Claude-François Denecourt

Claude François Denecourt (4 December 1788 - 25 March 1875) was a veteran of the Napoleonic army who devoted much of his life to developing and promoting the riches of the forest of Fontainebleau. He is remembered as being one of the inventors of modern hiking and of nature tourism.

Biography After a childhood spent in the France-Comté region of France, Denecourt volunteered for the Napoleonic Army in 1809 and fought in the 88th line infantry regiment. He was promoted to sergeant in 1814 and demobilized in 1815. He initially worked as caretaker at the barracks at Versailles, where he amassed a ‘small fortune’ selling wine and eau de vie to the soldiers.

At the age of 44, suffering from a serious depression,

Activities

Guides Denecourt

In August 1839, Denecourt took advantage of public interest in watching a major military maneuver at the camp of Arbonne (a village in the forest) to publish a booklet that helped visitors to locate the maneuvers in the forest. would be reissued constantly until his death (11 editions between 1839 and 1848 alone), accompanied by numerous additions. His forest guides, modestly priced so as to be accessible to the masses, accompanied the growth in forest tourism in the 1840s.

Hiking paths

From 1842, Denecourt was not content simply to indicate existing paths; he began to create the paths himself, with the tacit authorization of the water and forestry administration and sometimes with the help of local quarrymen and stone cutters. At the time of his death, 150 km of paths had been created and marked with blue arrows. In the book, Théophile Gautier refers to him as the "Sylvain" of the forest of Fontainebleau,

References and notes