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Just how great a part the royal hunt played in the open-air life of the French court all who know their French history and have any familiarity with the great forests of France well recognize.

The echo of French country architecture as evinced in the "maisons de plaisance" and "rendezvous de chasse" scattered up and down the France of monarchial times lives until to-day, scarcely fainter than when the note was originally sounded. Often these establishments were something more than a mere hunting-lodge, or shooting-box, indeed they generally aspired to the proportions of what may readily be accepted as a country-house. They established a specious type of architecture which in many cases grew, in later years, into a chateau or palace of manifestly magnificent appointments.

At the great hunting exposition recently held at Vienna the clou of the display was a French royal hunting-lodge in the style of Louis XVI, hung with veritable Gobelin tapestries, loaned by the French government and picturing "The Hunt in France." It was called by the critics a unique painting in a beautiful frame.

In the days of Francis I and his sons, the royal hunt was given a great impetus by Catherine de Médici, wife of Henri II.

Francis, in company with his sons, had gone to Marseilles to meet the Médici bride, who was on her way to make her home at the Paris Louvre, and when he found her possessed of so lively manners and such great intelligence he became so charmed with her that, it is said, he danced with her all of the first evening. What pleased the monarch even more, and perhaps not less his sons, was that she shot with an arquebuse like a sharpshooter, and could ride to hounds like a natural-born Amazon. She was more than a rival, as it afterwards proved, of that arch-huntress, Diane de Poitiers.

History recounts in detail that last royal hunt of Francis I at Rambouillet, when he was lying near to death, the guest of his old friend, d'Angennes.

The old manor, half hunting-lodge, half fortress, and very nearly royal in all its appointments, proved a comfortable enough rest-house, and on the day after his arrival, in March, 1547, the monarch commanded the preparations for a royal hunt to commence at daybreak in the neighbouring forest.

The equipage started forth in full ceremonial on the quest of stag and boar. The bugles blew and a sort of stimulated courage once more entered the king's breast, courage born of the excitement around him, the baying of the hounds and the tramping and neighing of impatient horses. He had forced himself from his bed and on horseback and started off with the rest, defying the better counsel of his retainers.

His strength proved to be born of a fictitious enthusiasm, and, speedily losing interest, he was brought back to the manor where he had his apartments, and put speechless and half dead to bed, actually dying the next day from this last over-exertion, scarce half a century of the span of his life accomplished.

Henri de Navarre also was a true lover of the open. Born in a mountain town in the Pyrenees he would rather camp on a bed of pine needles in the forest than lie on a tuft of down. He preferred his beloved Bayonne ham, spiced with garlic, to a sumptuous dinner in Jarnet house, a famous Paris tavern of the day; and had rather quench his thirst with a quaff of the wine of Jurançon than the finest cru in Paris cellars.

A "Curée aux Flambeaux"

He hated the parade of courts, was dirty, unkempt and careless, a genuine son of the soil, heedless of fate, and an excellent huntsman.

Up to the seventeenth century the ladies of the French court showed a keener interest for falconry than for the hunt by horse and hounds.

The heroines of the Fronde, and the generation which followed, seemed to lose interest in this form of sport, and gave their favour to packs of hounds, and followed with equal interest the hunt for deer, wolves, boars, foxes and hares as they were tracked through forests and over arid wastes.

The old hunting horn, the winding horn of romance, still exists at the hunts of France, a relic of the days of Louis XIV. It sounds the conventional comings and goings of the huntsmen in the same classic phraseology as of old—the lancer, the bien allée, the vue, the changement de forêt, the accompagné, the bat l'eau, the hallali par terre, and the curée.

The "Curée aux Flambeaux" was one of the most picturesque ceremonies connected with the royal hunt in France. It began in the gallant days, and lived even until the time of the Second Empire.

The curée, that is the giving up to the hounds the remains of an animal slain in chase, does not always take place at night, but when it does the torches play the part of impressive and picturesque accessories. When a curée takes place at the spot where the animal is actually killed the French sporting term for the ceremony is "forcé et abattu." This, however, is usually preceded by another called "le pied," which consists in cutting off one of the feet of the dead animal and offering it to the person in whose honor the hunt was held.

When the curée takes place by torchlight the body of the animal is carried beneath the windows of the chateau, a circle is formed by the "piqueurs," or head hunters, and all who have participated in the pursuit; and, to the sound of a trumpet, loaned by the sportsmen, one of the valets de venérie cuts up the stag. The meutes, that is to say, the hounds which are let slip last of all, and which terminates the chase—are then brought by the valet des chiens, who has great difficulty in keeping them from breaking loose. When the entrails have been cut away the valet sits astride the animal, holding up the nappe, or head and neck, shaking it at the already furious hounds. It is the care of the valet during this interval to conceal the pieces of flesh which are still under the body. The hounds are then loosened, but are kept within bounds by the whips of the piqueurs and the valet des chiens. When the dogs are sufficiently exasperated the brutes are allowed to rush upon the remains of their victim; only, however, to be driven back again by whipping. When their docility has thus been proven the definite signal, "lachez tout," is given, and the hounds rush towards the stag.

The curée then presents a savage spectacle: the air is filled with growling, barking and yelling, while the ground is covered with scrambling dogs, their mouths reeking with blood.

The feminine costume for the hunt in the time of Louis XIII was of broadcloth or velvet, with a great feather-ornamented "picture" hat. Only now and again a lady on horseback after 1650 dared borrow doublet and jacket, and mount astride.

The ladies followed the hunt of Louis XIV on horseback, seldom, if ever, in the older manner of sitting behind their cavalier on the same steed. From the time of Catherine de Médici, indeed, the Italian side-saddle had become the fashion for women.

Under Louis XV the ladies sought a little more comfort, and followed the equipage sitting in a sort of hamper-like, diminutive basket, hung from the broad back of a sturdy quadruped. Dresses became more fanciful, both in materials and colours. From this it was but a step to even more elaborate toilettes which necessitated a conveyance of some sort on wheels, but the most intrepid still clung to the traditionally classic methods. Marie Antoinette had her equipage de chasse, and Madame Durfort was constantly abroad in the forests of Montmorency and Boissy, directing the operation of eight or ten professional huntsmen. Among her guests were frequently the ambassadors of Prussia, Russia and Austria.

In the time of Louis XIV the Comtesse de Lude devoted herself to the hunt with a frenzy born of an inordinate enthusiasm. At the head of a pack of hounds she knew no obstacle, and, on one occasion, penetrated on horseback, followed by her dogs, into the oratory of the nuns of the Convent of Estival.

By the end of the seventeenth century the hunt in France had become no more a sport for ladies. Hunting was still a noble sport, but it was more for men than for women. The court hunted not only in royal company, but accepted invitations from any seigneur who possessed an ample preserve and who could put up a good kill; magistrates, financiers and bishops, indeed all classes, became followers of the hunt.

Montgaillard tells of a hunt in which he took part on the feast day of Saint Bernard, with the monks of the Bernardin Convent in Languedoc. In the episcopal domain of Saverne six hundred beaters were employed on one occasion to provide sport for an assembled company of lords and ladies. These were the days when the bishops were in truth Grand Seigneurs.

The women of the court, while they played the game, ceded nothing to the men in bravery. Neither rain, hail nor snow frightened them. On the 28th of June, 1713, Louis XIV was hunting the deer at Rambouillet when a terrific, cyclonic storm fell upon the equipage, but not a man nor woman in the monarch's party quit. The Duchesse de Berry was "wet to the skin," but her ardour for the hunt was not in the least cooled.

To-day at Fontainebleau or Rambouillet the echo is sounded from the hunting horn of Labaudy, the sugar-king, who pulls off at least two "hunts," with his spectacular equipage, each year, and it is a sight too; a French hunting party was ever picturesque, and if to-day not as practical as the more blood-loving Englishman's hunt, is at least traditionally sentimental, even artificial to the extent, at any rate, that it seems stagy, even to the inclusion of the automobiles which bring and carry away the participants. "Other days, other ways" never had a more strict application than to la chasse a courre in France.

Two accounts are here given of two comparatively modern figures in the French hunting field, which show the great store set by the sport in France.

In the annals of the Chateau de Grosbois, belonging to-day to the Prince de Wagram, are the accounts of an early nineteenth century hunt, which shows that the game cost dear. The "Grand Veneur" of the Napoleonic reign was a master sportsman, indeed, and to-day, in a gallery of the chateau, are preserved the guns of the master, his hunting crop and saddle, his "colours" and his hunting horn.

From the registers of the chateau, under date of December 10, 1809, the following, which concerned a hunting party given by the chatelain, is extracted verbatim.