Nemours and Moret, for all they are so picturesque, have been little
visited by painters. They are, indeed, too populous; they have manners
of their own, and might resist the drastic process of colonisation.
Montigny has been somewhat strangely neglected, I never knew it inhabited
but once, when Will H. Low installed himself there with a barrel of
_piquette_, and entertained his friends in a leafy trellis above the
weir, in sight of the green country and to the music of the falling
water. It was a most airy, quaint, and pleasant place of residence, just
too rustic to be stagey; and from my memories of the place in general,
and that garden trellis in particular—at morning, visited by birds, or at
night, when the dew fell and the stars were of the party—I am inclined to
think perhaps too favourably of the future of Montigny. Chailly-en-Bière
has outlived all things, and lies dustily slumbering in the plain—the
cemetery of itself. The great road remains to testify of its former
bustle of postilions and carriage bells; and, like memorial tablets,
there still hang in the inn room the paintings of a former generation,
dead or decorated long ago. In my time, one man only, greatly daring,
dwelt there. From time to time he would walk over to Barbizon like a
shade revisiting the glimpses of the moon, and after some communication
with flesh and blood return to his austere hermitage. But even he, when
I last revisited the forest, had come to Barbizon for good, and closed
the roll of Chaillyites. It may revive—but I much doubt it. Achères and
Recloses still wait a pioneer; Bourron is out of the question, being
merely Gretz over again, without the river, the bridge, or the beauty;
and of all the possible places on the western side, Marlotte alone
remains to be discussed. I scarcely know Marlotte, and, very likely for
that reason, am not much in love with it. It seems a glaring and
unsightly hamlet. The inn of Mother Antonie is unattractive; and its
more reputable rival, though comfortable enough, is commonplace.
Marlotte has a name; it is famous; if I were the young painter I would
leave it alone in its glory.