In the first days of May, that interesting epoch in which in the forest, the woods, and the plain, the majority of all animals are with young; and in the commencement of December, the period of storm and tempest and the heavy rains, which precede the great snows, two general battues take place in Le Morvan. To these all the tribe of sportsmen the good, the bad, and the indifferent are invited; in short, every one in the neighbourhood who loves excitement attends. Gentlemen, poachers, and gens-d’armes, young conscripts and old soldiers, doctors and schoolmasters, every one who is the fortunate possessor of a gun, a carbine, a pistol, a sabre, a bayonet, or any other weapon, presents himself at the rendezvous. Bands of peasants, also, armed with bludgeons, spears, broomsticks, cymbals, bells, frying-pans, sauce-pans, and fire-irons (it is impossible to make too much noise on the occasion), arrive from every point of the compass, and add their numbers to those already assembled. On the day agreed upon, therefore, and at the spot indicated, a small army is on foot, which, full of ardour and thirsting for the combat, brandish with shouts their various weapons and kitchen utensils, drink to the success of the enterprise, and wait with no little impatience the signal to place themselves in march, and attack the enemy. The commander of these assembled forces, generally the head ranger of the forest, having under his orders a battalion of sub gardes-de-châsse, directs their movements.

This mode of taking the wolf is conducted with very great order and circumspection; everything is well arranged beforehand; the ravines and deep underwood, which the wolves are known to resort to, have been carefully ascertained; the number of guns and rifles necessary to surround this or that wood are told off, and the whole plan is so well prepared, the execution of it is so prompt, every one is so well aware of what he has to do, that in one day a large tract of country is carefully beaten.

In these battues, those who have fire-arms form two sides of a triangle, and are placed with their backs to the wind, along the roads which border the wood the traqueurs are about to beat. On no account ought they to fire to their rear, but always to the front; and in order to prevent, in this respect, misunderstanding and accident, the garde, whose duty it is to place each sportsman at his post, breaks a branch, or cuts a notch in the tree before him, in order that in a moment of hesitation and excitement this broken bough or barked spot may remind him of his real position. The base of the triangle or the cord of the arc (for this curved line had more the shape of a great bow slightly strung than any other geometrical figure) is formed of the peasants, who, side by side, wait only for the last signal to advance, when they commence their euphonious concert a charivari not to be described.

The arrangements and preparations, conducted in profound silence, being terminated, the signal is given, when the tumult, which at once breaks forth, produces intense excitement. The forest, hitherto silent, and apparently without life, is suddenly awakened with confused noises, metallic and human the peasants shout, halloo, sing, and bang together their pots, kettles, and pieces of iron, striking every bush and thicket with their staves, and scaring every animal before them. Flights of wood-pigeons, coveys of partridges, birds of every size, species, and plumage, pass like moving shadows above their heads. The owls, too, suddenly aroused from sleep, leave their dark holes, and, blinded by the light, fly against the branches in their alarm with cries of terror probably imagining the order of night and day is reversed, and that the unusual and unearthly noises proclaim that the end of the world has arrived for the owls. Then come the roebuck and the foxes, bounding and breaking through the underwood, and the hares and rabbits, which jump up under the feet of the beaters.

Motionless as a mile-stone at your post, and rifle ready, this flying legion of animals gives you a twinge of impatience, for you must allow them a free passage, as in these battues one dare not fire at anything, save and except the great object of the day, the wolf. Wolves alone have the honour on these important occasions of receiving the contents of your double-barrel. But the cowards, divining what is in preparation for them, are the last to show themselves; as the line advances, they trot up and down the portion of the wood thus enclosed, seeking for an outlet, or some break in the line; and they never make up their minds to advance to the front until the tempest of sounds behind them is almost ringing in their ears. But now the thunder of voices, till then distant, approaches, and the cries and hallooing of the peasants, like a flowing tide, forces them to draw nearer to the huntsmen.

Whether or no, that fatal line must now be passed, and the few minutes that precede the last movement of the wolves towards it brings to every sportsman sensations impossible to describe. He knows the brutes are in his rear, approaching, and a feeling like an electric current runs at this exciting moment from one to the other; every man’s finger is on his trigger, his pulse throbs at a feverish pace, his heart beats like the clapper of a bell in full swing all, to take a surer aim, kneel, or place their back against the nearest tree, and each offers up a prayer for aid to his patron saint. This nervous moment has sometimes such an effect upon ardent and excitable imaginations, that I have observed many young sportsmen look very queer, some actually tremble and one shed tears. But the traqueurs are at hand, and the largest and boldest of the wolves, placing themselves in front, are preparing for the fatal rush one more charivari from the peasants and their sauce-pans decides them, when the whole troop bound forward, yelling and howling upon the line, in passing which a storm of balls and buck-shot salute and assail them in their course.

The death of from thirty to forty wolves is generally the result of the day’s exertions, without counting the wounded, which always escape in greater or less numbers. The Government give a reward of twenty francs for every wolf, and twenty-five for every she-wolf, and these sums being immediately divided amongst the peasants, they return to their homes not a little pleased, singing their old hunting ballads, stopping occasionally by the way at some village inn for a glass, where they may be seen cutting capers, with the true peasant notions of the dance. On a fine day, with the blue sky above, the forest breathing perfume, and the sun shedding over it its golden rays, the passing game, the distant halloo! of the traqueurs, the gun-shots which suddenly rattle around you, the watching for and first view of the wolves, put the head and the heart in such a state of excitement, as once felt can never be forgotten. The May and December battues are, therefore, looked forward to with immense impatience; and nothing short of sudden death, or an injured limb, prevents the country-people from hastening with alacrity to the rendezvous.

Wolves are likewise hunted all the year round, with dogs, by gentlemen, in the neighbourhood of the forest. But this sport is very fatiguing and weary work, if that animal alone is employed; for nothing is so difficult as to get up with a cunning old wolf, whose sinewy limbs never tire, and whose wind never fails who goes straight ahead, ten or fifteen miles, without looking behind him; if he meets with a Mare, or stream of water on his road, then your chance is indeed up, for into it he plunges, and makes off again, quite as fresh as he was when he left his lair.

The best and most expeditious mode of taking a wolf is, to set a bloodhound on him, bred expressly for this particular sport; large greyhounds being placed in ambush, at proper distances, and slipped, when the wolf makes his appearance in crossing from one wood to another. These dogs, by their superior swiftness, are soon at his haunches, and worry and impede his flight, until their heavy friend the hound comes up; for the strongest greyhound could never manage a wolf, unless he was assisted in his meritorious work by dogs of large size and superior strength. The huntsmen, well mounted, follow and halloo on the hounds; every one runs, every one shouts, the forest echoes their cries, and wolf, dogs, and sportsmen pass and disappear like leaves in a whirlwind, or the demon hounds and huntsmen of the Hartz. And now the panting beast, with hair on end and foaming at the mouth, bitten in every part, is brought to bay his hour is come no longer able to fly, he sets his back against some rock or tree, and faces his numerous enemies.

It is then that the oldest huntsman of the party, in order to shorten his death-agony, and save the dogs from unnecessary wounds, dismounts, and, drawing a pistol from his hunting-belt, finishes his career before further mischief is done. When a ball hits a wolf and breaks one of his bones, he immediately gives a yell; but if he is dispatched with sticks and bludgeons, he makes no complaint. Stubborn, and apparently either insensible or resolute, Nature seems to have given him great powers of endurance in suffering pain. Having lost all hope of escape, he ceases to cry and complain; he remains on the defensive, bites in silence, and dies as he has lived. In a sheepfold the noise of his teeth while indulging his appetite is like the repeated crack of a whip. His bite is terrible.

The months of September and October, the period for cub-hunting, afford capital sport. The young wolves are not like the old ones, strong enough to take a straight course, and they consequently can rarely do more than run a ring; when tired, which is soon the case, they retire backwards into some hole or under a large stone, where they show their teeth and await, with a juvenile courage worthy of a better fate, the onset of their assailants. The mode of separating the cubs from their mother, who, with maternal tenderness (for that feeling exists even in a wolf), always offers to sacrifice her life for her young, is by turning loose two or three bloodhounds. These first distract her attention, and then pursue her so closely that at last she thinks it prudent to decamp, and seek safety in flight; when these dogs have fairly got her away, and their deep music dies away in the distance, others are laid on the scent of the cubs, and the sport ceases only with the death of the litter. A young wolf may be tamed; but it is not wise to place much confidence in his civilization: with age he resumes his nature, becomes ferocious, and sooner or later, should the occasion present itself, will return to his native woods; for as water always flows towards the river, so the wolf always returns to his kind.

In the summer, the wolves, like the gypsies, have no fixed residence; they may then be met with in the standing barley or oats, the vineyards and fields; they sleep in the open country, and seldom seek the friendly shelter of the forest, except during the most scorching hours of the day. Towards the end of August I have often met them in the vineyards, apparently half drunk, scarcely able to walk, in short, quite unsteady on their legs, almost ploughing the ground up with their noses, and staring stupidly about them. Every well-kept vineyard ought to be as free from stones as possible, and therefore the peasants, when they weed, dig a trench about the vines, or prune them, always remove at the same time whatever stones or flints they may meet with; these are piled at the end of the vineyard in a heap of about twenty feet square and six feet high, called a meurger.

On these meurgers the breezes of summer waft every description of seed, and they are consequently soon covered with verdure, shrubs, brambles, and wild roses, which from a distance give them the appearance of a small copse or thicket. These elevated and shady spots are the favourite retreats of game in the middle of the day; here they love to repose and take their siesta in the cool here the red partridges meet to have a gossip hither the young rabbits scuttle to recover their various alarms, and the trembling hare also squats and conceals herself the moment a dog or a gun appears in the adjoining vineyard. Of course these green mounds have a corresponding value in the eyes of the sportsmen, who always find in them something to put up.

Often, therefore, walking gently on the soft ground, have I stolen to one of these meurgers, and throwing in a stone, generally turned out some partridges and rabbits that were there quietly ensconced; I have also, and greatly to my surprise, heard there the growl of a wolf, which, rising lazily amongst the bushes, stumbled and fell, and was evidently incapable of getting further. A salute from both barrels, with small shot, scarcely tickled his skin; but it brought him once more on his legs, though only to fall again, when, having reloaded, I advanced on him and administered a double dose in his ear, which had the desired effect. The fact was, he was quite drunk, though not disorderly.

These wolves, during the ardent heats of August, suffer dreadfully from thirst; and finding no water, take to the vineyards, and endeavour to assuage it by eating large quantities of grapes, very cool, and no doubt very delightful at the time; but the treacherous juice ferments, Bacchanalian fumes soon infect their brain, and for several hours these gentlemen are for a time entirely deprived of their senses. What a field for Father Mathew; but never, I am certain, has the worthy Apostle of Temperance ever dreamed of offering the pledge to the wolves of Le Morvan the rub would be to hang the medal round the necks of these Bacchanals of the forest.