File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17538614674).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo18amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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TREE OF ST. LOUIS /.V rifE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU 307 peculiar interest ami cover a- large ami im- portant part of French history. The forest has been used from very early times as a royal hunting ground. Importance was first given to it by Louis VII, who, after return- ing from a disastrous crusade, erected upon the spot which the present palace occupies a fortified castle in which he held his court. He also dedicated there a chapel to Saint Saturnin, which was consecrated by Thomas Ti Becket, then a refugee in Franc(>. While the earliest settlements were being established in America, Louis XIII at Fon- tainebleau was entering upon a career which, with Richelieu's help, was to lay the founda- tion of the most glorious period in the his- tory of France. Hither Henry IV had come with Gabrielle d 'Estrees and later with Queen Marie de Medicis, and here young Louis was born and baptized, and from Fontainebleau went forth to the early strug- gles and successes of his long and eventful reign. Louis XIV. though born at Saint-Germain and occupied with the construction of Ver- sailles, still retained Fontainebleau as his autunm residence, where he went to hunt and to enjoy the exhibitions of new plays in- tended for the French stage. It was here in 1085 that this tyrannical and bigoted mon- arch signed away the rights of the Hugue- nots granted to them nearly a century before by Henry IV in the Edict of Nantes. The marriage of Louis XV to Marie Le- sczinska, of Poland, was celebrated at Fon- tainebleau ; but the names of De Chateau- roux, De Pompadour, and Du Barry, who succeeded one another in the favor of the king, have attracted more attention than that of his Polish queen. It was a period of license and of petty jealousies during which Fontainebleau was the scene of many personal and political intrigues. Sentimental and unorthodox literature was also much in vogue. Hither came the brilliant and ver- satile Voltaire to see his plays produced; and here Kousseau, after witnessing the jihenomenal success of his "Le Devin du Village," lost courage at the approach of his presentation to the king and hurriedly left the palace witho\it a farewell and without a j)ensioii. Tlie time-honor(Nl custom of spending the autumn at Fontainebleau was continued by T^ouis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette. During these visits the king gave himself over to the jileasures of the chase or worked with his locks and bolts. The queen espe- cially lookcij forward with delight to the freedom and quiet and native beauty of a forest unrestricted by the narrow boundaries of Versailles and beyond the reach of its cares. The apartments of Napoleon I form an attractive feature of the castle: a large part of the garden, also, was laid out in the English style under his direction. It was during his residence at Fontainebleau that N^apoleon willfully put away the Empress Josephine for Maria Louisa; here he was forced to sign his abdication of the throne of France for the empire of Elba; and here, in the Cour du Cheval-Blanc, he bade a touching farewell to the soldiers of the Old Guard, to greet them again on the same spot upon his return from Elba the following year. And the Tree of Saint Louis has lived through it all, defying time and change as kings and centuries have passed; and, with ring after ring, has slowly recorded the years. Some rings have been thick, others scanty; some even, others uneven. As it is with the tree, so it has been with France: there have been years of plenty and want, of peace and war, of prosperity and adver- sity in her history. It is to be hoped that the peasants of Fontainebleau will not cease to hang wreaths upon the tree while it lives, or the French people cease to remember what they owe to the good and wise king whose name it bears.
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