All that Sénancour says of Fontainebleau is true so far as relates to the vague dreamer who brings with him no prevailing thought. Yes; the landscape "is generally on a small scale, dull, low, and solitary without being wild." Animals are seldom met with, except in a few kids whose number is easily counted. Birds are not numerous. Few or no springs are visible; and the apparent absence of water has a specially depressing effect on the Alpine traveller, who still recalls the freshness of the innumerable fountains of the Alps, and still has before his eyes the radiance of those delightful and sublime mirrors--their lakes. There, all is clear and luminous in the waters and the snows. Here, all is obscure. This small angle, sequestered as it were from the rest of France, is an enigma. It shows you the dead sandstones without a trace of life; it shows you, particularly to-day, the newly-planted pines, which suffer nothing living under their shade. To discover what lies concealed beneath this outer mask, you must have recourse to the divining-rod, the hazel-wand. Revolve it, and you shall find. But what is this divining-rod? A study or a love; any passion which lights up the inner world. [Illustration] The power of this locality does not lie in its historical, any more than in its artistic associations.[C] [Footnote C: It contains, however, three notable things: one magnificent, the Hall of Henry II.; one marvellous, the Little Gallery of Francis I.; and one sublime, the four colossi, the incomparable relics of a lost art, that of sculpture in sandstone.] The chateau distracts one's attention from the forest by its abundant variety of memories and epochs; but it fails to increase the impression. Nature is the true fairy in this strange, sombre, fantastic, and sterile region. [Illustration: THE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU.] Observe that wherever the forest assumes an aspect of grandeur, either through the extent of its vista or the loftiness of its trees, it resembles all other forests. The truly magnificent towering beeches of Bas-Bréau seem to me, in spite of their stately bearing and smooth shining bark, a thing I have seen elsewhere. The place is original only where it is low, gloomy rock; where it bears evidence of the struggle of the sandstone, the twisted tree, the perseverance of the elm, or the courageous effort of the oak. [Illustration] Many persons have remained here fascinated and enthralled. Coming only for a month, they have lingered until death. To the enchanting scene they have addressed the lover's speech to his beloved:--"Let me live, let me die with thee!"--_Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens._