Forest of Fontainebleau

Various traces of their presence have been discovered:[2] carved stone tools, bones of such animals as bears, elephants, rhinos, giant stags.

[4]:89 Around the year 1000, the human occupation of the forest consisted of a series of enclaves controlled by petty lords and wealthy landowners.

In 1067, Philippe I acquired the county of Gâtinais, which gave the crown control over the entire territory of the current forest.

For the kings of France, the forest had several uses, including hunting and forestry, but also a military interest, as Fontainebleau was a strategic location on the road to Sens and Burgundy.

After the Revolution, following numerous illegal cuts and the proliferation of game due to lack of hunting, Napoleon I reformed the forestry administration and that of the castle in 1807.

The Forest of Fontainebleau is famous worldwide for having inspired 19th-century artists, including painters of the Barbizon School and the Impressionists.

The Barbizon painters, led by Théodore Rousseau, militated against the planting of softwoods which had been carried out at a pace of several hundred hectares per year since 1830.

In 1853, "nature sanctuaries" covering over 624 hectares of old forests and rocky areas (Bas Bréau, Cuvier Châtillon, Franchard, Apremont, La Solle, Mont Chauvet) were withdrawn from wood harvesting.

The director general of forests, Henri Faré, explained that the setting aside of 1,600 hectares was tantamount to losing an income of 300,000 gold francs.

Thirty five million years ago, during the Oligocene age, the area now occupied the Fontainebleau forest was a sea that deposited sediments of fine, white sand about fifty meters thick.

[7] The sand later formed the large banks of sandstone boulders – consisting of grains of quartz cemented by a silica gel – that characterise the current landscape of the forest.

The rocks occupy an area of nearly 4,000 hectares and form long banks of almost parallel boulders oriented East South-East, West North-West, and separated by open valleys at both ends.