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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
after ten o'clock. Thus precisely on the stroke of ten, alike cafe, garden, private summer-house or
doorstep are deserted, everyone betakes himself indoors, leaving his neighbours to enjoy unbroken
repose. A most salutary by-law! Would it were put in force throughout the length and breadth of France!
At Chatouroux I have been kept awake all night by the gossip of a sergeant de ville and a lounger
close to my window. At Tours, La Chatre and Bourges my fellow-traveller and myself could get no sleep
on account of street revellers, whilst at how many other places have not holiday trips been spoiled by
unquiet nights? All honour then to the aediles of dear little Bourron!
CHAPTER IV. BOURRON - continued.
Forty thousand acres of woodland at one's doors would seem a fact sufficiently suggestive; to
particularize the attractions of Bourron after this statement were surely supererogation. Yet, for my own
pleasure as much as for the use of my readers, I must jot down one or two especially persistent
memories, impressions of solemnity, beauty and repose never to be effaced.
Of course it is only the cyclist who can realise such an immensity as the Fontainebleau forest. From end
to end these vast sweeps are now intersected by splendid roads and by-roads. Old-fashioned folks, for
whom the horseless vehicle came too late, can but envy wheelmen and wheelwomen as they skim
through vista after vista, outstripping one's horse and carriage as a greyhound outstrips a decrepit poodle.
On the other hand only inveterate loiterers, the Lazy Lawrences of travel, can appreciate the subtler
beauties of this woodland world. There are certain sights and sounds not to be caught by hurried
observers, evanescent aspects of cloud-land and tree-land, rock and undergrowth, passing notes of bird
and insect, varied melodies, if we may so express it, of summer breeze and autumn wind - in fine, a
dozen experiences enjoyed one day, not repeated on the next. The music of the forest is a quiet music and
has to be listened for, hardly on the cyclist's ear falls the song or rather accompaniment of the
grasshopper, "the Muse of the wayside," a French poet has so exquisitely apostrophized.
One's forest companion should be of a taciturn and contemplative turn. Only thus can we drink in the
sense of such solitude and immensity; realizing to the full what indeed these words may mean, he may
wander for hours without encountering a soul, very few birds are heard by the way, but the hum of the
insect world, that dreamy go-between, hardly silence, hardly to be called noise, keeps us perpetual
company, and our eyes must ever be open for beautiful little living things. Now a green and gold lizard
flashes across a bit of grey rock, now a dragon-fly disports its sapphire wings amid the yellowing ferns or
purple ling, butterflies, white, blue, and black and orange, flit hither and thither, whilst little beetles, blue
as enamel beads, enliven the mossy undergrowth.
One pre-eminent charm indeed of the Fontainebleau forest is this wealth of undergrowth, bushes,
brambles and ferns making a second lesser thicket on all sides. In sociable moods delightful it is to go
a-blackberrying here. I am almost tempted to say that if you want to realise the lusciousness of a
hedgerow dessert you must cater for yourself in these forty thousand acres of blackberry orchard.
But the foremost, the crowning excellence of Fontainebleau forest consists in its variety. France itself,
the "splendid hexagon," with its mountains, rivers and plains, is hardly more varied than this vast area of
rock and woodland. We can choose between sites, savage or idyllic, pastoral or grandiose, here finding a
sunny glade, the very spot for a picnic, there break-neck declivities and gloomy chasms. The magnificent
ruggedness of Alpine scenery is before our eyes, without the awfulness of snow-clad peaks or the
blinding dazzle of glacier. In more than one place we could almost fancy that some mountain has been
upheaved and split asunder, the clefts formed by these gigantic fragments being now filled with veteran
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