98 SAND-WASTES OF FRANCE. 



of Fontainbleau, visited constantly by many of the visitors to Paris. 



The forest of Fontainbleau covers an area of about 64 square 

 miles. But it by no means corresponds with the idea generally 

 entertained of a forest ; it is anything but an old, shadowy, leafy, 

 and almost impervious forest. To quote the description given of it 

 by Mangin : " Despite its enormous trees, its rudely broken surface, 

 its stags and roebucks, reserved for imperial sport ; despite its few 

 adders and problematical vipers, it is now little better than a rendezvous 

 for amateur artists and listless idlers. Its well-kept avenues resound 

 with rapid wheels, and you can scarcely stir a step without finding 

 the associations of the place interrupted by the stalls of vendors of 

 cakes, or the apparatus of itinerant gamblers — a profanation to be 

 regretted, for the forest exhibits many landscapes of surpassing 

 interest in the rocks of Franchart, the glens of Apremont, and, above 

 all, that Sahara in miniature, the sands of Arbonne." 



An article by M. Clave in the Revue des Deux Mondes for May, 

 1863, on La Foret de Fontainbleau, contains much valuable and 

 interesting information in regard to this forest, and in regard to 

 matters connected with it. " Oaks," says he, " mingled with birches 

 in due proportion, may arrive at the age of five or six hundred years 

 in full vigour, and they attain dimensions which I have never seen 

 surpassed ; when, however, they are wholly unmixed with other trees 

 they begin to decay, and die at the top at the age of forty or fifty 

 years, like men old before their time, weary of the world, and long- 

 ing to quit it. This has been observed in most of the oak planta- 

 tions of which I have spoken, and they have not been able to attain 

 to full growth. When the vegetation was perceived to languish, they 

 were cut, in the hope that the new shoots would succeed better than 

 the original trees ; and, in fact, they appeared to be recovering for 

 the first few years. But the shoots were attacked with the same 

 decay, and the operation had to be renewed at shorter and shorter 

 intervals, until at last it was found necessary to treat as coppice-woods 

 plantations originally designed for the full grown system. Nor was 

 this all : the soil, periodically bared by those cuttings, became im- 

 poverished, and less suited to the growth of the oak. ... It 

 was then proposed to introduce the pine, and plant with it the 

 vacancies and glades. ... By this means the forest was saved 

 from the ruin which threatened it, and now more than 10,000 acres 

 of pines from fifteen to thirty years old are disseminated at various 

 points, sometimes intermixed with broad-leaved trees, sometimes 

 forming groves by themselves." 



