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It seems the stag is often taken in these ponds, les étangs de la ramée, which are quite a feature in the country, and one of the sights of the Villers-Cotterets forest, where strangers are always brought. They are very picturesque; the trees slope down to the edge of the ponds, and when the bright autumn foliage is reflected in the water the effect is quite charming.
So far from wishing longer to offer him the crown, he struck it forever from his head, and turned against him. "Soon after this event, Her Majesty, in tears, came to tell me that the King, having had positive proof of the agency of the Duc d'Orleans in the riots of Versailles, had commenced some proceedings, which had given the Duke the alarm, and exiled him to Villers-Cotterets.
It is certainly a lonely bit of country, once we had left the lights of Villers-Cotterets behind us, crossed the last railway, and were fairly started in the forest. We didn't meet anything neither cart, carriage, bûcheron, nor pedestrian of any kind.
His work was not nearly done when I met him, for during the fighting in the region round the forest of Villers-Cotterets, twice a battlefield, as the Germans advanced and then retreated, first pursuing and then pursued by the French and British, 3000 German dead had been left upon the way, and 1000 of our Allied troops.
If he had not been threatened with imprisonment in the old castle of Villers-Cotterets, and if hopes had not been given him of seeing the Duchesse de Bourbon as he wished, they could not have induced him to form this accursed marriage. It is my son's unlucky destiny to have for a wife a woman who is desirous of ruling everything with her brothers.
I had to write to the curé to tell him what we had decided, and that he might go to Reims. One of our great amusements in the winter was the hunting. We knew very well the two gentlemen, Comtes de B. and de L., who hunted the Villers-Cotterets forest, and often rode with them.
The riding was very different from the Roman Campagna, which was my only experience. One could gallop for miles in the Villers-Cotterets forest with a loose rein. It was disagreeable sometimes when we left the broad alleys and took little paths in and out of the trees. When the wood was thick and the branches low, I was always afraid one would knock me off the saddle or come into my eyes.
Instead of following the road leading northwest out of Meaux, he took the one leading northeast up through Villers-Cotterets, intending to run along the edge of the forest to Campiegne and then verge westward to the billet villages northwest of Montdidier, where he was to report.
Towards the close of the month, the two illustrious sponsors reached Villers-Cotterets, where they were met by the King and Queen, with the whole Court, and thence conducted to Paris.
Apparently having advance information of the German plans, or perhaps surmising them, General Foch had been preparing a surprise for the Crown Prince. In the forest of Villers-Cotterets on the German right flank, he had quietly massed large forces, including some of the best French regiments, together with the foreign legion, Moroccan and other crack troops, and many Americans.
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