FRANCE***


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ROYAL PALACES AND PARKS OF FRANCE

       *       *       *       *       *


_WORKS OF

FRANCIS MILTOUN_

   _Rambles on the Riviera_                                          $2.50

   _Rambles in Normandy_                                              2.50

   _Rambles in Brittany_                                              2.50

   _The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine_                         2.50

   _The Cathedrals of Northern France_                                2.50

   _The Cathedrals of Southern France_                                2.50

   _In the Land of Mosques and Minarets_                              3.00

   _Royal Palaces and Parks of France_                                3.00

   _Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country_       3.00

   _Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces_     3.00

   _Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy and the Border Provinces_    3.00

   _Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor Car_                     3.00

   _The Automobilist Abroad_                                      net 3.00

         (_Postage Extra_)

_L. C. Page and Company_

_53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass._

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Terrace of Henri IV, Saint Germain_ (_See page 286_)]

[Illustration]

ROYAL PALACES AND PARKS OF FRANCE

by

FRANCIS MILTOUN

Author of "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine," "Castles
and Chateaux of Old Burgundy," "Rambles in Normandy,"
"Italian Highways and Byways
from a Motor-Car," etc.

With Many Illustrations
Reproduced from paintings made on the spot by Blanche Mcmanus







Boston
L. C. Page & Company
1910

Copyright, 1910.
by L. C. Page & Company.
(Incorporated)
All rights reserved

First Impression, November, 1910

Printed by
The Colonial Press
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U. S. A.




Preface

     "A thousand years ago, by the rim of a tiny spring, a monk who had
     avowed himself to the cult of Saint Saturnin, robed, cowled and
     sandalled, knelt down to say a prayer to his beloved patron saint.
     Again he came, this time followed by more of his kind, and a wooden
     cross was planted by the side of the "Fontaine Belle Eau," by this
     time become a place of pious pilgrimage. After the monk came a
     king, the latter to hunt in the neighbouring forest."


It was this old account of fact, or legend, that led the author and
illustrator of this book to a full realization of the wealth of historic
and romantic incidents connected with the French royal parks and
palaces, incidents which the makers of guidebooks have passed over in
favour of the, presumably, more important, well authenticated facts of
history which are often the bare recitals of political rises and falls
and dull chronologies of building up and tearing down.

Much of the history of France was made in the great national forests and
the royal country-houses of the kingdom, but usually it has been only
the events of the capital which have been passed in review. To a great
extent this history was of the gallant, daring kind, often written in
blood, the sword replacing the pen.

At times gayety reigned supreme, and at times it was sadness; but always
the pageant was imposing.

The day of pageants has passed, the day when lords and ladies moved
through stately halls, when royal equipages hunted deer or boar on royal
preserves, when gay cavalcades of solemn corteges thronged the great
French highways to the uttermost frontiers and ofttimes beyond. Those
days have passed; but, to one who knows the real France, a ready-made
setting is ever at hand if he would depart a little from the beaten
paths worn smooth by railway and automobile tourists who follow only the
lines of conventional travel.

France, even to-day, the city and the country alike, is the paradise of
European monarchs on a holiday. One may be met at Biarritz on the shores
of the Gascon gulf; another may be taking the waters at Aix or Vichy,
shooting pigeons under the shadow of the Tete de Chien, or hunting at
Rambouillet. This is modern France, the most cosmopolitan meeting place
and playground of royalty in the world.

French royal parks and palaces, those of the kings and queens of
mediaeval, as well as later, times, differ greatly from those of other
lands. This is perhaps not so much in their degree of splendour and
luxury as in the sentiment which attaches itself to them. In France
there has ever been a spirit of gayety and spontaneity unknown
elsewhere. It was this which inspired the construction and maintenance
of such magnificent royal residences as the palaces of Saint
Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau, Versailles, Compiegne, Rambouillet,
etc., quite different from the motives which caused the erection of the
Louvre, the Tuileries or the Palais Cardinal at Paris.

Nowhere else does there exist the equal of these inspired royal
country-houses of France, and, when it comes to a consideration of their
surrounding parks and gardens, or those royal hunting preserves in the
vicinity of the Ile de France, or of those still further afield, at
Rambouillet or in the Loire country, their superiority to similar
domains beyond the frontiers is even more marked.

In plan this book is a series of itineraries, at least the chapters are
arranged, to a great extent in a topographical sequence; and, if the
scope is not as wide as all France, it is because of the prominence
already given to the parks and palaces of Touraine and elsewhere in the
old French provinces in other works in which the artist and author have
collaborated. It is for this reason that so little consideration has
been given to Chambord, Amboise or Chenonceaux, which were as truly
royal as any of that magnificent group of suburban Paris palaces which
begins with Conflans and ends with Marly and Versailles.

Going still further afield, there is in the Pyrenees that chateau, royal
from all points of view, in which was born the gallant Henri of France
and Navarre, but a consideration of that, too, has already been included
in another volume.

The present survey includes the royal dwellings of the capital, those of