Nature and Art, October 1, 1866.] 
ABT IN THE FOEEST. 
155 
of the two or three traps or steppers, which belong 
to the resident bourgeois; but the chivalry of 
Marlotte [prefers mules and donkeys, and Marlotte 
possesses some capital specimens. In the morning 
you may see half a dozen comfortably roomy carts 
coming back from market — when they depaik 
from Marlotte marketwards is a mystery not often 
unveiled to bourgeois eyes — with two paysannes 
comfortably seated therein on rush-bottom chairs, 
and Master Jack plodding his way along in all the 
conscious dignity of one who has performed his 
duty, and who is about to reap his reward in the 
form of oats or hay. At haymaking or harvest 
time, Jack is equally useful, but presents a more 
comical figure : on his back hangs a kind of 
double ladder, armed at the upper edges with 
terrible spikes, and supported on the pack-saddle 
by two cross-pieces, and on this scaffolding are 
placed the bundles of hay or the sheaves of corn 
which form the burden. He cuts a queer figure, 
does Jack, with his head and tail just visible from 
beyond the load, and his nose covered with a small 
basket to prevent his indulging in promiscuous 
meals by the wayside : a habit pernicious and 
inconvenient in donkeys as well as men. 
Some of the artists to be found in Marlotte are 
resident bourgeois, and form the aristocracy of the 
place. One has a charming chalet with a delicious 
prospect over a fertile plain to the skirts of the 
forest, and over the neighbouring village of Bourron 
to a distant range of purple hills capped by another 
range lying like a rich grey cloud beyond. Another 
has taken his ground on the very frontier of the 
station, and his studio windows look boldly out 
north, east, south, and west, without a screen 
between them, the forest, and the horizon. His 
gates shut him in from the world, and over them 
and the walls adjoining falls a mass of climbing 
plants which in itself would make a painter’s 
fortune if he had the cunning to transfer them to 
canvas. Half a dozen houses form perhaps the 
whole body of bourgeois residences, and in those 
few retreats, it is no breach of confidence to say, 
there are produced pictures which decorate the 
Avails of the Paris Salon, blocks and sketches for 
stone which illuminate the pages of French period- 
icals, and designs which come before the world on 
plates and cups of British manufacture. 
The nomad population is more numerous and far 
more mixed. France, England, and America — art, 
science, and literature — all send their quota, though 
the whole congregation is but small after all. The 
married artists find their rural quarters in little 
farmyards, amid the pigs and poultry, over the 
chambers of sleek crummies, or other “useful 
coos,” who graze by day on the rich herbage of the 
forest, and supply Marlotte with richly- perfumed 
milk ; . or in the cottage of some well-to-do peasant, 
who, having two, lets one of them for the season 
at about the price of two rooms in Paris for a 
month. The elder men, those who “ have 
given hostages to fortune,” and who know what re- 
sponsibility means, may be seen quietly seated in 
the streets of the village, or in the roads which 
skirt it, or in choice spots of the forest, steadily work- 
ing at a bit of nature very likely to find its way to 
London or New York, which are far better market's 
than Paris for landscape. The young artist re- 
freshes his eyes and all his senses, sketching here 
and there a bit that pleases his fancy while roving, 
butterfly-like, over the rocks, under the trees, and 
around the tarns of the delicious forest ; but his 
chief occupation at Marlotte, like that of his con- 
freres of the pen or scalpel, is to bathe in the 
luxurious bath of nature ; to stretch his limbs in 
tremendous pedestrian excursions, and lie on his 
back under the beeches when the toes begin to 
tingle or the knees to be slightly shaky; and to float 
on the surface of the Loing, a tributary of the 
Seine, when chaste Diana’s silvery beams fall in 
splendour on the waters. 
There is nothing fast or snobbish about Marlotte, 
and if there is any affectation, it is the affectation 
of simplicity ; certain young men, whose paletots are 
irreproachable on the Paris Boulevards, and whose 
whole mise is acknowledged to be perfect in the 
salons of the capital, walk the earth at Marlotte in 
the costume of the veriest qiaysan — perhaps, in a 
few cases, with a slight dash of the opera comique 
over all. But they give themselves no airs, they 
patronize nobody, they are known to all the 
pay sans and paysannes of the neighbourhood, who 
give them a cheery bon jour as they pass in the 
streets, and who are as civil, communicative, and 
unobtrusive as any people can possibly be. 
Marlotte life is just the place for a robust young 
Englishman — and he is generally represented there ; 
but he must be thoroughly French as regards his 
mode of living, or he will find matters curiously 
new to his tastes. 
Dissipation is not to be found in Marlotte, nor 
much attraction in the shape of amusement. Once 
we saw the community thrown into a state of con- 
siderable excitement by the arrival of a company 
of comedians in their own carriage, drawn by their 
own horse, and having a brass knocker to their 
door — an instrument which all Marlotte cannot 
boast of possessing. The principal lady of the 
company invited us, personally, as she partook of 
her soup at her own table in the high street, to 
attend the performance ; and, later in the day, pre- 
ceded by the light young gentleman, who certainly 
makes a noise in the world — on the drum, she did 
us and others the honour of setting forth, beneath 
our windows, in grand dramatic style, the attrac- 
tions awaiting us. The performance took place in 
the ball-room of the place, which is no other than 
the largest of the billiard-rooms minus the billiard- 
table ; but I understood that the “ first lady” was 
not at all overcome with the patronage of the Mar- 
lottians, whom she is said to have declared to be 
rather a shabby set than otherwise. She was vent- 
ing her ill-humour the next morning, while 
purchasing a duck for her dinner, poor thing, and 
in spite of the hints of her clever, bright-eyed 
daughter, the young lady of the company, when a 
paysan gave her this characteristic bit of advice : — 
“Well, if you are not satisfied with your lot, 
