THE ROYAL HUNT IN FRANCE

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 châsse” 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 Medici, wife of Henri II.

Francis, in company with his sons, had gone to Marseilles to meet the Medici 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 Jurancon than the finest cru in Paris cellars.

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 allee, the vue, the changement de forêt, the accompagne, the bat l’eau, the hallali par terre, and the curee.

The “Curee 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 curee, 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 curee takes place at the spot where the animal is actually killed the French sporting term for the ceremony is “force 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 curee 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 venerie 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 curee 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 Medici, 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 châsse, 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 châsse 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.

Note of the Maitre d’Hotel for collations for the guests 8,226 francs

Illuminations 1,080 francs

Gratifications to the beaters 1,000 francs

Eau de Cologne for the ladies 30 francs

Gun-bearers 148 francs

Helpers (150) 600 francs

Aids (200) 315 francs

Another hunt was given in 1811, in honour of Napoleon, when such items as three thousand francs for an orchestra, a like sum for bouquets for the ladies, a thousand or two for bonbons and fans, and twelve thousand for hired furniture, etc., to say nothing of the expenses of the hunt itself, made the bag somewhat costly. It was not always easy for the master of the hunt to get justice when it came to paying for his supplies, and in these same records a mention of a dozen leather breeches at a hundred and forty francs each was crossed off and a marginal note, Non, added in the hand of Marechal Berthier, Prince de Wagram, himself.

The chief figure in the French hunting world of to-day is another descendant of the Napoleonic portrait gallery, Prince Murat. At the age of twelve the young Prince Joachim had already followed the hounds at Fontainebleau and Compiegne. In his double quality of relative and companion of the Prince Imperial he was one of the chiefs of the equipment of the Imperial Hunt. To-day, though well past the span of life, he is as active and as enduring in his participation in the strenuous sport as many a younger man and his knowledge of the grand art of venerie, and his ardour for being always ahead with the hounds, is noted by all who may happen to see him while jaunting through the Foret de Compiegne, keeping well up with the traditions of his worthy elder, the “Premier Cavalier” of the First Empire, the King of Naples.

He won his first stripes in the hunting field at Compiegne in 1868, at a hunt given in honour of the Prince de Hohenzollern and the Princesse, who was the sister of the King of Portugal. It was a most moving event, so much so that it just escaped being turned into a drama, for one of the ladies of the court had a leg broken, and the minister, Fould, was almost mortally injured. A “dix cors,” a stag with antlers of ten branches, had been run down at the Rond Royal where it had taken refuge in a near-by copse, and after an hour’s hard chase was finally cornered in the courtyard of some farm buildings of the Hameau d’Orillets. A troop of cows was entering the courtyard at the same moment, and a most confused melee ensued. The Inspector of Forests saved the situation and the cows of the farmer, and the stag fell to the carabine of Prince de la Moskowa, with the young Prince Murat on his pony in the very front rank.

Thus early initiated in the chivalrous sport of the hunt the young man followed every hunt, big or little, which was held in the environs of Paris for many years, and by the time that he came to possess the epaulettes of an Officier de Cuirassiers he was known to all the hunts from the Ardennes to Anjou.

For the past generation he has been retired to civil life by a Republican decree, and since that time has lived in his suburban Paris property, devoting himself to the raising of hunters. Here he lives almost on the borders of that great extent of forest which occupies the northern section of the Île de France, occasionally organizing a hunt, which takes on not a little of the noble aspect of a former time, the prince following always within sound of the hunting horn and the baying of the hounds, if not actually always within sight of the quarry.

It is here, in his Villa Normande, near which Saint Ouen gave Dagobert that famous counsel which has gone down in history, that the Prince and Princesse Murat come to pass two or three months each year with their children, their allied parents and the “great guns” of the old regime who still gather about the master of the hunt as courtiers gather around their king.

At Chamblay there have been held magnificent gun shoots under the organization of the prince and his equipage. His kennels contain forty-eight of the finest bred hounds in France, and are guarded by three caretakers, the goader, Carl, whose fame has reached every hunting court of Europe and a couple of valets des chiens. The prince’s colours are distributed as follows: a huzzar jacket of blue, with collar, plaquettes, and vest of grenadine and breeches of a darker blue.

Formerly Prince Murat hunted the roe-deer in the valley of the Oise, but many enclosures of private property having made this exceedingly difficult in later years he is to-day obliged to go farther afield. In the spring the equipage goes to Rosny, near Mantes, and perhaps during the same season occasionally to Rambouillet.

The hunts at Chamblay are the perfection of the practice of the art. Seldom is the quarry wanting. The refrain of the Ode to Saint Hubert lauds the prowess of this great “Maitre d’Equipage.”

“Par Saint Hubert mon patron
C’est quelque due de haut renom

Sonnez: ecuyers et piqueux
Un Murat vien en ces lieux.”

Chamblay fortunately being neither populous nor near a great town there is no throng of curious spectators hovering about to get in the way and scare the game and the hounds and their followers out of their wits. The Chasse de Chamblay is the devotion of the vrais veneurs; the Prince Murat and his son, the Prince Joachim, (to-day at the military school at Saint Cyr), the Prince Eugene Murat, the Comte de Vallon, the Baron de Neuflize and a few famous veneurs in gay uniforms come from afar to give eclat to the hunt of the master. And the ladies: the following names are of those devoted to the prowess of the Prince Murat Madame la Princesse, la Princesse Marguerite Murat, Mademoiselle d’Elchingen, the Duchesse and the Marquise d’Albufera, the Duchesse de Camestra, and Madame Kraft.

From this one sees that romance is not all smouldering. If other proof were wanting a perusal of that most complete and interesting account of the hunt in France in modern times, “Les Châsses de Rambouillet” (Ouvrage offert par Monsieur Felix Faure) would soon establish it. This was not a work destined for the public at large. The hunt was ever a sport of kings in France, and though France has become Republican its Chasse Nationale at Rambouillet partakes not a little of the aspect of those courtly days when there was less up-to-dateness and more sentiment.

There were but one hundred copies of this work printed for the friends of the late president of the Republic “Other Sovereigns,” as the dedication reads, “Princes, Grand Dukes, Ambassadors.”

Rambouillet was the theatre of the most splendid hunts of the sixteenth century, and down through the ages it has ever held a preeminent place; holds it to-day even. Louis XVI in the Revolutionary torment even regretted the cutting off of his prerogative of the royal hunt, but he had no choice in the matter. In his journal of 1789 one reads: “the cerf runs alone in the Parc en Bas” (Rambouillet), and again in 1790: “Seance of the National Assembly at noon; Audience of a deputation in the afternoon. The deer plentiful at Gambayseuil.”

The Revolution felled many French institutions; low, great, ecclesiastical and monarchial monuments, the trees of the forest, and the royal game, by a system of poaching, had become greatly diminished in quantity.

The nineteenth century, so frankly democratic in its latter years, was less favourable to the hunt than the monarchial days which had gone before. It had a considerable prominence under Charles X, more perhaps than it ever had under Napoleon, who in his infancy and laborious adolescence had few opportunities of following it; and in the later years of his life he was too busy.

Napoleon III was not really a “good hunter,” though he was something of a marksman and took a considerable pride in his skill in that accomplishment.

Entering the democratic era, Jules Grevy seems to have been only a pot-hunter of the bourgeoisie, who practiced the art only because he wanted a jugged hare for his dinner, or again simply to kill time.

Sadi-Carnot was still less a hunter of the romantic school, but assisted frequently at the ceremonial shootings which were arranged for visiting monarchs. On one occasion he was put down on the record-sheet of a hunt at Rambouillet as responsible only for the death of eighteen heads, whilst a visiting Grand Duke pulled down a hundred and fifty.

It was notably during the presidency of Felix Faure that Rambouillet again took on its animation of former times. The chateau had been furbished up once more after a long sleep, and, to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants of the town, there were more comings and goings than there had been for a quarter of a century.

In the summer and autumn the president made Rambouillet his preferred residence, and there received many visiting sovereigns and notables of all ranks. In one year a score of “Official Hunts” were held, to which all the members of the diplomatic corps were invited, while there were two or three affairs of an “International” character in honour of visiting sovereigns.

All was under the control of the Grand Veneur of the Third Republic, the Comte de Girardin, and while a truly royal flavour may have been lacking the general aspect was much the same as it might have been in the days of the monarchy. The Captain of the Hunt under Felix Faure was the Inspector of Forests, Leddet, and the Premier Veneur was the Commandant Lagarenne.

The president himself was a marksman of the first rank, and never was there a reckoning up of the tableau but that he was near the head of the list. So accomplished was he with the rifle that on more than one occasion he was obliged to practically efface himself in favour of some visiting monarch, as it was said he did in the case of the King of Portugal in 1895, the Grand Ducs Vladimir and Nicolas in 1896.

Huntsmen not royal by virtue of title, or alliance, the Republican president beat to a stand-still. He had no pity nor favour for a mere ambassador, whether he hailed from England or Germany, nor for members of the Institute, Senators nor Deputies. With Prince Albert of Monaco he held himself equal, and for every bird shot on the wing by the head of the house of Grimaldi the “longshoreman” of Havre brought down another.

La châsse a courre before the law in France to-day may be practiced only under strictly laid down conditions. The huntsman must legally have his dogs under such control, and keep sufficiently close to them, as to be able to recover the quarry immediately after it has been closed in upon by the hounds.

Like shooting, since the Decree of 1844, hunting with hounds may only be undertaken under authority of a permis de châsse, and in open season, during the daytime, and with the consent of the owners over whose properties the hunt is to be held.

The ceremony of the hunt in France now follows the traditions of the classic hunt of the monarchy. The veneur decides on the rendezvous, whether the quarry be stag or chevreuil, fox or hare. The piqueur follows close up with the dogs, sets them on or calls them off, and recalls them if they go off on a false scent.