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 e£fect 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 difi'erent. 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 Vincennes, 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- 



