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100 have since 1854 been placed under the jurisdiction of the municipality, and fitted by extensive and important improvements, the better to serve as recreation grounds for the daily use of the citizens.

[[File:AmCyc Park - Map of the Bois de Boulogne.jpg|thumb|center|700px|Map of the Bois de Boulogne.

A, Hippodrome; B, Bagatelle; C, Zoölogical Ground; D, Military Magazine; E, Nursery; F, Upper Lake; G, G, Lower Lake; H, Pré Catalan; I, I, avenue Bois de Boulogne; J, J, the Seine; K, Palace and Park of St. Cloud.]]

The wood of Boulogne contains about 2,500 acres, and the fortified

line of the city forms its eastern boundary. The soil is naturally gravelly and poor, the trees are generally thickly sown, spindled, and weak, and the scenery flat and uninteresting. Several departmental roads (broad, straight, paved wagon ways) pass through it. Except

in the refreshing wildness of a forest, it offered as late as 1855 but little to attract a visitor. Yet because of its close vicinity to the city it was already much frequented by the Parisians, and Napoleon III. saw in the neglect to which it had been abandoned the opportunity of making one of those sensations, to the frequent succession of which he owed so much of his popularity. The coarse, silicious soil was less costly to handle than better earth; good roads could be cheaply graded in it, and the materials of a sufficiently firm superstructure for so porous a base were to be had on the spot by simply screening its pebbles; for the same reason scarcely any artificial drainage was necessary. There were open meadows which could be extended to the banks of the Seine. The plan of improvement was adroitly adapted to turn all these advantages to account, so that in a short time, to those who kept

to certain routes, the character of the wood seemed to have been completely changed. On the immediate borders of the new roads, and on the lines of certain vistas opening from them, the surface of the ground and the foliage appear varied and picturesque, and there are certain features of scenic interest, as a cascade and grotto, the rock of which was brought from the distant forest of Fontainebleau and skilfully wrought into masses with patches of concrete imitation of stone. The greater part of the old wood remained, as far as the operations of improvement are concerned, little changed and as uninteresting as a wood might be. The approach to the improved ground from the central parts of the town is first through the Champs Élysées, afterward for a distance of 1⅛ m. by the new avenue Bois de Boulogne (formerly de l'Impératrice). This consists of a driveway 60 ft. wide, a bridle road on one side