Royal Palaces and Parks of France

monarchs and their followers. Not only did Frenchmen of Gothic and Renaissance times have a taste for travelling far afield, pursuing the arts of peace or war as their conscience or conditions dictated; but they loved, too, the open country and the open road at home; they loved also la chasse, as they did tournaments, fêtes-champêtres and outdoor spectacles of all kinds. Add these stage settings to the splendid costuming and the flamboyant architectural accessories of Renaissance times in France and we have what is assuredly not to be found in other lands, a spectacular and imposing pageant of mediæval and Renaissance life and manners which is superlative from all points of view.

This is perhaps hard, sometimes, to reconcile with the French attitude towards outdoor life to-day, when la chasse means the hunting of tame foxes (a sport which has been imported from across the channel), "sport" means a prize fight, and a garden party or a fête