Forest of Fontainebleau

• Petit Meadow rue (Thalictrum washout) - regional protection
• Campanule with sheets to fish (Campanula persicifolia)
• Garance voyageuse (Rubia peregrina)
• Rosier burnet (Rosa pimpinellifolia)
• blood Géranium (Geranium sanguineum)
• Dompte-venin (Vincetoxicum hirundinaria)
• reddish Trèfle (Trifolium rubens) - regional protection.

Most of the woodland pines was planted by the National office of the forests.

Fauna

Mammals

Among large the Mammalian S, one finds Sanglier S and stag S.

Birds

• Peak épeiche (Dendrocopos major),

• Peak épeichette (Dendrocopos minor),
• coal Titmouse (Appeared major),
• Blue tit (Appeared caeruleus),
• Chiff-chaff (Phylloscopus collybita),
• Willow warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus),
• Warbler of Bonelli (Phylloscopus Bonelli),
• Warbler with black head (Sylvia atricapilla).

Protection measures

Various statutes coexist and are superimposed, each one having characteristics which are clean for him.

These statutes do not cover the whole of the forest but only various more or less interesting pieces at the environmental and economic level.

• Forest of protection:

Advantages : defense against the construction of new infrastructures and the mitage of the medium.

Limiting : only the initial surface is maintained, no recommendation aiming at ensuring the maintenance of its Biodiversité.

• Natura 2000 (Special Protection zone and Special Zone of Conservation):

Advantages : lawful protection of the habitats.

Limiting : the forest is not integrated in its entirety into Natura 2000 but is fragmented between not protected protected areas and zones. It thus “put under bell” " there; nature, each population being weakened because separated from the others.

• Reserve of biosphere:

Advantages : increase the possibilities of partnership between the various managers within the framework of a sustainable development.

Limiting : no national legal authenticity, function of council to the actors of the medium.

• ZNIEFF (Natural Zone of Faunistic and Floristic Ecological Interest):

Advantages : knowledge by the territorial collectivities of their natural heritage.

Limiting : no the lawful statute

• Site classified:

Advantages : maintains in the state of the inheritance

Limites : Little respected

• biological Reserve:

Limiting : Can be displaced with each modification of installation

• voluntary Natural reserve, significant Natural space or Order of the prefect of protection of biotope.

Associations claim the classification in National park, which would revitalize the local economy, would improve protection of the forest and of its remarkable aspects, would allot finacements and would distribute the tourist pressure currently too specific.

However, the strong parcelling out by the highway network, with the harmful effects which accompany it, as well as other factors, slow down its realization.

Economy

• the sandstone is exploited since 1330. As of XVIe century, it is exploited for the paving of the streets of Paris. In 1831, one still embarks: 3000000 of paving stones.

At the end of the XIXe century, under the pressure of the artists, one restricts the activity of career which counted 2.000 men then. In 1907, last firm exploitation. With the Three-Pinions, one closes in 1983.

• very fine and pure sand is exploited for the glassmakings as of 1640. One always exploits it in edge (Bourron-Marlotte).

Walks

Roads of walks exist in the forest, probably since XVIe century. They are used then primarily for the hunt. The current round road is thus traced under the crook of Henri IV. In 1725, Louis XV orders the layout of sixty roads in the forest, in order to facilitate its displacements, always for hunting.

• In 1837, a guide of Jamin appears: Four walks in forest of Fontainebleau . At that time, the only known path is that of the Acute Mount.

• In 1839, Claude François Denecourt (1788 - 1875), soldier of the Large army, publishes its first guide while taking as a starting point the precedent.
• In 1842, it traces its first path, that of the Chauvet Mount.
• As of 1847, it describes its own paths in its indicating . It creates 150 km of paths marked out with blue features, sometimes surmounted of a number. 17 editions will leave press before its death.
• Claude Charles Colinet (1839 - 1905), former civil servant of the Highways Departments, will continue the work of Denecourt. Eleven circuits will be traced between 1842 and 1905.
• the wife of Colinet, then the Touring Club of France ensures the follow-up between the two wars, then the Friends of Fontainebleau who will publish a guide in 1963.

• Since 1975, ONF traced the TMF (Turn of the Solid mass of Fontainebleau), 65 km marked out in features green and white.

Today, 365 km of walks are marked out.

The climbing

The forest of Fontainebleau is an internationally known place for the climbing of block. This discipline is practiced on blocks of rocks a low height and does not require a cord (but other means) for the insurance. It is practiced on the blocks of sandstones characteristic of this forest.

One of the characteristics of the climbing to '' Bleau '' (nickname given by the climbing ones to the forest of Fontainebleau) is the existence of course. These courses of various levels are marked out using arrows of various colors. A complete course was supposed in the beginning to correspond to the difficulty of a race of Alpinisme in mountain. The first course was created in 1947 by certain Fred Bernick. Each color represents a level of difficulty: yellow (easy or not very difficult), orange (enough difficult), blue (difficult), red (very difficult), black (extremely difficult).

The sectors of climbing are distributed in all the forest. Among most known: the Low-Vat, Throats of Apremont (Barbizon), Franchard Isatis (in the throats of Franchard between Fontainebleau and Milly-the-Forest), 95.2 (Milly-the-Forest), the Bottom of Dog (Noisy-on-School), Diplodocus (Vaudoué). Certain sectors are even apart from the forest of Fontainebleau itself: the rock of Lady Jouanne (Larchant), Buthiers (Malesherbes)…

See also: Climbing in Forest of Fontainebleau

Remarkable buildings and places

• the Denecourt tower: built by Claude François Denecourt in 1851, inaugurated the November 23rd 1853 by Napoleon III and the empress Eugenie, it was destroyed in 1878 by an earthquake. Rebuilt by Colinet, of many restored times, it allows beautiful points of view on the area.

• the pond in Évées: vast extended from ponds transformed by work between 1833 and 1842; 29 km of bleedings, drains and ditches were dug to cleanse the stagnant water marsh which covered 15 ha. Today, it is a beautiful place where the cypress bald person meets.
• the aqueduct of the Valve (1869) which brings water to the tanks of Montsouris to Paris.
• the aqueduct of Loing
• the monument Millet - Rousseau of the name of his/her two friends painters of the School of Barbizon: medallion inaugurated the April 21st 1884 with orée of the forest, beside the village of Barbizon
• priory of Franchard: its foundation goes back to XIIe century, which makes of it the oldest religious building of the forest.
• the monument Georges Mandel: at the edge of main road 7, in the south of Fontainebleau; he points out the assassination of the minister by the militia, the July 7th 1944.
• In the sector of the Aiveu Mount (South-eastern of the forest), one can see pines laricio grafted on woodland pines. The diameters of the trees are different from the Clerc's Office on both sides.

Additional solid masses

• the forest of the Three-Pinions in the west

• the forest of Barbel in the North-East
• the Forest of the Champagne-on-Seine in the east
• the forest of Larchant it Commanderie in the south

The forest and arts

By its proximity with Paris and the diversity of its landscapes, the forest of Fontainebleau, inspired by many artists and renewed the design of the Paysage in painting, with in particular the painters of the school of Barbizon.

Painters

The first known artists were Adams Frans Van der Meulen (1632 - 1690), and especially, Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686 - 1755), primarily painters of the scenes of royal hunting in the decoration of the forest. Camille Corot (1796 - 1875) is one of the first to take as main theme the forest itself.

Starting from the medium of, several artists come to paint the forest, benefitting from the facilities that the inn Ganne offers to them. Most known carry the names of Theodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet, formant what one will call well later (in 1880 in England and 1905 in France) the school of Barbizon.

The impressionist were also inspired there like Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. Of the same Felix Ziem, Paul Cézanne and Georges Seurat made several tables in the forest.

Certain sites were particularly painted, like the place known as the Paving stone of Chailly , in skirt of forest.

Photographers

Charles Marville (1816-1879) is the first photographer to be ventured in forest, on August 28th 1848. Gustave the Gray, most famous of the photographers of this time, follows it quickly, in 1849, fleeing an cholera epidemic in Paris. The forest of Fontainebleau is thus probably one of the first natural spaces photographed in the world. After Gray will come Georges Balagny, Charles Famin, William Harrison or Eugene Cuvelier. But these photographers will never reach the notoriety of the painters of the same time.

Writers and poets

Traditionally, it is Etienne Pivert of Senancour which locates its novel Obermann , published in 1804, for the first time in forest. But the romantic ones are the first writers to find in the forest a source of inspiration.

• Since 1833, Alfred de Musset and George Sand make their first voyage in the forest. They go back there then on several occasions. George Sand evokes these voyages couples daN her novel It and him (1859) and publishes of them an article in the Revue of the two worlds on the forest. Musset evokes it in its Confession of a child of the century in 1836.
• Chateaubriand visit the forest at the time of a short stay in 1834.
• Victor Hugo remains several times in the surroundings between 1836 and 1839.
• Stendhal evokes its visit of Fontainebleau and its passage in forest in 1837 in its Mémoires of a tourist .
• Jules Michelet made there regular stays between 1833 and 1859
• the brothers Edmond and Jules de Goncourt remain with many resumptions with Barbizon, Bourron-Marlotte and Grez-on-Loing between 1850 and 1865. They evoke the forest in their Journal , but also in their novel Manette Solomon .
• Hippolyte Taine evokes his stays with Chailly-in-Beer and Barbizon in its novel Vie and opinions of Thomas Graindorge in 1863.
• In 1868, Gustave Flaubert comes to document in forest for its novel '' sentimental Education '', appeared the following year.
• Robert Louis Stevenson remains in Barbizon in 1875 and meets the following year with Grez its mistress Lady Fanny Osbourne.
• In 1876, Ernest Renan remains six weeks with Fontainebleau and writes there the Prayer on the Acropolis .
• Anatole France resides at Brolles, in the commune of Wood-the-King in the years 1880.
• the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren there remains and devotes part of its Sensations to the forest, published for the first time in 1889.
• Guy of Maupassant locates part of its novel Our heart , appeared in 1890, with Montigny-on-Loing and in the forest.
• Stephan Mallarmé, resident with the Vulaines-on-Seine, gone for many walks in forest.
• Marcel Proust remains ten days in 1896 in a hotel of Fontainebleau and writes there chapters of its first novel Jean Santeuil , whose certain passages evoke the forest.
• André Breton located scenes of its novel Nadja in the forest.
• Bernard Werber makes forest of Fontainebleau the scene of its Trilogie of the Fourmis

References