This Cour du Cheval Blanc acquired its name from a plaster cast of Marcus Aurelius's celebrated steed which was originally placed here under a canopy or baldaquin held aloft by colonnettes. The moulds for this work were brought from Venice by Primaticcio and Vignole, but it was never cast in bronze and the statue itself disappeared in 1626. The courtyard, however, still kept the name until the last of Napoleonic days.
As a Napoleonic memory this Cour des Adieux shares popularity with the famous Cabinet of the Empire suite of apartments where Napoleon signed his abdication. Certainly most visitors will carry away the memory of these words as among the most vivid souvenirs of Fontainebleau.
"Le 5 Avril, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte signa son abdication sur cette table dans le cabinet de travail du Roi, le deuxieme après la chambre à coucher à Fontainebleau."
The abdication itself (the document) is now exposed in the Galerie de Diane, transformed lately into the Library.
On the right is the Aile Neuf, built by Louis XV, for the housing of his officers, on the site of the Galerie de Ulysse, originally one of the most notable features of the palace of François I. Opposite is the sober alignment of the Aile des Ministres, and still farther to the rear are the Pavillon des Aumoniers, or de l'Horloge; the Chapelle de la Trinité; the Pavillon des Armes; the Pavillon des Peintres; the Pavillon des Poëls; the Galerie des Fresques; and, finally, the Pavillon des Reines-Meres. All of these details are of the period of François I save the last, which was an interpolation of Louis XIV.
The Fer à Cheval stairway, however, most curious because of the difficulties of its construction, dates from the time of Louis XIII, and replaces the stairs built by Philibert Delorme. The tennis court, just before the Pavillon de l'Horloge, dates only from Louis XV.
The imposing entrance court is a hundred and twelve metres in width by a hundred and fifty-two metres in length, and to see it as it was originally, before the destruction of the Galerie d'Ulysse, one must imagine it as closed in by a series of small pavilions with their frontons of colonnettes preceded only by a staircase and two drawbridges crossing the moat, which at that time surrounded the entire confines of the palace. The moat is to-day surrounded, where it still exists, by a balustrade, due to the rather shabby taste of Louis XV.
Salle du Throne, Fontainebleau
An inner courtyard, known as the Cour de la Fontaine, is incomparably of finer general design than the entrance court, and the Cour Ovale, absolutely as Henri IV left it, is finer still. At the foot of this latter court is the Baptistry where were baptised, in 1606, the three "Enfants de France," the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII; the Princesse Elizabeth, afterwards the Queen of Spain; and the Princesse de Savoie.