ABSTRACT
The afternoon had well advanced when Mdlle. de Montpensier and her companion arrived at the beautiful forest of Fontainebleau. The sun, slanting through trees which seemed to blend together in such amorous embrace that in many cases they had actually become entwined, struck shafts of light across the path and gave to the beautiful avenues a soft and subdued tone inexpressibly tender. There is no other forest which has been so marked out by Nature as the resting-place of romance. It is as though, flying from the crude tracts of civilisation, she had taken refuge here. The house into which de Tournon precipitately entered when he escaped from the Paris mob was in one of the dingiest quarters of the city. The shop itself reeked of stale biscuits and of bad brandy. It seemed that no one was ever called upon to attend to customers.
