The love of trees was hereditary in the family and antedated their
other nobility. The founder of the house had begun life as the son
of a forester in Luxemburg. His name was Pol Staar. His fortune and
title were the fruit of contracts for horses and provisions which
he made with the commissariat of Napoleon I. in the days when the
Netherlands were a French province. But though Pol Staar's hands
were callous and his manners plain, his tastes were aristocratic.
They had been formed young in the company of great trees.

Therefore when he bought his estate of Azan (and took his title
from it) he built his chateau in a style which he considered
complimentary to his imperial patron, but he was careful also to
include within his domain large woodlands in which he could renew
the allegiance of his youth. These woodlands he cherished and
improved, cutting with discretion, planting with liberality, and
rejoicing in the thought that trees like those which had befriended
his boyhood would give their friendly protection to his heirs.
These are traits of an aristocrat--attachment to the past, and
careful provision for posterity. It was in this spirit that Pol
Staar, first Baron d'Azan, planted in 1809 the broad avenue of
beeches, leading from the chateau straight across the park to the
highroad. But he never saw their glory, for he died when they were
only twenty years old.

His son and successor was of a different timber and grain; less
aristocratic, more bourgeois--a rover, a gambler, a man of fashion.
He migrated from the gaming-tables at Spa to the Bourse at Paris,
perching at many clubs between and beyond, and making seasonal
nests in several places. This left him little time for the Chdteau
d'Azan. But he came there every spring and autumn, and showed the