The Forêt de Chantilly covers two thousand four hundred and forty-nine hectares and extends from the Bois de Hérivaux on one side to the Forêt de Senlis on the other. The _rendezvous-de-chasse_ was, in the old days, and is to-day on rare occasions, at the Rond Point, to which a dozen magnificent forest roads lead from all directions, that from the town being paved with Belgian blocks, the dread of automobilists, but delightful to ride over in muddy weather. The Route de Connetable, so called, is well-nigh ideal of its kind. It launches forth opposite the chateau and at its entrance are two flanking stone lions. It is of a soft soil suitable for horseback riding, but entirely unsuited for wheeled traffic of any kind.
Another of the great forest roads leads to the Chateau de la Reine Blanche, a diminutive edifice in the pointed style, with a pair of svelte towers coiffed candle-snuffer fashion. Tradition, and very ancient and somewhat dubious tradition, attributes the edifice as having belonged to Blanche de Navarre, the wife of Philippe de Valois. Again it is thought to have been a sort of royal attachment to the Abbaye de Royaumont, built near by, by Saint Louis. This quaintly charming manor of minute dimensions was a tangible, habitable abode in 1333, but for generations after appears to have fallen into desuetude. A mill grew up on the site, and again the walls of a chateau obliterated the more mundane, work-a-day mill. The Duc de Bourbon restored the whole place in 1826 that it might serve him and his noble friends as a hunting-lodge.
One of the most talked of and the least visited of the minor French palaces is that of Compiègne. The archeologists coming to Compiègne first notice that all its churches are "_malorientées_." It is a minor point with most folk, but when one notes that its five churches have their high altars turned to all points of the compass, instead of to the east, it is assuredly a fact to be noticed, even if one is more romantically inclined than devout.
Through and through, Compiègne, its palace, its hotel-de-ville, its forest, is delightful. Old and new huddle close together, and the _art nouveau_ decorations of a branch of a great Parisian department store flank a butcher's stall which looks as though it might have come down from the times when all trading was done in the open air.