"IF," says a modern French writer, "there ever was a palace that appealed to the imagination, it is Fontainebleau. Here we invoke recollections of all ages, the mysterious visits of ancient kings, the most pompous scenes in French history, the great artists employed here-all in their day busy as bees in a hive. Brilliant galleries, priceless pictures, fine statues, a perfect mosaic of architecture, showing the varieties of ages, tastes, and talents that have been displayed in the construction of this palace, a vast forest near with its verdant shade, spreading oaks, and wonderful traditions-all, in a word, tells of grandeur, poetry, and art; every thing inspires the beholder with a desire of knowing from its very origin to the present day one of the finest monuments in France."

Fontainebleau does not afford those symmetrical proportions favorable to description. This royal residence, enlarged at different periods by succeeding monarchs, justifies the bon mot of a witty Englishman, who called it "a rendezvous of châteaux."

The different elements of which it is composed form an exception to all ar

VOL. XXXVII.-NO. II.

chitectural rules in any other known structure. They serve as an index to the state of the arts in France during three centuries-a history in themselves. Sebastian Sertio, Jamin, le Primatice, Du Cerceau, Mansard, all successively assisted in its erection.

Historians are not well agreed as to the derivation of the name of Fontainebleau. A great number considered it to be a corruption of Fontaine-belle-eau, on ac count of the fresh and abundant springs that are found here; but this etymology, though poetical, is not true. It appears that Bleau was the name of a person, the proprietor of the ground, who was the first to construct a habitation near the spring.

However, it is very difficult to fix the precise period of the foundation of this celebrated royal residence. It has been successively attributed, without sufficient reason, to various princes, such as Robert, Louis VII., and Louis IX. It is certain, that towards the middle of the twelfth century a forest and a royal residence existed at Fontainebleau. A donation of the time of Louis VII. to some neighbor ing monks bears this inscription: "Actum

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