The above verse is certainly banal enough, but the cardinal himself was a _drole_, so perhaps it is appropriate. At any rate it is contemporary with the churchman's sojourn at Conflans. CHAPTER XI FONTAINEBLEAU AND ITS FOREST [Illustration: ORIGINAL PLAN OF FONTAINEBLEAU] Of all the French royal palaces Fontainebleau is certainly the most interesting, despite the popularity and accessibility of Versailles. It is moreover the cradle of the French Renaissance. Napoleon called it the Maison des Siecles, and the simile was just. After Versailles, Fontainebleau has ever held the first place among the suburban royal palaces. The celebrated "Route de Fontainebleau" of history was as much a _Chemin du Roi_ as that which led from the capital to Versailles. Versailles was gorgeous, even splendid, if you will; but it had not the unique characteristics, nor winsomeness of Fontainebleau, nor ever will have, in the minds of those who know and love the France of monarchial days. [Illustration: From Paris to Fontainebleau] Not the least of the charm of Fontainebleau is the neighbouring forest so close at hand, a few garden railings, not more, separating the palace from one of the wildest forest tracts of modern France. The Forest of Fontainebleau is full of memories of royal rendezvous, the carnage of wild beasts, the "_vraie image de la guerre_," of which the Renaissance kings were so inordinately fond. It was from the Palace of Fontainebleau, too, that bloomed forth the best and most wholesome of the French Renaissance architecture. It was the model of all other later residences of its kind. It took the best that Italy had to offer and developed something so very French that even the Italian workmen, under the orders of Francois I, all but lost their nationality. Vasari said of it that it "rivalled the best work to be found in the Rome of its time." A charter of Louis-le-Jeune (Louis VII), dated at Fontainebleau in 1169, attests that the spot was already occupied by a _maison royale_ which, according to the Latin name given in the document was called Fontene Bleaudi, an etymology not difficult to trace when what we know of its earlier and later history is considered. Actually this _fontaine belle eau_ is found to-day in the centre of the Jardin Anglais, its basin and outlet being surrounded by the conventional stone rim or border. After its discovery, according to legend, this fountain became the rendezvous of the gallants and the poets and painters and the "sweet ladies" so often referred to in the chronicles of the Renaissance. Rosso, the painter, perpetuated one of the most celebrated of these reunions in his decorations in the Galerie Francois I in the palace, and Cellini represented the fair huntress Diana, amid the same surroundings. Under Louis-le-Jeune in 1169 was erected, in the Cour du Donjon, the chapel Saint-Saturnin, which was consecrated by Saint Thomas a Becket, then a refugee in France.