Professor Lainey had been in Fontainebleau during the Franco-Prussian War and remembered the invasion of Barbizon. The _franc-tireurs_ (citizen troops), of which he was a member, were a constant bother to the Germans. One of their pranks was to stretch a wire across the road, just the height of a rider, and they finally succeeded in decapitating an orderly. The Germans decided that some one must hang for it, and, being unable to find the guilty one, they chose a dozen men and told them to draw lots. Not liking to kill one of the prominent citizens with whom they had been playing cards all winter in quite a friendly manner, they put on the list a man whom we call a “natural,” then winked and walked away. But they reckoned without the French nature. These men refused to sacrifice the poor half-wit, and said: “Hang all or any one of us. We will not choose.” France is still covered with the evidences of monarchs, and one of the best reasons why kings no longer rule and the Third Empire went to pieces still remains in Fontainebleau Forest. In walking about, one has to use the utmost care, as one is constantly catching his foot and taking a “header.” All around, underneath the brush and now entirely covered by it, are paths of asphalt, miles and miles of them, literally riddling the whole woods. These were laid by her generous spouse so that the Empress Eugènie could follow the boar hunt in her Parisian shoes and not wet her feet on the grass! _III. Montreuil_ The history of France could be told by the wall which surrounds the village of Montreuil. Originally encircled by a Roman structure (the bricks of which still show a few feet above the ground), every succeeding dynasty has added its touch, each a different material, until the wall has become as expressive of the past as a patchwork quilt. There are several layers of soft stone, one of granite put on by Vauban; the top must have been added many years ago, for there are large trees growing upon it. The town was besieged thirteen times by the English, but was never taken.