It is a curious fact that every individual finds here what he most delights in: Saint Louis, the Thébaïd of which he dreamed; while Henry IV., who cared for nothing but pleasure, exclaimed, "My delicious deserts!" The poor mystical exile, Kosciusko,[D] felt the attraction of his Lithuanian forests, and here took root. A man of stone, of flint,--the Breton Maud'huys,--saw here the image of his native Brittany, and built up, stone upon stone, the most original book written upon Fontainebleau. [Footnote D: The Polish hero who unavailingly struggled to secure his country's freedom, but was crushed by the power of Russia:-- "And Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell!"] It is a region of power, which you cannot enter with impunity. Some persons lose in it their wits, undergo a strange metamorphosis, and like Bottom, in Windsor Forest, see themselves adorned with ass's ears. For the forest is a _person_: has its lovers and its detractors--some curse it, others bless it. A foolish dreamer wrote of it, on a rock near Nemours, "I _will_ possess thee, cruel stepmother!" And her lover, the old soldier Denecourt, who bestowed on her all that he had in the world, called her "My adored!"[E] [Footnote E: It is impossible to be grateful enough for all that M. Denecourt has done; he has rendered the place accessible by everybody, even the poorest, who are no longer in need of guides.--Author.] [Illustration] Some one has said to me: "Is she not the _Viola_ of Shakespeare, with her dubious but always charming aspect; now a maiden, and now a cavalier? Or his young page, Rosalind, after she appears as a laughing damsel?" No: the contrasts are much greater.