The tracing of the gardens at Fontainebleau, practically as they exist to-day, was one of François I's greatest pleasures. In their midst, on the shores of the Étang aux Carpes, was erected a tiny rest-house where the royal mistresses might come to repose and laugh at the jests of Triboulet.
Palais de Fontainebleau
The edifice of François I is of modest proportions and of perfect unity; but it is with difficulty that it presents its best appearance, overpowered as it is by the heavier masses of the time of Henri IV, and suffering as it does because of the eliminations of Louis XIV and Louis XV when they made their additions to the palace.
Under the Convention, later on, Fontainebleau's palace again suffered. Under the Consulate it became a barracks and a prison, and finally, not less terrible, were the restorations of Napoleon and Louis Philippe. A castle may sometimes suffer less from a siege than from a restoration.
From every point of view, however, Fontainebleau remains an architectural document of the most profound interest and value, and, from the tourists' point of view, it is the most appealing of all European palaces of this or any other age. The expert, the artist and the mere curiosity-seeker all unite in their admiration in spite of the fact that the fabric has been denuded of many of its original beauties.
First, this royal dwelling is of the most ample and effective proportions; second, it possesses a remarkable series of luxurious apartments; third, it still contains some of the finest examples of furniture and furnishings of Renaissance and Napoleonic times; and, in addition, there is also to be seen that admirable series of paintings which represent the School of Fontainebleau. With such an array of charms what does it matter if the unity of the Renaissance masterpiece of François I is qualified by later interpolations? General impression is the standard by which one judges the workmanship of a noble monument, and here it is good to an extraordinary degree.
The palace of to-day sits at one end of the aristocratic little town of Fontainebleau. Beyond is the forest and opposite are many hotels which depend upon the palace as the source from which they draw their livelihood.
The principal entrance to the palace opens out from the Place Solferino and gives access immediately to the Cour du Cheval Blanc of Chambiges, which, since that eventful day in Napoleonic history nearly a hundred years ago, has become better known as the Cour des Adieux. At the rear rises the famous horseshoe stair, certainly much better expressed in French as the Escalier en Fer à Cheval, from which the emperor took his farewell of his "Vieux Grognards" lined up before him, biting savagely at their moustaches to keep down their emotions.