– makes for challenging hunting. For centuries the Compiègne forest has been a prized hunting ground for virtually all the kings of France. Some 350 roads and pathways cross it adding up to over six hundred miles of trail with stately vintage signposts marking most of the intersections. The oldest ones include a small red mark which shows the direction to the château, relics of an imperial order given during the Second French Empire after the Empress Eugénie found herself lost in the thick woods. The forest of Compiègne is a popular destination for all types of tourists. Horse-riders and bicyclists particularly enjoy the forest; a long-running bicycle event, the Paris-Roubaix race, has an established path through the forest. History Prehistoric and classical eras The forest of Compiègne area shows evidence of prehistoric habitation, and continuous forest cover has been definitively proven since at least the end of the Roman Empire. Gallic-Roman edifices have been discovered there, and it is traversed on its south and east sides by an ancient Roman road now called by the French the Chaussée Brunehaut. During the Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar won a decisive victory in the forest, defeating one of the larger tribes of north-eastern Gaul, the Bellovaci. A multitude of the forest's classical-era artifacts are on display at the Château's museum. Dark Ages The earliest Frankish kings established the forest as their privileged hunting grounds, and Clothaire the Great built the first royal residence there in the 7th century, and there he died of a fever. The small palace, fitted cozily among the trees, was named Cusia and for some time thereafter the forest itself went by the name Forêt de Cuise that is memorialized in the village of Cuise-la-Motte that lies to the east of the forest boundaries. A battle between the Merovingian-era kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria took place in the forest in the year 715. Medieval era As Empress Eugénie's signposts attest, the thick and heavy forest can be a disorienting and potentially fatal place. In the twelfth century, at the age of fourteen, the future King Philip II of France found himself lost in the forest: he came so close to tragedy that his father, Louis VII, felt compelled to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury in England to offer thanks for his recovery. In the sixteenth century, King Francis I commanded the construction