"Ah, what care I how bad the weather!"
Mademoiselle D. is here, the guest of friends at their country house at Fontainebleau. The day she was our hostess she met us at the station, and we were driven through a long lane, flanked on either side by immense trees, to the Château of Fontainebleau.
No other palace has aroused so keen an interest as has the interior of this noble old mediæval fortress, which Francis I. converted into the present château. In this palace are tapestries of rare worth and weave, jardinières in cloisonné, bas-reliefs in jasper, masterpieces of marquetry, and priceless bric-a-brac, found nowhere else in such lavish profusion.
Mademoiselle's hostess sent her servants with a dainty luncheon, which they served for us on the marble steps leading from l'Etang des Carpes to the water's edge. The afternoon and early hours of the evening were spent in driving through the forest and at Barbizon.
Oh, the air of artistic Bohemia, the atmosphere of achievement which dominates this world-renowned Barbizon! It does not seem possible that the Barbizon of which Will Low gives a description in his "A Chronicle of Friendships" could have remained unaltered since the early seventies, but it has. Both his brush and pen pictures are so vividly accurate, that I pointed out many of his old and beloved haunts before Mademoiselle had time to tell me. Often she would say, "You have been here before, n'est-ce-pas?" I always assured her to the contrary, but always added, "I shall surely come again."
At the very word "Barbizon" the thoughts fly back, involuntarily, to those painters whose names stand for all that is highest and best in Art. Their early life songs ran in minor chords, to be sure, but the vibrations have lost the pathos, and we hear only of the beauty and joy they have left behind them for their fellow men.
Every child knows "The Angelus," and every lover of the truth in picture, song or story pauses a moment before the bronze face of Millet, set into a rock that lies on the edge of this wee village.
The forest of Fontainebleau embraces over fifty square miles, and its magnificent timber and picturesque splendor are not surpassed in all France.