Chapter XXVI: Section XXIV: Briare to Melun, 64 Miles

(103 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

Kil. Miles. =Briare= to Montargis =41= 25½ =Montargis= to Nemours =32= 20 =Nemours= to Fontainebleau =15= 9¼ =Fontainebleau= to Melun =15= 9¼

TWO ALTERNATIVE ROUTES

1. =Briare= to =Orleans= via =Gien=,
**Ouzouer-sur-Loire, and **Châteauneuf =70= =43½=

For the route from =Orleans= to =Rouen=, =Havre=,
=Dieppe=, and =Calais=, see
Sections I. to IV.

2. =Fontainebleau= to =Chartres= =97= =60¼=
=Fontainebleau= to Milly =18= 11¼
=Milly= to Maisse =5= 3
=Maisse= to Étampes =18= 11¼
=Étampes= to Authon-la-Plaine =16= 10
=Authon-la-Plaine= to Ablis =13= 8
=Ablis= to Chartres =27= 16¾

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

Ascent from =Briare= fairly steep; after that level to Montargis.

=Montargis= to =Fontainebleau=.--Practically a flat road, chiefly in
the valley of the Loing.

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

=Briare.=--A village at the junction of the roads from Orleans and
Paris.

=La Boussière.=--A hamlet with a small château in a park.

=Mormant.=--A small village with a Romanesque church.

=Montargis.=--An old and historic town; gateway of château, two
towers of town walls, and interesting church with twelfth-century
nave, and a fine choir of Transitional Gothic and Renaissance.

=Souppes.=--A village with a twelfth-century church.

=Nemours.=--A small town on the River Loing; picturesque castle,
containing a museum; church with thirteenth-century tower, and the
rest sixteenth to seventeenth century.

=Fontainebleau.=--A small town, which has grown up on one side of the
huge Palace of Fontainebleau, built by François I. and succeeding
Kings.

Briare is the Roman _Brivodurum_, but it is now a quiet, uninteresting little town where buttons are manufactured.

After passing through the old-fashioned village of La Boussière, one turns to the left towards the château, at a corner where a board indicates the ‘Route de Paris.’ The yellow-coloured road, with a fine surface, goes on through a well-wooded country to Nogent-sur-Vernisson, a village without interest, and soon afterwards Mormant, a hamlet with a small Romanesque church.

MONTARGIS

This historic town has, unfortunately, only preserved a gateway of its twelfth-century château, at one time called _le Berceau des Enfants de France_, owing to the French queens coming thither, before the building of Fontainebleau, when they were about to become mothers. Two circular towers of the medieval fortifications are the only relics of the walls that resisted the English army under the Earl of Warwick during the Hundred Years’ War.

The church has a fine twelfth-century nave, an ornate west end, and an exceedingly graceful and unusually designed choir, built between 1540 and 1618. The tall pillars of the ambulatory are without capitals, and they support roofs of equal height above the choir and the ambulatory. Interior and exterior show the change from the Gothic to the Classic style.

The long canal extending from Briare to the Loing passes through Montargis, which was at one time surrounded by marshy country, now drained and cultivated.

On leaving the town one passes a statue of Mirabeau, and, after crossing three bridges, the road to Fontainebleau turns sharply to the left past the goods entrance of the railway-station, and then keeps to the western side of the fairly extensive forest of Montargis.

Mistletoe grows luxuriantly in this district, and all the way from Moulins the trees are tufted with the curious parasitic plant, which English folk buy from the French in huge quantities as each Christmas festival approaches.

At the hamlet of Fontenay one goes to the right at the fork, and the road continues through a scattered forest, with prodigious quantities of mistletoe, and at a point 13½ kilometres from Nemours there is a _caniveau_ in the middle of the village.

After passing Souppes, a hamlet with a twelfth-century church, the scenery changes. On the right great isolated masses of rock stand on the grassy slopes, and on the left the shallow little valley of the Loing is beautified with the picturesque mills and weirs on the river. The low wooded hills on the left, full of faint purples and browny greens in spring-time, form a delightful background to the bright green of the grass near at hand. The rocky slopes on the right are often covered with juniper, and here and there pines scent the atmosphere.

Nemours is a quiet little town, with a collegiate church of the Gothic and Renaissance periods, with the lower part of the tower of the thirteenth century; but the château, built in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, is the most interesting and picturesque feature. It has circular towers, with conical roofs at each corner, and another tower (the keep) to the north is joined to the main building with a passage three stories in height. The castle has been converted into a museum, and the whole of the interior is shown to visitors by an indefatigable old _gardienne_, who insists on showing the view over the surrounding forests, which can be seen from the donjon tower.

It was at Nemours, in July, 1585, that Catherine de Medici, on behalf of Henri III., signed the treaty revoking all edicts in favour of the Protestants, and enforcing the universal profession of Catholicism.

At the present time the title of Duc de Nemours is borne by the second son of Louis-Philippe.

On leaving Nemours the road keeps to the west of the Loing, and almost at once enters the Forest of Fontainebleau. Most of the trees are without any beauty, being thin and tall and of an average size. There are no suggestions of the primeval, such as every English forest contains, including even the Londoner’s paradise of Epping. The only feature of this great tree-grown area which is interesting, apart from its associations, is the strange appearance of great lumps of rock, tilted up at curious angles, and sprawling about among the trees in such an odd fashion that in the twilight the forest seems full of giant sloths and other prehistoric beasts!

FONTAINEBLEAU

The town of Fontainebleau stands in the midst of the forest, with the palace and park on the east side.

_The palace is open to visitors every day between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m._

As long ago as 1137 a French king--Louis le Jeune--dated an Act ‘apud fontem Bleaudi.’ François I., that mighty builder of Renaissance palaces, was, however, the real creator of the Fontainebleau of to-day. He planned, and to a considerable extent carried out, a structure he desired to be the finest palace in the world. The Galerie de François I. and that called after and decorated by Henri II. were built by François, and so were the Chapelle de la Sainte Trinité, the Chapelle St. Saturnin, and the magnificent Salon de François I. Henri II., Henri IV., and various other sovereigns carried on the building of the immense pile, Fontainebleau being popular for various reasons, particularly on account of the hunting in the great forest.

Perhaps it is the figure of Napoleon in the midst of the accumulated royal splendours of Fontainebleau that appeals most to the imagination. The young Corsican soldier, transformed into an Emperor, and dwelling with his Empress wife in palaces such as this, causes one to gaze with more than ordinary interest at the sumptuous apartments, with their gilded furnishings, their heavy silken coverings, their thrones, bedsteads, mirrors, and a thousand features, all of which were backgrounds to the short, dark-haired, and clean-shaven man who had put the States of Europe, with one notable exception, into the melting-pot of his ambition. One is shown the little round table upon which ‘the Usurper’ signed his abdication, and the famous horseshoe-shaped staircase where he said good-bye to the weeping soldiers of the Old Guard.

THE ROAD TO MELUN

goes northwards through the forest, and about 8 kilometres from Fontainebleau passes the stone Table du Roi, dated 1723. On emerging from the forest Melun is close at hand.