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Fontainebleu is hardly a secret, but there have been better signs and symbols that a major tourist attraction exists. When Tom came this was one of the many residences of Henry IV, who would be assassinated two years later. He just marched in, perhaps because the guards were Scottish. He wouldn’t have had trouble navigating the numerous cake shops, and was mean enough probably not to have bought a pain aux raisin even if he’d seen one. Let him not eat cake.

“Their muskets ready charged and set on their restes…[they] “consisteth partly of French, partly of Scots, and partly of Switzers. Of the French Guarde there are three rankes: The First is the Regiment of the Gard…The second bee the Archers….the Gard of the body, whereof there are foure hundred, but one hundred of them be Scots…”

As I’ve written, Tom got quite heated about the Swiss soldiers’ codpieces, for me it was just trying to find space to look, among the crowds. This morning they are Romanian, Chinese, Japanese, French, Lancastrian…only Germans move in ones and twos.

Although the French royal family travelled, from one chateau to another palace, it is also true that they had the world right here. The size of the halls and the corridors (everything is big except the beds), the paintings, frescos, tapestries, libraries, all suggest the world (and God) is here. When at INSEAD I hear: “the world is small and all the same: four walls and a computer…” I am shocked, but there is a sense, here in this most grand of residences, that this is what we want, simply and safely: bring the world to our home and we don’t have to leave. Of course, with huge grounds with peacocks wandering, this is a very large “four walls”, and however detailed and all pervasive the art it is not “interactive”. And yet here in the forests of Fontainebleu is surely a theme: money enables us to shut out the world, not to connect with it. It is the sentiment of much of John Donne’s early poetry.

“The walkes about the gardens are many, whereof some are very long, and of convenient breadth, being fairly sanded, and kept very cleane….”

It is at the Chateau Fontainebleu that Tom meets an Irish Landowner whose “yearly revenues were two hundred thousand French crownes, which do make three score thousand pound starling.” According to the Convert Money website, this works out at about £7 million a year these days. Which is not bad: modern palaces can be mortgaged on earnings like that, even in the centre of an average city.

It was the railways, the “trains de Plasir” that changed Fontainebleu again, brought wealth not just to the Chateau but to the town which developed around it. In 1849 the rail link from Paris was established, and so too the idea of the “day trip”. Parisians, deep into their Romantic-Gothic love of nature, as long as it was safe, could visit at the weekends. So began another stage of Fontainebleu’s life.

As presented to us Napoleon’s use of the chateau is as important culturally as the royal family’s, although I think our era is more interested in the decadent royals again: that is why Sophie Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” is a good film: it shows a “Pimp My Ride” Fontainebleu. You could live here a long time without the tourists and never leave and see all of the shiny world.

There is no sign of Kirsten Dunst or Sofia Coppola in the museum shop at Fontainebleu, the French don’t like the film Marie Antoinette: they booed during and after its debut at last year’s Cannes film festival. Coppola’s modern mis-en-scène, the punk music soundtrack, what some called “history for the MTV generation”, was thought superficial.

Here Tom caught the superficial bug: became interested in the cod-pieces of the Swiss Guards. In England the fashion was dying out, the Cod-piece merged into the peascod…

”because it is by that merrie French writer Rablais [On the Dignity of Codpieces] stiled the first and principall piece of Armour, the Switzers do weare it as a significant Symbole of the assured service they are to doe to the French King in his Warres…

the originall of their wearing of codpieces and partie-coloured clothes grew from this: it is not found that they wore any till Anno 1476 at what time the Switzers tooke their revenge upon Charles Duke of Burgundie, for taking from them a Towne called Granson with the Canton of Berne, whom after they had defeated, and shamefully put to flight, together with all his forces they found there great spoyles that the Duke left behind, to the valew of three millions, as it was said. But the Switzers being ignorant of the valew of the richest things, tore in pieces the most sumptuous Pavilions in the world, to make themselves coates and breeches; some of them sold silver dishes as cheape as Pewter, for two pence half-pennie a piece, and a great Pearle hanging in a jewel of the Dukes for twelve pence, in memorie of which insipid simplicite, Lewes, the eleventh King of France, who the next yeare after entertained them into his Pension, caused them to bee uncased of their rich clothes made of the Duke of Burgundies Pavilions, and ordained that should ever after weare Suites and Codpieces of those variegated colours of Red and Yellow. I observed that all these Switzers do weare Velvet Cappes with Feathers in them, and I noted many of them to be very clusterfisted lubbers. [a clumsy clownish fool]…”As for their attire, it is made so phantastically, that a novice newly come to the Court, who never saw any of them before, would halfe imagine, if he should see one of them alone without his weapon, hee were the Kings foole…”

Walk for five minutes from Marie Antoinette’s bed-chamber in the chateau Fontainebleu and there’s another room, peopled by a crowd as international as those that roam the giant halls and tapestried royal corridors with their audio-feeds. Here too, down a leafy street, notches are made on the bedposts: in this case above the fertile silky sheets of global finance.¨

This is INSEAD, The Fontainbleu of business finishing schools; to the Versailles of Harvard.

“It’s a brilliant idea, cool. My father’s already into this in a big way in the States – it’s so big in the States. You’ve just got to build them where you are, gate them, for all those guys – you know – grew up in the 60s and 70s, want to retreat now, safely.” [That’s not me, then: Tom is talking about retirement homes for the over-rich, though he wouldn’t use that phrase].

This “Tom” grew up in England, France and America. His father is Swiss-Iranian, his mother French. He’s in America now, “somewhere”; his mother London. “So here I am, and in three days time: Dubai. I’ll be 14 hours from “anything.” I don’t like the States, it isn’t hot, but I’ll have to work there. There is a trade-off: money for that attitude.”

Tom is 23. He dresses in blue button down, jeans and loafers; none of the students here dress: it is like a technology convention. From behind me, in Australian, to an Indian woman: “14 inch? Hmm, I don’t think so, see how mine has the highest resolution, I’ve reprogrammed this to get to the optimum. You have to customize…have to.”

The canteen soundtrack is music to be re-programmed by as well: a droney atonal Chinese (and The Future) lament that lasts half an hour. Through a tall square glass window a squash court with two sweaty students hard at play is a visual offering if the screens or the wi-fi don’t entice. Coffee and the “Financial Times” are free. Everything else is expenses. This campus is very quiet.

The headline on the front page of today’s European edition of the “Financial Times” is “Hedge Fund Managers go short on marriage with ‘postnups’”. It explains how “postnups” – signed after a marriage – safeguard the fortunes of wealthy hedge fund executives. (Who appear to all be men).

“At least one US hedge fund is refusing to take on new partners until they sign a postnup barring their spouses from making any claim on the fund says Ken Burrows, a New York attorney…”

Why the “wives” accept this, Bern Clair, “prominent” American divorce lawyer explains: “is because they want to preserve their marriages and their lifestyles.”

“The marital relationship has traditionally been the secret close bond,” said a partner at Fox Rothchild. “Now it’s the business partners, the hedge fund world, the drinking buddies – and the spouse is one circle out.

Tom has the flat, declarative (European) transatlantic accent down with his corporate collars. “Yeah, Dubai. Four of us are going, Mo too – that’s Mustafa. We’re getting a place together, it’s going to be sick: party time.” He goes to Paris at the weekends, his mother’s apartment in St Germaine, but he’s ready for the move. “The weather’s good and it’s all tax-free. The world’s small and all the same: four walls, a computer, and business to do.”

“What did I get from INSEAD? Connections. Confidence? No, I was pretty confident already. Hey! Let’s catch up later, hun?”

In the facing block a three day conference is being held on “Emotional Capabilities in Organizations: the influence of Context and Culture.” On Wednesdays there is an evening class held by the INDEVOR society. One of the issues it addressed last week was: “What are the business rewards for companies with the resources and persistence to compete at the bottom of the World’s Pyramid?”

Tom is nowhere with the answer to this question – he’s gone to another four walls and a computer. And it doesn’t take a “Blue Ocean” thinker (of whom there are many here) to work out there are a few years of “party-time” before Tom’s “postnup” needs to be adressed.

He’s one circle out from that.

Fontainebleu is Betwixt Paris and the countryside: when the evening film ends at 10:10 and I leave the cinema, the bars are empty. There’s no chance to randomly discuss the mis-en-scène of Catherine Breillat’s new costume drama, La Vieille Mâitrese. No chance of anything, except scaring oneself a little.

Because Coryat started early every day it is easy to assume that France did, in 1608. In 2007 it starts late and vanishes early. So the thirty-minute walk back to the railway station hotel, a tabac with some featureless rooms, is a solitary experience of shadows, speeding cars, and later on the outskirts closed Chinese restaurants and high chateau houses with no lights, though the full moon is there for accompaniment.

On his way to Fontainebleu Coryat saw cruelty and bribery. He describes it so:

“A little after I was past the last stage saving one, where I tooke post-horse towards Fountaine Beleau, there happened this chance: My horse began to be so tiry, that he would not stirre one foote out of the way, though I did even excarnificate [remove flesh from] his sides with my often spurring of him, except he were grievously whipped: whereupon a Gentleman of my company, one Master I.H. tooke great paines with him to lash him: at last when he saw he was so dul that he could hardly make him go with whipping, he drew out his Rapier and ranne him into his buttocke near to his fundament about a foote deep very neare. The Guide perceived not this before he came to the next stage, neither there before we were going away. My friend lingered with me somewhat behinde our company, and in a certain poole very diligently washed the horses would with his bare handes; thinking thereby to have stopped his bleeding; but he lost his labour, as much as he did that the Aethiopian; for the bloud ranne out a fresh notwithstanding all his laborious washing. Now when the guide perceived it, he grew so extreame cholericke, that he threatened Mr. I.H he would go to Fountaine Beleau, and complaine to the Postmaster against him except he would give him satisfaction; so that he posted very fast for a mile or two towards the court. In the end Mr. I.H being much perplexed, and finding that there was no remedy but that he must needes grow to some composition with him, unlesse he would sustain some great disgrace, gave him sixe French crownes to stop his mouth.”

“Sarkozy, yes, I like him. I think he has made an excellent debut. Very good, like your Tony Blair. A good start.” For Stephane, whose default conversational position is to shout, briefly and cussedly, this is a Shakespearian sentence: a pity, really, that it is our last. Stephane runs a hotel close to Fontainebleu station, unfortunately it is not mine, and he has no rooms. There are no rooms in Fontainebleu Avon, or the city centre either. Despite the wet quiet at 10:10, there are thousands staying here invisible and asleep. Except me. It is now close to midnight.

I have two keys, for my room, and for the “back entrance” to the hotel. This “entrance” is located down a very dark alley obscured even from the moon’s light, and with a dense dark wood one side and a series of unlit garage lock-ups the other. It is not a promising sight. I’ve been walking up and down the alley, trying garage doors, eliciting growls; finally a woman’s voice in the woods. She’s on the phone, has a shrill voice. When she emerges I am not sure of what to expect. Is she doing business in the wood? Does she study bats? In the end I don’t know, she has a gray Alsatian looking thing that leaps towards me, leaded, thankfully, and not in friendly way. The hotel? Go back to the main street.

Which is where I meet Stephane; he’s finishing up the day’s business for a few stragglers and drinkers: not tourists, something more local. He shouts, “Just go and find it.” I try; I return. He shouts: “Calculate the distance – look it is about 50 metres, it can’t be hard.” But it is. Each time the alley is darker, the garages more likely to house not just a dog but Fantômas, the fictional French serial killer.

Where were the Paris Pros when I needed them?

I return again. “I just don’t understand,” Stephane says. Secretly he is pleased, the rival hotel getting a bad press. “Nothing to do, you can’t find it, you can’t find it,” he shouts. And there are no rooms in the town.”

Later, as he eats dinner, Stephane says Fontainebleu hasn’t changed much; he’s owned his hotel for 14 years, “a few more tourists, all year now, for the forests, and the countryside, but changed? Not really.” His cousin has worked in hotel management in London and Sao Paulo, now he is in Barcelona. “So I know England very well,” Stephane shouts. “You don’t have a phone? Their number? A receipt for the room, with a number?”

That would be correct.

After six or seven trips to the alley without any luck Stephane sits down for a late dinner with a couple, I assume the man is his son. He’s locked-up now and to get his attention I have to stand at the window in the restaurant area and look mournful, making telephone gestures.

Re-admitted, so that Stephane and friends could eat, very, very slowly, and tell me it was ridiculous, this hotel choice of mine, I eventually intern a plan, suggested by the other man, Eric, a salesman. As Fontainebleu is a tourist centre it would not want its tourists unhappy. Therefore we should phone the police and – as the front entrance to my hotel has an aluminium drawbridge down, and not even a door or window to knock loudly on – they should force their way in. Stephane is not so sure. I tend to agree, it being a very bad plan indeed. Breaking into a twenty-nine Euro a night hotel after midnight with the Fontainebleu Boys in Blue? Doesn’t sound promising.

Of course needs must.

“He is very gentle, looks nice and he has keys,” says Eric’s friend – who is not his wife: she’s in Paris, he’ll call her later from a public phone, so she doesn’t know where he is. “I said I was working, travelling,” he tells Stephane, who isn’t impressed. Eric and his girl go to investigate the Tabac for me. “Your son? A friend?”
“Not a friend, an acquaintance,” Stephane says. “We talked a bit, said a few things. Yes, an acquaintance.” He laughs and continues to eat, and drink. “He and I shared a few things.”

Eric and friend return. “It’s shut, gated up,” the friend says. She’s been in France four months, I learn. “France, it’s good, no?” Eric says. “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” They sit down again and eat some more. Of course I am pushing the slow travel thing on this journey: the slow eating, slow pleasure, slow everything in response to the speed of life now.

But not this slow. I ask Stephane about Sarkozy: a good thing for France, “he will make us [a big laugh] more efficient.” Closer to one than not Eric and Friend and I stalk the alley one last time. I’ve said Goodbye to Stephane so if this fails it is curl up by the railway station time. Our stalking elicits a light over a modern garage, the most unlikely of doors. An elderly pursed woman leans out. “What are you doing?”
“This Englishman has a key, he just can’t find his hotel.”

Five minutes later I am in a bed of sorts, letting something nasty crawl over me, very briefly. It is marginally worse than shouting with Stephane, but it is home. Thomas knew far worse things than to be trapped walking down an alley with dogs that do bark in the night or talking with loud Fontainebleu hoteliers who grow friendlier with time, so I read a little of Tom’s day in Fontainebleu, think about the film I saw, and sleep – for well over two hours.

Thus much of personal experience, as Tom might say.