you see how he sets his
back against Horace as against a trusty oak.
Horace, at any rate, was classical. For the rest,
however, the Abbe likes places where many alleys meet;
or which, like the Belle-Etoile, are kept up ‘by
a special gardener,’ and admires at the Table
du Roi the labours of the Grand Master of Woods and
Waters, the Sieur de la Falure, ‘qui a fait
faire ce magnifique endroit.’
But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that
the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts,
as for that subtle something, that quality of the
air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully
changes and renews a weary spirit. Disappointed
men, sick Francis Firsts and vanquished Grand Monarchs,
time out of mind have come here for consolation.
Hither perplexed folk have retired out of the press
of life, as into a deep bay-window on some night of
masquerade, and here found quiet and silence, and rest,
the mother of wisdom. It is the great moral
spa; this forest without a fountain is itself the
great fountain of Juventius. It is the best
place in the world to bring an old sorrow that has
been a long while your friend and enemy; and if, like
Beranger’s your gaiety has run away from home
and left open the door for sorrow to come in, of all
covers in Europe, it is here you may expect to find
the truant hid. With every hour you change.
The air penetrates through your clothes, and nestles
to your living body. You love exercise and slumber,
long fasting and full meals. You forget all
your scruples and live a while in peace and freedom,
and for the moment only. For here, all is absent
that can stimulate to moral feeling. Such people
as you see may be old, or toil-worn, or sorry; but
you see them framed in the forest, like figures on
a painted canvas; and for you, they are not people
in any living and kindly sense. You forget the
grim contrariety of interests. You forget the
narrow lane where all men jostle together in unchivalrous
contention, and the kennel, deep and unclean, that
gapes on either hand for the defeated. Life is
simple enough, it seems, and the very idea of sacrifice
becomes like a mad fancy out of a last night’s
dream.
