The next day was just as fair as the one before, perfect for an expedition into the great royal forest where saintly Louis IX (1214-70) hunted with Egyptian hounds and Francis I (1708-65) rode in a cavalcade of 10,000 horses.

The artistic tribe of the 19th century sauntered into the woods after breakfast wearing broad-brimmed hats and gaiters, carrying their paints, easels, canvases, parasols, camp stools, and nourishment with them. Picnic lunches from the Auberge Ganne included two hard-boiled eggs, cold meat left over from dinner, a piece of cheese, salt, and a bottle of wine.

I went into the woods on a bike rented in the village, with a pate de campagne baguette sandwich and a bottle of water. I had a map but doubt that I could have gotten lost even if I had tried because almost every path, ancient oak and oddly shaped boulder was sign-posted. Since the public discovered the forest, it has been civilized so that it now seems as benign as Winnie-the-Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood.

I headed for the Gorges d'Apremont about a mile southeast of Barbizon.

With its mounds of smooth limestone boulders - a singular Fontainebleau Forest geological feature - it always attracted painters who thought it wild and forbidding. But to call the pleasant, rock-strewn valley a gorge seemed a gross overstatement. What the Barbizon painters would have made of Yosemite or the Grand Canyon I could only wonder as I ate lunch on the convenient tabletop of a boulder that did double duty as a couch after I polished off my picnic.

But as the warm noonday sun found me, doves murmured, and the leaves danced on the breeze, the forest's gentle magic began to work on me, as it had on the imaginations of 19th-century artists. Perhaps more awesome scenery would have stilled their brushes.

I ruminated on that for a while and then on the old art-versus-nature question, which I resolved. Why choose between the two when both are so freely offered by springtime in France?

If You Go

Where to stay

Auberge des Alouettes,

4 Rue Antoine Barye, 1-60-66-41-98, www.barbizon.net, has clean, amiable, if slightly threadbare rooms above a restaurant in an eclectic 1883 country villa built for philosopher Gabriel Seailles and his artist-wife, Jeanne; doubles start around $80, including breakfast; three-course dinner about $45.

L'Hotellerie du Bas-Breau, 22 Grande Rue, 1-60-66-40-05 or 1-800-735-2478, www.relaischateaux.fr/basbreau, was a favorite haunt of many Barbizon artists, though its most famous guest was the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. There are a swimming pool, a pleasant garden, and a gourmet restaurant; doubles start around $355; three-course dinner about $100.

Where to eat

Auberge du Grand-Veneur, on Highway N7 near Barbizon, 1-60-66-40-44, is an old French country inn famous for game grilled at a yawning fireplace in the elegant dining room; three-course dinner about $100.

Boucherie de l'Angelus,

64 Grande Rue, 1-60-66-40-27, can provide the makings for an excellent picnic lunch.

Brasserie L'Atelier les Pleiades, 21 Grande Rue, 1-60-66-40-25, is a casual restaurant with a terrace featuring dishes such as moules-frites; two-course dinner about $40. It is in the stylish new Hotel les Pleiades, set to open in early summer. The hotel will have a swimming pool and 23 rooms; doubles will start around $250.

To learn more

French Government Tourist Office, www.franceguide.com.