The traveled reader will hardly need to be told that good judges consider the forest and castle to compose the finest domain in France.  But there are also numberless historic reminiscences intertwined with Fontainebleau.  And, by the way, it was originally known as the Foret de Bierre, until some thirsty huntsmen, who found its spring deliciously refreshing, rebaptized it as Fontaine Belle Eau.  Such, at least, is the old story.  The first founding of a royal residence there dates at least as far back as the twelfth century, and possibly much farther, while the present chateau was begun by Francis I. in the sixteenth.  So many famous historic events, indeed, have taken place within the precincts of the forest that the committee of “Protection Artistique” is pardonable in claiming that “Fontainebleau Forest ought to be ranked with those national historic monuments which must at all hazards be preserved for the admiration of artists and tourists,” as well as of patriotic Frenchmen.  What illustrations shall we select from among the events connected with it, about which a thousand volumes of history, poetry, art, science and romance have been composed?  At Fontainebleau, Charles V. was royally feasted by Francis; there the Edict of Nantes was revoked; there Conde died; there the decree of divorce between Napoleon and Josephine was pronounced; and there the emperor afterward signed his own abdication.  It is true that nobody proposes to demolish the castle, and that is the historic centre; but the petitioners claim that it is difficult and dangerous to attempt to divide the domain into historic and non-historic, artistic and non-artistic parts, with a view to its mutilation.  There is ground for hoping that a favorable response will be given to the eloquent appeal of the artists and amateurs.

The vanity of Victor Hugo, though always “Olympian,” perhaps never mounted to a sublimer height than in the reply he sent to M. Catulle Mendes on receiving from him the news of Gautier’s death.  It contained but half a dozen lines, yet found space to declare, “Of the men of 1830, I alone am left.  It is now my turn.”  The profound egotism of “il ne reste plus que moi” could not escape being vigorously lashed by V. Hugo’s old comrades of the quill, dating back with him to 1830, and now so loftily ignored.  “See, even in his epistles of condolence,” they cry, “the omnipresent moi of Hugo must appear, to overshadow everything else!” One indignant writer declares the poet to be a mere walking personal pronoun.  Another humorously pities those still extant contemporaries of 1830 who, after having for forty years dedicated their songs and romances and dramas to Hugo, now learn from the selfsame maw which has greedily gulped their praises that they themselves do not exist, never did exist.  One man of genius slyly writes:  “Some of us veterans will find ourselves embarrassed—­Michelet, G. Sand, Janin, Sandeau et un pen moi.  Is it possible that we died a long time ago, one after the other, without knowing it?  Was it a delusion on our part to fancy ourselves existing, or was our existence only a bad dream?” But to Victor Hugo even these complaints will perhaps seem to smoke like fresh incense on the altar of self-adulation which this great genius keeps ever lighted.