public woods; of Vincennes, less prepared and perfumed and rigorously trimmed, with its wilder bits of scenery along the Marne, its hillsides and quaint solitudes; of Fontainebleau, that airy heaven of the artist, on the edge of one of the cemeteries of the ancien régime, the grand old palace of kings which now belongs to the nation, the little town asleep on its forest marge, where of old the Court played at life in high dramatic fashion, and "minuetted" itself with grace into the grave.
The surrounding scenery of Paris is unimaginably enchanting. Luckily for themselves, and unluckily for the fastidious dreamers, the people have spoiled all this beauty with their ginger-*bread fairs, their rowdy diversions, their feasts and improprieties. Bougival is given over to ladies of indecorous habits and their fugitive mates, Asnières is now a place where fast men take women at war with respectability and virtue to dwell at ease, so that these pretty resorts are closed to the puritan holiday maker. If you have not lived in the neighbourhood of a French fair for the traditional three weeks of its duration, you cannot understand to what extent a nation or a city may be martyrised for the pleasure of its people. The clamour of diverse sounds begins at ten A.M. and ends only at one A.M., fifteen hours later. There are the roars of the wild beasts, the tambour beating outside each
