Filming for exterior scenes set in the country began on February 15, 1939 in Sologne and outside the Chateau de la Ferté-Saint-Aubin. Renoir later said he chose Sologne because his father Pierre-Auguste Renoir "regretted that he had never been able to paint . How well I understand the sincerity of those regrets before these beautiful landscapes of Sologne, in astonishing colors, of a grace so melancholy yet so gentle." Renoir said Sologne's mist "took me back to the happy days of my childhood."