s horseshoe stair, certainly much better expressed in
French as the _Escalier en Fer a Cheval_, from which the emperor took
his farewell of his "Vieux Grognards" lined up before him, biting
savagely at their moustaches to keep down their emotions.

This Cour du Cheval Blanc acquired its name from a plaster cast of
Marcus Aurelius's celebrated steed which was originally placed here
under a canopy or baldaquin held aloft by colonnettes. The moulds for
this work were brought from Venice by Primaticcio and Vignole, but it
was never cast in bronze and the statue itself disappeared in 1626. The
courtyard, however, still kept the name until the last of Napoleonic
days.

As a Napoleonic memory this Cour des Adieux shares popularity with the
famous Cabinet of the Empire suite of apartments where Napoleon signed
his abdication. Certainly most visitors will carry away the memory of
these words as among the most vivid souvenirs of Fontainebleau.

"_Le 5 Avril, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte signa son abdication sur
cette table dans le cabinet de travail du Roi, le deuxieme apres la
chambre a coucher a Fontainebleau._"

The abdication itself (the document) is now exposed in the Galerie de
Diane, transformed lately into the Library.

On the right is the Aile Neuf, built by Louis XV, for the housing of his
officers, on the site of the Galerie de Ulysse, originally one of the
most notable features of the palace of Francois I. Opposite is the sober
alignment of the Aile des Ministres, and still farther to the rear are
the Pavillon des Aumoniers, or de l'Horloge; the Chapelle de la Trinite;
the Pavillon des Armes; the Pavillon des Peintres; the Pavillon des
Poels; the Galerie des Fresques; and, finally, the Pavillon des
Reines-Meres. All of these details are of the period of Francois I save
the last, which was an interpolation of Louis XIV.

The Fer a Cheval stairway, however, most curious because of the
difficulties of its construction, dates from the time of Louis XIII, and
replaces the stairs built by Philibert Delorme. The tennis court, just
before the Pavillon de l'Horloge, dates only from Louis XV.

The imposing entrance court is a hundred and twelve metres in width by a
hundred and fifty-two metres in length, and to see it as it was
originally, before the destruction of the Galerie d'Ulysse, one must
imagine it as closed in by a series of small pavilions with their
frontons of colonnettes preceded only by a stairca