Henri IV was the creator of the park of the palace, which extended as far as the village of Avon and absorbed all the Seigneurie de Montceau, of which Mi-Voie (the dairy of Catherine de Medici) occupied a part. The acquisition of the Seigneurie was made in 1609. Across it was cut a "grand canal" in imitation of that already possessed by the Chateau de Fleury. It was a great rarity as a garden accessory, and was more than a quarter of a league long and forty metres wide. Bassompierre said in his memoirs that Henri IV made him a wager that it could be filled with water in two days. It actually took eight. To the north of the park, Henri IV built, under the name of La Menagerie, what he called a _maison de plaisance_, but which was really the forerunner of the animal house at Versailles. To all these works of Henri IV in the gardens at Fontainebleau is attached the name of Francine. There were two brothers of the name, Thomas and Alexandre, and it was the latter who chiefly occupied himself with the Parterre, the Chaussee and the Grand Canal at Fontainebleau. In the Jardin de la Reine he erected the celebrated Fontaine de Diane which finally gave its name to the garden itself. The fountain was designed by Barthelemy Prieur, and was cast in 1603. The original bronzes are now in the Louvre, those seen at Fontainebleau to-day being later works (1684). The Forest of Fontainebleau is a dozen leagues in circumference, and of an area of nearly thirty-five thousand acres. Its beauty, its natural beauty, is unrivalled. Rocks, ravines, valleys, patriarchal oaks and beeches, plains, woods, glades, meadows, lawns and cliffs, all are here. Its population of stag and deer was practically exterminated during the Revolution of 1830, but nevertheless it sustained its reputation as a great hunting-ground for long afterwards. The Royal Hunt invariably centered at La Croix du Grand Veneur, a notable landmark of the forest even now, at the intersection of four magnificent forest roads. Its name comes from a legend of a spectral black huntsman who was supposed to haunt the forest, and who appeared for the last time, in reality or imagination, to Henri IV shortly before his assassination. In 1854, one of the last and most gorgeous of Fontainebleau hunts was given by Louis Napoleon. The emperor spent lavishly for the equipment of the hunt, and granted liberal stipends to the attendants that they might caparison themselves with some semblance of picturesque dignity; horses and dogs were furnished and cared for on the same liberal scale. The costuming of a hunting party under such conditions was not the least appealing of its picturesque elements. Three-cornered hats, gold lace, knee breeches, silk stockings and other costly properties, when provided for a single special occasion, as they were in this case, were apt to suggest the life of centuries long gone by rather than that of modern times.