200 WINTER SUNSHINE 



merous centres like the boulevards of Paris. At 

 these centres were fountains and statues, with sun 

 light falling upon them ; and, looking along the cool, 

 dusky avenues, as they opened, this way and that, 

 upon these marble tableaux, the effect was very 

 striking, and was not at all marred to my eye by 

 the neglect into which the place had evidently 

 fallen. The woods were just mellowing into Octo 

 ber; the large, shining horse-chestnuts dropped at 

 my feet as I walked along; the jay screamed over 

 the trees ; and occasionally a red squirrel larger 

 and softer-looking than ours, not so sleek, nor so 

 noisy and vivacious skipped among the branches. 

 Soldiers passed, here and there, to and from some 

 encampment on the farther side of the park; and, 

 hidden from view somewhere in the forest-glades, 

 a band of buglers filled the woods with wild musi 

 cal strains. 



English royal parks and pleasure grounds are 

 quite different. There the prevailing character is 

 pastoral, * immense stretches of lawn, dotted with 

 the royal oak, and alive with deer. But the French 

 man loves forests evidently, and nearly all his pleas 

 ure grounds about Paris are immense woods. The 

 Bois de Boulogne, the forests of Yincennes, of St. 

 Germain, of Bondy, and I don't know how many 

 others, are near at hand, and are much prized. 

 What the animus of this love may be is not so 

 clear. It cannot be a love of solitude, for the 

 French are characteristically a social and gregarious 

 people. It cannot be the English poetical or Words- 



