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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
line