y ravage eight hundred cultivated arpents (acres) of ground and
destroy the crops of two thousand four hundred setiers (three acres
each), that is to say, the annual supplies of eight hundred persons.
Near that place, at la Rochette, herds of deer and of stags devour
everything in the fields during the day, and, at night, they even invade
the small gardens of the inhabitants to consume vegetables and to break
down young trees. It is found impossible in a territory subjected to a
captaincy to retain vegetables safe in gardens, enclosed by high walls.
At Farcy, of five hundred peach trees planted in a vineyard and browsed
on by stags, only twenty remain at the end of three years. Over the
whole territory of Fontainebleau, the communities, to save their vines,
are obliged to maintain, with the assent always of the captaincy, a gang
of watchmen who, with licensed dogs, keep watch and make a hubbub all
night from the first of May to the middle of October. At Chartrettes
the deer cross the Seine, approach the doors of the Comtesse de
Larochefoucauld and destroy entire plantations of poplars. A domain
rented for two thousand livres brings in only four hundred after the
establishment of the captaincy of Versailles. In short, eleven regiments
of an enemy's cavalry, quartered on the eleven captaincies near
the capital, and starting out daily to forage, could not do more
mischief.--We need not be surprised if, in the neighborhood of these
lairs, the people become weary of cultivating.[1354] Near Fontainebleau
and Melun, at Bois-le-Roi, three-quarters of the ground remains waste.
Almost all the houses in Brolle are in ruins, only half-crumbling gables
being visible; at Coutilles and at Chapelle-Rablay, five farms are
abandoned; at Arbonne, numerous fields are neglected. At Villiers, and
at Dame-Marie, where there were four farming companies and a number of
special cultures, eight hundred arpents remain untilled.--Strange to
say, as the century becomes more easygoing the enforcement of the chase
becomes increasingly harsh. The officers of the captaincy are zealous
because they labor under the eye and for the "pleasures" of their
master. In 1789, eight hundred preserves had just been planted in one
single canton of the captaincy of Fontainebleau, and in spite of the
proprietors of the soil. According to the regulations of 1762 every
private individual domiciled on the reservation of a captaincy is
forbidden from enclosing his homestead