Fontainebleau ( , , )
Fontainebleau, together with the neighbouring commune of Avon and three other smaller communes, form an urban area of 36,724 inhabitants (2018). This urban area is a satellite of Paris.
Fontainebleau is renowned for the large and scenic Forest of Fontainebleau, a favourite weekend getaway for Parisians, as well as for the historic Château de Fontainebleau, which once belonged to the kings of France. It is also the home of INSEAD, one of the world's most elite business schools.
Inhabitants of Fontainebleau are called Bellifontains.
History
Name
According to the official chateau history, "Fontainebleau" took its name in the 16th century from the "Fontaine Belle-Eau", a natural fresh water spring located in the English garden not far from the chateau. The name means "Spring of beautiful water". In the 19th century the spring was rebuilt to flow into an octagonal stone basin.
[History Plaque on the Fountain in January 2024][Hebert and Sarmant, "Fontainebleau- Milles ans d'histoire de France", (2020), p. 26]
Before the 16th century, Fontainebleau was recorded in the Latinised forms Fons Bleaudi, Fons Bliaudi, and Fons Blaadi in the 12th and 13th centuries, and as Fontem blahaud in 1137. In the 17th century it was also sometimes called by the fanciful Latin Fons Bellaqueus.[Marianne Mulon, Noms de lieux d’Île-de-France, Bonneton, Paris, 1997, ().] This the origin of the name Bellifontains sometimes used for residents.
A popular legend says that the spring and forest took their names from a favourite hunting dog of King Louis IX named "Blaud" or "Blau". According to the legend, during a hunt the dog became separated from the King, who finally found him by the spring.["Le Monde", 25 May 2003, "Fontainebleau en Legend", 29 May 2003]
According to another source, the name comes from the medieval compound noun of fontaine, meaning spring and fountain, and blitwald, consisting of the Germanic personal name Blit and the Germanic word for forest.[Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de lieu en France, Librairie Guénégaud, Paris, 1979.]
Origins
This hamlet was endowed with a royal hunting lodge and a chapel by Louis VII in the middle of the twelfth century. A century later, Louis IX, also called Saint Louis, who held Fontainebleau in high esteem and referred to it as "his wilderness", had a country house and a hospital constructed there.
Philip the Fair was born there in 1268 and died there in 1314. In all, thirty-four sovereigns, from Louis VI, the Fat, (1081–1137) to Napoleon III (1808–1873), spent time at Fontainebleau.
The connection between the town of Fontainebleau and the French monarchy was reinforced with the transformation of the royal country house into a true royal palace, the Palace of Fontainebleau. This was accomplished by the great builder-king, Francis I (1494–1547), who, in the largest of his many construction projects, reconstructed, expanded, and transformed the royal château at Fontainebleau into a residence that became his favourite, as well as the residence of his mistress, Anne, duchess of Étampes.
Early modern period
From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, every monarch, from Francis I to
Louis XV, made important renovations at the Palace of Fontainebleau, including demolitions, reconstructions, additions, and embellishments of various descriptions, all of which endowed it with a character that is a bit heterogeneous, but harmonious nonetheless.
On 18 October 1685, Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau there. Also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, this royal fiat reversed the permission granted to the Huguenots in 1598 to worship publicly in specified locations and hold certain other privileges. The result was that a large number of Protestants were forced to convert to the Catholic faith, killed, or forced into exile, mainly in the Low Countries, Prussia and in England.
The 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau, a secret agreement between France and Spain concerning the Louisiana territory in North America, was concluded here. Also, preliminary negotiations, held before the 1763 Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years' War, were at Fontainebleau.
During the French Revolution, Fontainebleau was temporarily renamed Fontaine-la-Montagne, meaning "Fountain by the Mountain". (The mountain referred to is the series of rocky formations located in the forest of Fontainebleau.)
Modern period
On 29 October 1807,
Manuel Godoy, chancellor to the Spanish king, Charles IV and
Napoleon signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which authorized the passage of French troops through Spanish territories so that they might invade Portugal.
On 20 June 1812, Pope Pius VII arrived at the château of Fontainebleau, after a secret transfer from Savona, accompanied by his personal physician, Balthazard Claraz. In poor health, the Pope was the prisoner of Napoleon, and he remained in his genteel prison at Fontainebleau for nineteen months. From June 1812 until 23 January 1814, the Pope never left his apartments.
On 20 April 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, shortly before his first abdication, bid farewell to the Old Guard, the renowned grognards (grumblers) who had served with him since his first campaigns, in the "White Horse Courtyard" (la cour du Cheval Blanc) at the Palace of Fontainebleau. (The courtyard has since been renamed the "Courtyard of Goodbyes".) According to contemporary sources, the occasion was very moving. The 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau stripped Napoleon of his powers (but not his title as Emperor of the French) and sent him into exile on Elba.
Until the 19th century, Fontainebleau was a village and a suburb of Avon. Later, it developed as an independent residential city.
For the 1924 Summer Olympics, the town played host to the riding portion of the modern pentathlon event. This event took place near a golf course.[ 1924 Olympics official report. pp. 501–3. ]
In July and August 1946, the town hosted the Franco-Vietnamese Conference, intended to find a solution to the long-contested struggle for Vietnam's independence from France, but the conference ended in failure.
Fontainebleau also hosted the general staff of the Allied Forces in Central Europe (Allied Forces Center or AFCENT) and the land forces command (LANDCENT); the air forces command (AIRCENT) was located nearby at Georges Guynemer. These facilities were in place from the inception of NATO until France's partial withdrawal from NATO in 1967 when the United States returned those bases to French control. NATO moved AFCENT to Brunssum in the Netherlands and AIRCENT to Ramstein AFB in West Germany. (The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, also known as SHAPE, was located at Rocquencourt, west of Paris, quite a distance from Fontainebleau).
In 2008, the men's World Championship of Real Tennis (Jeu de Paume) was held in the tennis court of the Chateau. The real tennis World Championship is the oldest in sport and Fontainebleau has one of only two active courts in France.
Population
Tourism
Fontainebleau is a popular tourist destination; each year, 300,000 people visit the palace
and more than 13 million people visit the forest.
Forest of Fontainebleau
The forest of Fontainebleau surrounds the town and dozens of nearby villages. It is protected by France's
Office National des Forêts, and it is recognised as a French national park. It is managed in order that its wild plants and trees, such as the rare service tree of Fontainebleau, and its populations of birds, mammals, and butterflies, can be conserved. It is a former royal hunting park often visited by
walking and
horse riding. The forest is also well regarded for
bouldering and is particularly popular among
climbing, as it is the biggest developed area of that kind in the world.
Royal Château de Fontainebleau
The Royal Château de Fontainebleau is a large palace where the kings of France took their ease. It is also the site where the French royal court, from 1528 onwards, entertained the body of new ideas that became known as the Renaissance.
INSEAD
The European (and historic) campus of the
INSEAD business school is located at the edge of Fontainebleau, by the Lycee Francois Couperin. INSEAD students live in local accommodations around the Fontainebleau area, and especially in the surrounding towns.
Other notables
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The graves of the philosopher and mystic George Gurdjieff and the New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield can be found in the cemetery at Avon.
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Synagogue of Fontainebleau
Transport
Fontainebleau is served by stations on the Transilien Line R: Fontainebleau–Avon, Fontainebleau-Forêt and Thomery. Trains run from Paris to Montereau and Montargis. Fontainebleau–Avon station, the closest to the centre of Fontainebleau, is located in Avon near its boundary with the commune of Fontainebleau.
From 1896 to 1953, Fontainebleau and its surrounding area were served by the Fontainebleau tramway.
Fontainebleau is served by several bus lines of the Île-de-France bus network: lines 1, 3, 4, 8, 20, 21, 23, 43, 45, 112, 202, 208, 210 of the Fontainebleau – Avon bus network and lines 7A, 7B, 34 of the Loing Valley – Nemours bus network.
Climate
Hospital
Fontainebleau has a campus of the Centre hospitalier Sud Seine et Marne.
Notable people
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Aga Khan IV, international business magnate
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Alfonso XIII, king of Spain, after his abdication
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Raoul Anglès (1887–1967), politician
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Arnold Bennett (1867–1931), writer, lived in Fontainebleau from 1908 to 1912
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Rosa Bonheur, a 19th-century artist
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Gabrièle Buffet-Picabia (1881–1985), art critic, first wife of painter Francis Picabia was born in Fontainebleau
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Christina, Queen of Sweden; her lover, Monaldeschi, was murdered in Fontainebleau
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Claude-François Denencourt, inventor of modern hiking and nature tourism
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Jean-Claude Gorgy, French playwright born in Fontainebleu
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Joseph Charles Hippolyte Crosse (1826–1898), conchologist, lived and died at Château d'Argeville, near Fontainebleau
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Ernst August, Prince of Hanover and Caroline, Princess of Hanover
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Lin Fengmian, Chinese painter who advocated the synthesis of Western techniques and Eastern traditions and later became known as the father of modern Chinese painting, brushed up on his French in Fontainebleau before moving on to study art at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris
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Francis I of France, built a large part of the palace
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Francis II of France, born in Fontainebleau
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Henry III of France, born in Fontainebleau
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Henry IV of France, built a part of the palace
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Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, an early twentieth-century artist
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Pierre Levassor (1808–1870), actor
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Pascal Lecocq, born in 1958, fine art painter, study at École Comairas (1973–1977) and exhibit for the 1st time in 1977 ;
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Louis XIII, king of France, born in Fontainebleau
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Louis XIV of France, built a part of the palace
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Louis XV, king of France, built a part of the palace
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Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, king and queen of France, built a part of the palace
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Mark Maggiori, lead vocalist of Pleymo
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Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923), New Zealander short story writer, died in Fontainebleau
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Oscar Milosz, poet, novelist, dramatist and Lithuanian diplomat died in Fontainebleau in 1939.
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Louis Victoire Lux de Montmorin-Saint-Hérem (1762–1792), French military man
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Napoleon
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Napoleon III
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Pope Pius VII, lived (as a prisoner of Napoleon) in the palace
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Philip IV of France, born and died in Fontainebleau
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Django Reinhardt, died near Fontainebleau, in Samois-sur-Seine
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Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer
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Romain Thievin, racing driver, born in Fontainebleau
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Lilian Thuram, football player, World Cup and European Championship winner
Twinning
Fontainebleau is
Town twinning with the following cities:
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Konstanz, Germany, since 28 May 1960
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Richmond-upon-Thames, England, United Kingdom, since 1977
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Siem Reap, Cambodia, since 11 June 2000
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Nanjing, China
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Lodi, Italy since 2011
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Sintra, Portugal since 2016
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Alba Iulia, Romania since 2023
==Image gallery==
See also
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Communauté d'agglomération du Pays de Fontainebleau
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Fontainebleau rock climbing
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Milly-la-Forêt
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Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762)
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Prehistoric rock engravings of the Fontainebleau forest
Bibliography
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Jean-Francois Hebert and Thierry Sarmant, "Fontainebleau- Milles anes d'histoire de France", Texto, (2020)
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Miscellanies, Volume III, Edinburgh, Longmans Green and Co, 1895 "Fontainebleau : Village Communities of Painters" pp. 201–226
External links
