To all these works of Henri IV in the gardens at Fontainebleau is attached the name of Francine. There were two brothers of the name, Thomas and Alexandre, and it was the latter who chiefly occupied himself with the Parterre, the Chaussée and the Grand Canal at Fontainebleau. In the Jardin de la Reine he erected the celebrated Fontaine de Diane which finally gave its name to the garden itself. The fountain was designed by Barthélemy Prieur, and was cast in 1603. The original bronzes are now in the Louvre, those seen at Fontainebleau to-day being later works (1684).
The Forest of Fontainebleau is a dozen leagues in circumference, and of an area of nearly thirty-five thousand acres. Its beauty, its natural beauty, is unrivalled. Rocks, ravines, valleys, patriarchal oaks and beeches, plains, woods, glades, meadows, lawns and cliffs, all are here. Its population of stag and deer was practically exterminated during the Revolution of 1830, but nevertheless it sustained its reputation as a great hunting-ground for long afterwards.
The Royal Hunt invariably centered at La Croix du Grand Veneur, a notable landmark of the forest even now, at the intersection of four magnificent forest roads. Its name comes from a legend of a spectral black huntsman who was supposed to haunt the forest, and who appeared for the last time, in reality or imagination, to Henri IV shortly before his assassination.
In 1854, one of the last and most gorgeous of Fontainebleau hunts was given by Louis Napoleon. The emperor spent lavishly for the equipment of the hunt, and granted liberal stipends to the attendants that they might caparison themselves with some semblance of picturesque dignity; horses and dogs were furnished and cared for on the same liberal scale.
The costuming of a hunting party under such conditions was not the least appealing of its picturesque elements. Three-cornered hats, gold lace, knee breeches, silk stockings and other costly properties, when provided for a single special occasion, as they were in this case, were apt to suggest the life of centuries long gone by rather than that of modern times.
The Forest of Fontainebleau can best be briefly described as a rendezvous for tourists and "trippers," and as a vast open-air studio for the youthful emulators of "the men of Barbison."
Historic, romantic and artistic memories and realities are on every hand; the march of time and progress has not dimmed them, nor thinned them out; the Forest of Fontainebleau remains to-day the best known and most delightful extent of wildwood in all the world.
The chief of the well-known names associated with the Forest of Fontainebleau, and one which will never die, is that of Denecourt, called also the "Sylvain de la Forêt," a mythological appellation which came from his abounding knowledge of its devious ways and byways. It was in 1841 that Denecourt began his original studies and catalogued its every stone and tree. He invented names and gave a historical setting to many a picturesque and romantic site which might not have been known at all had it not been for his enthusiasm.
After the vogue of Denecourt all the world followed in his footsteps until the Parisian knew as well the Longue Rocher, the Gorges d'Apremont and the Gorge de Franchard as he did the Rue de la Paix or the Champs Elysées. Denecourt's great work, "Promenades dans la Forêt de Fontainebleau" appeared in 1845, and if he is to be criticised for letting his fancy run away with him now and then, and for the opera bouffe nomenclature of many of the caves and mares and chènes and "fairy-bowers" and "tables of kings," he at least has enabled a curious public to become better acquainted with this great forest.
The flora of the Forest of Fontainebleau is remarkably varied; Denecourt gives seventy varieties of plants and flowers which grow and propagate here naturally, to which are to be added a great number of nondescript vines, lichens and vegetable mosses.