This vast wood affords no view, except along
the seemingly interminable path in which the spectator stands, the vista
of which, carried on with mathematical regularity, terminates in a point.
This is the case with all the great forests of France except that of
Fontainebleau, where nature is sometimes seen in her most picturesque
form. In the more remote and unfrequented parts of Saint Germain, the wild
boar still makes his savage lair; and still the loiterer, in these
lengthened alleys, is startled by a roebuck or a deer springing across the
path....
Independently of the noble satellites attached to the court, the infinite
number of official persons made its removal to Saint Germain, or the other
royal seats, seem like the emigration of a whole people. Forty-nine
physicians, thirty-eight surgeons, six apothecaries, thirteen preachers,
one hundred and forty maitres d'hotel, ninety ladies of honor to the
queen, in the sixteenth century! There were also an usher of the kitchen,
a courier de vin (who took the charge of carrying provisions for the king
when he went to the chase), a sutler of court, a conductor of the sumpter-
horse, a lackey of the chariot, a captain of the mules, an overseer of
roasts, a chair-bearer, a palmer (to provide ananches for Easter), a valet
of the firewood, a paillassier of the Scotch guard, a yeoman of the mouth,
and a hundred more for whose offices we have no names in English.
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