Fontainebleau serves as both the ambulance section’s first point of contact with its vehicles and the starting landscape of its southward journey. Its two appearances mark a shift from preparation and uncertainty to travel through France toward the front.

First Encounter with the Ambulances

The section first saw the large grey Fiat ambulances while lined up in the square in front of Francis I’s palace at Fontainebleau. Ed Schuyler returned from speaking with the French drivers who were handing the vehicles over and reported their resentment: the transfer meant they had to return to the front, while the Americans were taking desirable jobs behind the lines. Fontainebleau thus introduces the practical and political tension attached to the section’s work before its members begin driving.

Departure Through the Forest

Later, a convoy of twelve Fiats and eight Fords set out from Fontainebleau, following smooth macadam roads south through the Forest of Fontainebleau before turning east across the wine-growing hills of central France. Richard Ellsworth Savage drove a Ford alone, concentrating on remembering how to manage the pedals and scarcely attending to the scenery. The route carried the men onward toward the Rhône valley and, eventually, Marseille.

Narrative Significance

Fontainebleau links the section’s uncertain beginning with its departure into a new phase of travel. At the palace square, the ambulances signify an assignment shaped by the demands of the front and the French drivers’ frustration; on the road through the forest, the same vehicles become the means by which the Americans leave their period of waiting behind. The contrast gives Fontainebleau a transitional role in Richard Ellsworth Savage’s account: it is both the place where the work becomes tangible and the threshold of the southbound journey.