Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau (pop. 14,700), town in the department Seine-et-Marne, France, 27 mi (60 km) southeast of Paris. The town did not develop until the 19th century. Fontainebleau is primarily a recreation and tourist town. The magnificent palace of the French kings, built in the 16th century on the site of a royal hunting lodge, stands just outside the town. It was the scene of Napoleon's farewell to his army after his abdication in 1814. Fontainebleau forest, once a royal hunting ground, was a favorite subject for the 19th-century landscape painters known as the Barbizon school.

See also: France.