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Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches

by Henri de Crignelle · English · Gutenberg #28573 · 417,068 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches

Author: Henri de Crignelle

Translator: William Jesse


        
Release date: April 21, 2009 [eBook #28573]
                Most recently updated: January 4, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28573

Credits: Produced by Julia Miller, Greg Bergquist and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LE MORVAN, [A DISTRICT OF FRANCE,] ITS WILD SPORTS, VINEYARDS AND FORESTS; WITH LEGENDS, ANTIQUITIES, RURAL AND LOCAL SKETCHES ***




Produced by Julia Miller, Greg Bergquist and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at
http://gallica.bnf.fr)






Transcriber's Note

The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully
preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.


[Illustration]




  LE MORVAN,

  [A DISTRICT OF FRANCE,]

  ITS

  WILD SPORTS, VINEYARDS AND FORESTS;

  WITH

  Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches.

  BY

  HENRI DE CRIGNELLE,

  ANCIEN OFFICIER DE DRAGONS.

  TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT IN FRENCH,

  BY

  CAPTAIN JESSE,

  AUTHOR OF "NOTES OF A HALFPAY;" "LIFE OF BRUMMELL;"
  "MURRAY'S HAND-BOOK FOR RUSSIA," ETC., ETC.

  SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT-STREET.

  1851.

  LONDON:
  PRINTED BY WILLIAM TYLER,
  BOLT-COURT.




PREFACE.


Born in one of the most beautiful provinces of France, in a country of
noble forests and extensive vineyards; brought up in the open air amidst
the blue hills, and ever wandering over the fields and mountains with a
gun on my arm--all the hours of my youth, if I may so say, were spent in
search of partridges and hares in the dewy stubbles, and in the pursuit
of the wild cat and the boar in the shady depths of the woods.

When relating the adventures of these different shooting rambles to a
friend, talking over with him our mode of sporting so different from
that of England, and when in imagination I carried him along with me
into the dells and dark ravines, and described to him the chase and
death-struggle of the ferocious wolf, or the odd characters and
antediluvian customs of the primitive people amongst whom I passed the
days of my happy boyhood, astonished, he could hardly believe that such
sports and such singular personages existed within so short a distance
of his own country.

"Why not scribble all this?" he would say, "your sketches would make
capital light reading."

"But to write is not easy; and, besides, what a poor figure I and my
dogs and wolves, woodcocks and vineyards, would cut after the terrible
Mr. Gordon Cumming. How could any description of mine interest the
public in comparison with those of that famous shot and his three
coffee-coloured Hottentots, with his bands of panthers and giraffes, his
troops of yellow lions dancing sarabands round the fountains, and his
jungles and swamps swarming with elephants and hippopotami?"

"But we might be able to go to Le Morvan," said my friend, "whereas few
indeed, if they wished it, can go to the South of Africa to shoot
elephants through the small ribs; neither is it probable that many of us
would like to pass several years of their valuable lives shut up in a
loose, rolling, sea-bathing-machine-like wagon, with their own beloved
shadow alone for all Christian company. Let us have a narrative of your
exploits?"

"You do not consider what you ask," I replied; "my gossip may have
amused you, but the effusions of my pen would to a certainty make you
yawn like graves."

"Nonsense," whispered the flatterer, "you will open to us a new country,
you will confer a real service upon hundreds of restless Englishmen, who
when summer comes know not for the life of them where to go, or where
not to go;--write your work, and advise them to turn their steps to Le
Morvan at the time of the vintage."

But now another, a huge difficulty, sprung up. Printers do not lend
their types for nothing any more than they give gratis their time and
paper. To publish a book is always an expensive affair; misfortune,
which had touched me with its wing, which has been the sad guest of my
house, deprived me of the power of undertaking it myself: and where to
find a person so generous as to take upon himself the responsibility of
the undertaking? Happily I was in England, in the land of kind hearts
and warm sympathies. A noble lady, the mother of a distinguished English
nobleman, who passes her life in doing good, took an interest in my
forlorn history, and was pleased to honour me with her patronage. With
this mantle of protection thrown around me, and my generous friend
having undertaken to bear the responsibilities of publishing, the
difficulties were soon swept away, and Le Morvan was written.

I had hoped that I should in this Preface be permitted to mention her
name, which would have been less a compliment to her than an honour to
me; but her modesty has refused this public acknowledgment of my
unbounded gratitude,--a veil of respectful reserve shall therefore
remain suspended over her name. As for me and mine, we shall treasure it
in our thankful hearts--every day shall we pray that the Great Giver of
all good may confer upon her His most precious and gracious blessings.

  HENRI DE CRIGNELLE.

LONDON, _August_, 1851.


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

English propensity to ramble--Where and how--Le
Morvan--Vezelay--Description of the town--Historical associations
connected with it--Charles IX.--Persecutions of the Protestants--View
from Vezelay--Scenery and wild sports--The Author--Object of the
Work      _p._ 1


CHAPTER II.

Le Morvan--Forests--Climate--Patriarchs and Damosels--Peasants of the
plain and the mountains--Jovial Curés--Their love of Burgundy--The
Doctor and the Curé      14


CHAPTER III.

Geology--Fossil shells--Antediluvian salmon--The Druids--Chindonax, the
High Priest--Roman antiquities--Julius Cæsar's hunting-box--Lugubrious
village--Carré-les-Tombes--The Inquisitive Andalusian      26


CHAPTER IV.

Le Morvan during the Middle Ages--Legendary horrors--Forest of La
Goulotte--La Croix Chavannes--La Croix Mordienne--Hôtel de
Chanty--Château de Lomervo--A French Bluebeard--Citadel of Lingou      35


CHAPTER V.

Castle of Bazoche--Maréchal de Vauban--Relics of the old
Marshal--Memorials of Philipsburg--Hôtel de Bazarne--Madame de
Pompadour's maître d'hôtel--Proof of the _curés'_ grief--Farm of St.
Hibaut--Youthful recollections--Monsieur de Cheribalde--Navarre the
Four-Pounder--His culverin      43


CHAPTER VI.

Bird's-eye view of the forests--The student's visit to his uncle in the
country--Sallies forth in the early morning--Meets a cuckoo--Follows
him--The cuckoo too much for him--Gives up the pursuit--Finds he has
lost his way--Agreeable vespers--Night in the forest--Wolves--Up a beech
tree--A friend in need--The student bids adieu to Le Morvan      55


CHAPTER VII.

Charms of a forest life to the sportsman--The Poachers--Le Père
Séguin--His knowledge of the woods and of the rivers--The first buck--A
bad shot      65


CHAPTER VIII.

Le Père Séguin's collation--The young sportsman and the hare--The
quarrel--The apology--The reconciliation--The cemetery--Bait for
barbel--Le Père Séguin's deceased friends--The return home      75


CHAPTER IX.

Passage of the woodcock in November--Laziness of that bird--Night
travelling--Mode of snaring them at night--Numbers taken in this
way--This sport adapted rather for the poacher--The _braconnier_ of Le
Morvan--His mode of life--The poacher's dog--The double poacher      88


CHAPTER X.

The woodcock--Its habits in the forests of Le Morvan--Aversion of dogs
to this bird--Timidity of the woodcock--Its cunning--Shooting in
November--The Woodcock mates--The Woodcock fly      100


CHAPTER XI.

Fine names--Gustavus Adolphus and the cabbages--Gustavus Adolphus no
hero!--The Parisian Sportsman--Partridge shooting despicable--Wild
boar-hunting--Rousing the grisly monster--His approach--The post of
honour--Good nerves--The death--The trophy and congratulations      117


CHAPTER XII.

The _Mares_--Manner in which they are formed in the depths of the
forest--_Mare_ No. 1.--Description of it--The appearance of the
spot--Mode of constructing the hunting-lodge--Approach of the
birds--Animals that frequent the _Mares_ in the evening      141


CHAPTER XIII.

Appearance of the _Mare_ in the morning--Forest etiquette--Mode of
obtaining possession of the best _Mare_--Every subterfuge fair--The
jocose sportsman--The quarrel--Reveries in the hut--Comparison between
meeting a lady and watching for a wolf      157

CHAPTER XIV.

_Mare_ No. 2.--Description of it--Not sought after by the sportsman--The
sick banker--The doctor's prescription--The patient's disgust at it--Is
at length obliged to yield--Leaves Paris for Le Morvan--Consequences to
the inmates of the château--The banker convalescent      170


CHAPTER XV.

Summer months in the Forest--_Mare_ No. 3.--Description of it--The
Woodcock fly--The Banker has a day's sport--Arrives at the
_Mare_--Difficult to please in his choice of a hut--Proceeds to a larger
_Mare_--His friends retire--The Banker on the alert for a Wolf or a
Boar--Fires at some animal--The unfortunate discovery--Rage of the
Parisian--Pays for his blunder, and recovers his temper      188


CHAPTER XVI.

The _Curé_ of the Mountain--Toby Gold Button--Hospitality--The _Curé's_
pig--His hard fate and reflections--The _Curé_ of the plain--His worth
and influence--The agent of the Government--Landed Proprietors--Their
influence--The Orator--Dialogue with a Peasant      207


CHAPTER XVII.

The wolf--His aspect and extreme ferocity--His cunning in hunting his
prey--His unsocial nature--Antiquity of the race--Where found, and their
varieties--Annihilated in England by the perseverance of the kings and
people--Decrees and rewards to encourage their destruction by
Athelstane, John, and Edward I.--Death of the last wolf in
England--Death of the last in Ireland      221


CHAPTER XVIII.

The _battues_ of May and December--The gathering of
sportsmen--Preparations in the forest--The _charivari_--The fatal
rush--Excitement of the moment--The volley--The day's triumph, and the
reward--The peasants returning--Hunting the wolf with
dogs--Cub-hunting--The drunken wolf      236


CHAPTER XIX.

Wolf-hunting, an expensive amusement--The _Traquenard_--Mode of setting
this trap--A night in the forest with Navarre--The young lover--Dreadful
accident that befell him--His courage and efforts to escape--The fatal
catastrophe--The poor mad mother      248


CHAPTER XX.

Shooting wolves in the summer--The most approved baits to attract
them--Fatal error--Hut-shooting--Silent joviality--The approach of the
wolves--The first volley--The retreat--The final slaughter--The
sportsman's reward--The farm-yard near St. Hibaut--The dead colt--The
onset--Scene in the morning--Horrible accident--The gallant
farmer--Death of the wolves, the dogs, and the peasant--The wolf-skin
drum--Anathema of the naturalists      261


CHAPTER XXI.

Fishing in Le Morvan--The naturalist--The _Gour_ of Akin--The English
lady--The mountain streams--Château de Chatelux--Sermiselle--New mode of
killing pike--Pierre Pertuis--The rocks and whirlpool there--The syrens
of the grotto--Château des Panolas--The Cousin--The ponds of Marot and
lakes of Lomervo--Mode of taking fish with live trimmers--The Scotch
farmer      280


CHAPTER XXII.

Village _fêtes_--The first of May--The religious festivals--The _Fête
Dieu_--Appearance of the streets--The altars erected in them--Procession
from the church--Country fairs--The book-stalls at them--Pictures of the
Roman Catholic Church--Before the _Vendange_--Proprietor's hopes and
fears--Shooting in the vineyards--The first day of the
_Vendange_--Appearance of the country--Influx of visitors at this
season--The consequences--Herminie--Her sad history--Le
Morvan--Recommended to the English traveller--Lord Brougham and
Cannes--Contrast between it and Le Morvan      297





LE MORVAN.




CHAPTER I.

     English propensity to ramble--Where and how--Le
     Morvan--Vezelay--Description of the town--Historical associations
     connected with it--Charles IX.--Persecutions of the
     Protestants--View from Vezelay--Scenery and wild sports--The
     Author--Object of the Work.


Every nation has its characteristics, and amongst those which are
peculiar to the genius of the English people, is their ardent and
insatiable love of wandering.

To locomote is absolutely necessary to every Englishman; in his heart is
profoundly rooted a passion for long journeys; each and all of them, old
and young, healthy and sickly, would if they could take not merely the
grand tour, but circulate round the two hemispheres with all the
pleasure imaginable. At a certain period of the year, when the
weathercock points the right way, the sun burns in the sign of the
Lion, and the husbandman bends his weary form to gather in the golden
corn, the legs of the rich Englishman begin to be nervously agitated, he
feels a sense of suffocation, and pants for change--of air, of place, of
everything; he girds up his loins, and without throwing a glance behind
him, it is Hey, Presto! begone! and he is off. Where?

It is autumn, blessed autumn, the season of harvest and sunny days; the
English are everywhere--they fly from their own dear island like clouds
of chilly swallows, light upon Europe as thick as thrushes in an
orchard, and are soon mingled with every nation of the earth, like the
blue corn flowers in the ripe barley fields. Yes, from north to south,
from east to west, go where you will, you cannot proceed ten miles
without meeting a smiling rosy English girl coquettishly concealed under
her large green veil, and a grave British gentleman, whistling to the
wide world in the sheer enjoyment of having nothing to do but to look at
it.

I have seen green veils climbing the Pyramids; I have seen green veils
diving down into the dark mines of the Oural; I have seen an English
gentleman perched like a chamois on the top of St. Bernard, hat in hand,
roaring "God save the Queen." I have seen some sipping Syracusan wine,
puffing a comfortable cloud from obese cigars, most irreverently seated
in the big nose of St. Carlo Borromeo. One-half of England is gone to
China, the other half to Africa; these will speak to you of Kamschatka,
those of the mountains of the Moon, just as a London cockney or a
Parisian _badaud_ would speak to you of Greenwich or of Bagnolet. Some
have boxed with the bears of the Pyrenees; others have killed lions and
tigers by dozens; one has crossed the Nile on a crocodile, another vows
he waltzed with a dying hippopotamus, and several have bagged
camelopards and elephants by scores. In short, they have trodden with a
bold disdainful step all the high-roads and by-roads of our wondrous
planet, displaying, in every quarter of the compass, the daring and
devil-may-care spirit of their youth and the spleen of their mature age,
as well as the yellow guineas from their long and well-filled purses.

Well, then, ask of all this wandering tribe, who boast of having been
everywhere, and seen everything; ask those travelling birds who have
flown through France and Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Palestine;
who have sledged in Russia and fished in Norway; who have lost
themselves in the prairies of the far West, or in the Pampas, the
gorges of the Andes, or the Alleghanies; who have bronzed their
epidermis in the fierce heat of the tropics, or moistened their fair
_chevelure_ in the diamond spray of Niagara; who have, in fine,
journeyed through calm and hurricane, snow-storms, sirocco, and simoom;
who have rubbed noses--male noses--of the tattooed savage; mounted
donkeys, ostriches, camelopards, lamas, and dromedaries; mules, wild
asses, negroes, and elephants; ask them all if once in their lives--one
single once--they have seen or even heard of LE MORVAN?

Not one of these thousands will answer yes. Le Morvan, where is it? what
is Le Morvan? Is it a mountain, a church, a river, a star, a flower, a
bird? Le Morvan, who knows anything about Le Morvan? Echo answers, "Who
knows?" Paddy Blake's replies, "Nobody." And yet all of you roving
English, who delight in athletic sports and rural scenes--the forest
glade and murmuring streams, a view halloo and the gallant hound; who
love the bleak and healthy moors, the cool retreats, the flowery paths,
and mountain solitudes, how happy would you be in Le Morvan. Where,
then, is Le Morvan?

Le Morvan is a district of France, in which are included portions of the
departments of the Nièvre and the Yonne, having on the west the
vineyards of Burgundy, and on the east the mountains of the Nivernois.
Its ancient and picturesque capital, Vezelay, crowns a hill 2,000 feet
in height, and commands a panoramic view of the country for thirty miles
round. It has all the characteristics of a town of the feudal times,
with high embattled and loopholed walls, numerous towers, and deep and
strong gateways, under which are still to be seen the grooves of the
portcullis, the warder's guard-room, and the hooks that supported the
heavy drawbridge.

The capital of Le Morvan partially owed its rise to a celebrated
nunnery, founded by Gerard de Roussillon, a great hero of romance and
chivalry, who lived, loved, and fought under Pepin, the father of the
grand Charlemagne. This nunnery, which was sacked and burnt to the
ground by the Saracens, those terrible warriors of the East, was
restored in the ninth century, and fortified; and as the sainted inmates
were believed to have amongst their relics a tress of the golden hair of
the beautiful and repentant Magdalen, troops of the faithful--and people
were ready to believe a great deal in those days--flocked to Vezelay,
when it soon became a large and flourishing town.

In the tenth century, when the people, in their endeavour to shake off
a few links of their fetters, refused to bend their bodies in the dust
before their lords and their minds before their priests--when the seeds
of liberty, till then lying in unprofitable ground, though watered for
centuries by the tears of tyranny and oppression, first germinated and
rose above the earth, who gave the signal of resistance in France?--the
inhabitants of Vezelay. Yes; it is to her citizens that the honour
belongs of having first refused to submit to the power, the domineering
power, of political and ecclesiastical rule; it was her brave
inhabitants who, assembling in secret, thought not of the peril, but,
having promised help and protection one to the other, flew to arms. A
short and desperate struggle ensued, but the victory remained in the
hands of the abbot of Vezelay. Hundreds of brave men were put, without
mercy, to the sword, and many, with less mercy, burnt alive or died by
the torture in the dark dungeons of the abbatical palace. Vezelay still
preserves in its archives the names of twelve of these martyrs.

Again in the twelfth century, when the cry to the rescue of the Holy
Sepulchre shook all Europe, and every nation poured forth her tens of
thousands to drive the infidel from that land in which their Redeemer
had lived and died an ignominious and cruel death, it was at Vezelay
that Pope Eugenius III. assembled a great council of the princes of the
church, the great barons, and chivalry of those times. It was in her
immense cathedral, one of the oldest and largest in the kingdom, amidst
the clang of arms, war cries, and religious chaunts, and in the presence
of Louis le Jeune, King of France, that St. Bernard preached, in 1146,
the Second Crusade.

Vezelay is celebrated as having been the birth-place of Beza, the great
Protestant Reformer (1519), who succeeded not only to the place but to
the influence of Calvin, and was, after that eminent man's death,
regarded as the head and leader of the Genevese church.

It was to Vezelay, the only town that dared to offer them the protection
of its walls, that the unfortunate Protestants fled after the horrible
massacre of St. Bartholomew's--the base political cruelty of the brutal
homicide, Charles IX. Tracked and hunted down like wild beasts, and a
price set upon their heads, they found staunch and noble hearts in the
inhabitants of Vezelay; but, ere long, an army of their insatiable foes
arrived and besieged the town, and treachery at a postern one stormy
night made them masters of it, when scenes of horror followed under the
mask of religion that even at this distance of time make one recoil with
terror and disgust at the dogmas of the corrupt faith which dictated
them.

Roasting men alive, and boiling women, dashing out the brains of many a
cherub boy and prattling girl, was the pleasing and satisfactory pastime
with which Pope Gregory, Catherine de Medicis, and her congenial son
gladdened their Christian hearts. The blood of their victims still cries
to us from the ground of their Golgotha; for on the south side of the
town there is a large green field, called _Le Champ des Huguenots_. The
damning fact, from which this spot received its name, has been handed
down to us by the historian. It is as follows:

The Catholics, having instituted a strict search in the woods and
caverns of the environs, made so many prisoners that they were puzzled
what to do with them--nay, in what manner they should take their lives.
Among many ingenious experiments, it was suggested that they should bury
them alive up to their necks in the field to which we have alluded; and
this was accordingly done with nine of them, whose heads were bowled at
with cannon-balls taken from the adjoining rampart, as if they had been
blocks of wood instead of live human heads. The shrieks of the
miserable beings excited no compassion; on the contrary, it afforded
amusement to their executioners: so that games of skittles upon the same
principle were played the whole length of this meadow.

Turning aside from these execrable deeds of man to the works of Nature
and of Nature's God, which have always been and always must be lovely
and worthy of our deepest admiration, let us dwell for a moment upon the
splendid view from the castle-terrace, which forms the principal
promenade of Vezelay. Shaded by large and venerable trees, through the
lofty branches of which many a storm has howled for nearly four hundred
years, the sight from hence is one of the finest panoramic views in
France.

All around, whether on the slope of the hills by the river-side, in the
middle distance, or near the mountains which form the horizon, are seen
hundreds of little villages, and many a white villa scattered among the
green vines as daisies on the turf. To the left and right are St. Père
and Akin, two hamlets, which seem like faithful dogs sleeping at the
foot of the mountain crowned by Vezelay. The province in which this
cloud-capped fortress-town is situated is a retired spot out of the
beaten track of the tourist, the man of business, or the man of
pleasure--lost, as it were, in the very heart of beautiful France, like
a wild strawberry in the depth of the forest--encircled by woods, and
unknown to the foreigner, who, in his rapid journey to Geneva or to
Lyons, almost elbows it without dreaming of its existence.

Le Morvan rears in its sylvan depths a population of hardy and honest
men and lovely women, fresh as roses, and gay as butterflies. There the
soft evening breezes are charged with the songs of ten thousand birds,
the odours of the eglantine, the lily of the valley, and the violet,
which, shaking off its winter slumbers, opens its dark blue eye and
combines its perfume with that of its snowy companion.

Le Morvan is a country that would delight an Englishman, for it is full
of game; here the sportsman may vary his pleasures as fancy dictates.
The forest abounds with deer; the plain with rabbits and the timid hare;
and in the vineyards, during the merry season of the vintage, the fat
red-stockinged and gray-clad partridges are bagged by bushels. Here the
sportsman may watch in the open glades the treacherous wild cat and the
bounding roebuck; and, should these sports appear too tame, he may, if
foot and heart are sound, plunge into the dark recesses of the forest
in pursuit of the savage and grisly boar, or the fierce and prowling
wolf.

When evening comes, bringing with it peace and rest to the industrious
peasant, when the moon shall light her bright lamp in the star-spangled
heavens, and shed her silvery rays across the plain, the hunter may lead
forth the village belle, and foot it merrily on the mossy greensward, to
the sound of the bagpipe and the rustic flute, by fountains which never
cease their monotonous but soothing plaint, and under the long shadows
of the ancient oaks and tall acacias.

Happiness, says Solomon, consists not in the possession of that gold for
which men toil so unremittingly and grave deep wrinkles on the heart and
brow. Happiness lights not her torch at the crystal lustres in the halls
of royalty; she rarely chooses for her home the marble palaces of the
wealthy, nor is she often the companion of the great, robed in costly
apparel; rarely does she braid her hair with pearls, or wear the rosy
lightning of the ruby on her fair bosom.

Happiness is known only to him who, free and contented, lives unknown in
his little corner, deaf to the turmoil and insensible to the excitements
of the selfish crowd, and ignorant of the sorrows and sufferings of
great cities. She is found in the enjoyment of the sunshine and the open
air, in the shady groves and flowery fields, by the side of the
murmuring brooks, and in the society of the gay, frank, and
simple-minded peasant of my own dear country. Oh! my white and pretty
_pavillon_, whose walls are clad with fragrant creepers and the luscious
vine, whose porch is scented with the woodbine and the rose--oh! lovely
valleys, dark forests, deep blue lakes which sleep unruffled in the
bosom of the hills, beautiful vine-clad hills, where in the morning of
my youth I chased those flying flowers, the bright and painted
butterflies--oh! when, when shall I see you all again--like the bird of
passage, which, when the winter is over, returns to his sunny home? When
shall I see thee again? Oh! my sweet Le Morvan! Oh! my native land!
Happy, thrice happy they who cherish in their hearts the love of nature,
who prefer her sublime and incomparable beauties to the false and
artificial works of man, accumulated with so much cost and care within
the walls of her great cities. Happy, too, are those who have not been
carried away by the fatal flood of misfortune from the paternal hearth,
who have always lived in sight of that home which sheltered their merry
childhood, and whose lives, pure and peaceful as the noiseless stream of
the valley, close in calmness and serenity like the twilight of a bright
summer's day.




CHAPTER II.

     Le Morvan--Forests--Climate--Patriarchs and Damosels--Peasants of
     the plain and the mountaineer--Jovial Curés--Their love of
     Burgundy--The Doctor and the Curé.


Le Morvan, anciently Morvennium, or Pagus Morvinus, as Cæsar calls it in
his Commentaries, comprises, as we have before remarked, a portion of
the departments of the Nièvre and the Yonne, lying between vine-clad
Burgundy and the mountains of the Nivernois. Its productions are
various; in the plains are grown wheat, rye, hemp, oats, and flax: on
the mountain side the grape is largely cultivated; and in the valleys
are rich verdant meadows, where countless droves of oxen, knee-deep in
the luxuriant grass, feed and fatten in peace and abundance.

But the real and inexhaustible wealth of Le Morvan is in its forests. In
these several thousand trees are felled annually, sawn into logs,
branded and thrown by cart-loads into the neighbouring torrent, which,
on reaching a more tranquil stream, are lashed into rafts, when they
drift onwards to the Seine, and are eventually borne on the waters of
that river to the capital. The forests of the Nièvre are some of the
most extensive in France; thick and dark, and formed of ancient oaks,
maple, and spreading beech, they cover nearly 200,000 acres of ground.
Those of the Yonne are larger but of a character far less wild.

The climate of this part of France is delightful; with the exception of
occasional showers, very little rain falls; the sky is serene, and
scarcely ever is a vagabond cloud seen in the ethereal blue to throw a
shadow upon the lovely landscape beneath. For six months of the year the
sun is daily refulgent in the heavens, and sets evening after evening in
all his glorious majesty. But in the woods it is not thus; the storms
there are sometimes terrible, and, like those of the tropics, arise and
terminate with wonderful rapidity. These tempests, which purify the
atmosphere, leave behind them a delicious coolness, the trees and
shrubs, as they shake from their trembling leaves their sparkling tears,
appear so bright--the flowers which raise again their drooping heads,
load the air with such delightful odours--the whole forest, in short,
seems so refreshed and full of life, that every one hails their
approach, the toil-worn peasant breathes without complaint the sultry
air, and observes with pleasure the dark and lowering clouds gathering
in the far horizon.

From the mountains, those huge ladders of granite that God has planted
upon the earth, as if to invite ungrateful man to come nearer to him,
descend many a stream and dancing rill of pure and crystal waters. No
part of France can be said to be more salubrious. "Centenarians" are by
no means uncommon, and a patriarch of that age may be found in several
families.

When Sunday comes, always a _jour de fête_ as well as a day of prayer,
it is very pleasing to see one of these venerable men, dressed in his
best clothes, walking to church at the head of his children,
grand-children, and great grand-children. Long and of snowy whiteness is
his hair, and glossy white as threads of purest silver is his beard--his
hat, of quaker broadness in the brim, is generally encircled, in the
early days of Spring, with a wreath of the common primrose, and his dark
cloth mantle, of home-spun fabric, hangs gracefully on his shoulders,
showing underneath it the dark red sash that girds his still healthy and
vigorous frame. Tall and grave, erect and majestic as the oaks of their
native forests, these patriarchs bespeak every one's respect, and when
looking on them you might imagine they were men of another age, a
generation of by-gone years, you might fancy them some ancient Druids
that have escaped from their dusty tombs, from centuries of night, to
tread once more the pathways of this planet.

And the women, heaven and earth! how sweetly pretty, how amiable and
adorable; and such eyes, dark and lustrous!--full of witchcraft, burning
and humid as an April sun after a shower. Some there are, also, of
pensive blue, pregnant with promises, soft and almond-shaped, like the
divine eyes of the Italian Cenci. Supple as the young and slender
branches of willow, are these divinities, fresh as new opened tulips,
and brisk and gay as the golden-speckled trout in the sparkling current.
In their charms is found a terrestrial paradise, a compound of delicious
qualities which intoxicate the senses, hook the heart, and like the bite
of the Sicilian tarantella, steep the loved one in delirium.

Yes, the women of Le Morvan are lovely, ardent, and tender-hearted as
the dove, especially those who dwell within the forest districts; for
nothing contributes so much to bring forth the loving principle of the
affections as the silent melancholy of the umbrageous woods, and the
soft and perfumed breezes that pervade them. Here, in the dusk and
stillness of the summer evenings, these wood-nymphs hear in the lofty
branches of the linden, the endearing love songs of the feathered tribe,
and when night throws its charitable gloom over their blushing cheeks,
they whisper at the trysting place what they have heard and seen to
their rustic admirers.

We have just briefly sketched the two extremes, the old men of Le Morvan
and its sprightly damosels: we must now mention the inhabitants
generally, and these vary like its productions according to locality.
The peasant of the plains is civil, gentle, and industrious, but cunning
and dangerous as an old fox; and if he thinks money may be squeezed from
your pocket, be sure there will be no sleep for him till he has taken
some out of it. Full of fun, he loves above all the dance, the song, the
merry laugh, and good cheer--and the uncorking of a bottle would be for
him a supreme delight, if this excellence itself was not superseded, by
the far greater blessedness of emptying it.

The inhabitant of the mountain, on the other hand, is sober, severe and
roughly barked--clothed with silence and gravity, smiling but once a
year--the day he has cheated a good man of the plain; he does not please
so much at first sight: but if in any danger, if you are surprised by a
hurricane, surrounded with wolves; or you have lost your way, in a night
as dark as the grave itself, you call and ask his help, oh! it is then
that his sterling qualities shine forth in all their splendour. Always
ready, always on the look out, the ear for ever bent to catch the
well-known sounds of the forest, the slightest indication of distress
awakes his vigilance; it is then he comes, it is then he flies, and his
arm, gun, and eyes--his cabin, dog, and lean horse are all at your
command.

Admirable example of courage and of devotedness: money for him is
nothing; happy to be useful, he obliges for the mere pleasure of
obliging. Many, many times have I seen poachers, cottagers,
charcoal-burners, and wood-cutters, poor as Job, hardly breeched, hungry
as a whole Irish borough, leave their work, their sport, their field,
their tree half down,--abandon in the roads, under the guard of the
dogs, their carts and oxen, and go some dozen of miles, through storm
and tempest, through rush, rock, and swamp, to set a sportsman in his
right way again. Without saying a word, with steps attendant on his
weary progress, they trudge on before, making a sign for him to follow;
and when they have placed him once more on his road, a nod, a shake of
the hand, a smile, a kind word falling from his lips, pays them the full
price of all their troubles. Never have I seen one of them accept the
least pecuniary reward for such services--they do nothing but their
duty, they say; and as they are happy in the firm conviction that the
whole forest belongs to them, they think they are only doing the honours
of their green drawing-rooms. Thus it always happens, that when, by
their good care, you have escaped certain danger, it is with great
difficulty, and only after a deluge of rhetoric, that they consent to
accept for their daughters or wives a red wool dress, a gold cross, or a
row of large blue Pundaram beads; or for themselves a few dozen of iron
bullets, a bag of shot, or a flask of powder. This abnegation, this
frankness of the heart, this kind sympathy for every stranger, is
universal among the mountaineers; these benevolent and kindly feelings
are a portion of their holy traditions, and as such are most religiously
grafted by every mother into the soft wax-like hearts of her dear little
ones.

But while delighting to describe the virtues of these denizens of the
forests, these amiable fauns and jolly satyrs, I must not forget those
jovial trencher-men, the _curés_ of Le Morvan. Every sportsman
possesses, or should possess, the digestion of an ostrich; for his
appetite is generally prodigious, and the viands that fall in his way
are not always the most savoury. When, however, the venison pasty, the
truffled turkey, or the _pain de gibier_ is within his reach, no one is
so capable of enjoying and doing justice to these delicacies of the
table, of knocking off so dexterously the neck of the champagne bottle
when the corkscrew is absent, or whose legs are stretched out so
gracefully at the sight of brimming glasses and _recherché_ viands.

In these, his fallen moments, and after a good day's sport, a Morvinian
would tell you he could drink all the Burgundian cellars dry,--aye, and
those of Champagne too; and as to smoking, why, he would smoke a whole
crop of tobacco.

To all keen sportsmen, therefore, who love good eating and wine, and
intend to pay a visit to Le Morvan, I would give this piece of advice,
and I would say to them, place it in the secret drawer of your memory;
nay, carry it written, and, if necessary, painted on your knapsack or
scratched upon your gun--fail not to make the acquaintance of the _curé_
the darling _curés_. Ask who are they that love the best _cuisine_--who
dote upon the most delicious morsels--who will have the oldest, purest,
and most generous wines?--you will be answered, the _curés_. For whom
are destined the largest trout, the fattest capons, and the best parts
of the venison?--for whom the softest and most choice liqueurs, wine of
the best _bouquet_, the largest truffles, the most luscious honey, the
best vegetables, and finest fruits?--for the _curés_. And the most
clever men-cooks, the happiest receipts, and latest culinary
inventions--for whom are they? the answer is always, _for messieurs les
curés_. Forget them not, therefore, for they are really worth
remembering; besides, they have excellent hearts and are capital
fellows, boon companions, full of _bonhommie_ and good-nature: in fact,
such _curés_ it is impossible to find anywhere else.

But the great Architect of the universe has said, nothing is
perfect--everything human has its weak point. Well, it cannot be helped,
and it must be told, the _curés_ of Le Morvan have their weak points;
trifles, to be sure--mere bagatelles--but still they have them. They are
rather _too_ fond of old wine and good cheer. These two charming little
defects excepted,--you have in the Morvinian _curé_ goodness double
distilled, and the essence of generosity, and, be it said, abnegation.
This love of the bottle they imbibe from their dear colleagues of
Burgundy; for it is well known, and has never been disputed, that the
Burgundian _curés_ are the greatest exterminators, uncorkers, and
emptiers of wine-bottles in all Christendom. The first thing these
jovial clergymen think of when they open their eyes in the morning, is
an invocation to Bacchus, somewhat in the following strain: "O Bacchus!
son of Semele, divine wine-presser! O vineyards! full of the purple
grape! O wine-press! inestimable machine!" &c. Their second movement is
to extend the right arm, and clasp within their digits a flask of old
Pouilli, the contents of which they swallow without once stopping to
take breath. "An infallible remedy," say they, "against the devil and
all future indigestions."

Fortified thus with this their first orison, they throw on their
cassock, and descend to the cellar, to count the bottles, or tap and
taste the barrels of some doubtful vintage. The thorough-bred Burgundian
_curé_, particularly one who has lived and got old and fat in the
solitude of a retired presbytery,--whose rubicund nose reveals his
admiration for the vineyards of his native province, and whose three
chins tell you that with pullets, and venison, and clouted cream he has
lined his scrip,--is certainly one of the most jovial and best of men.

Ask him for indulgences, absolution, masses and prayers for the living
and the dead; he will grant them all. Ask him for his niece in marriage;
ask him to marry you, to baptize you, to bury you; he will do it
all--yes, all for nothing! It is not in his nature to refuse anything.
Ask him for his new cassock, his cane, or his hat, his black silk
stockings, or his silver buckles, and they are yours. No one so ready to
forgive an insult or forget an injury as he. But, by the blood of the
Mirabels, give him not a bottle of bad or sour wine, for he will neither
forget nor forgive it; and above all things, never give him a hint that
it would be well if he gave up his favourite fluid, for be assured, you
would forfeit his friendship for ever. Sooner would he consent to lose a
leg or all his teeth, than give up his life-loved Burgundy! Tell him he
will have an attack of apoplexy; tell him that he will be taken off
suddenly by inflammation, and that water therefore should be his
beverage; he will reply with a smack of his lips, and a castanet noise
with his fingers. "Nonsense, my boy--stuff and rubbish! Pass the wine,
my son; pass it again. Pass the ham, gentlemen. Fill a bumper. Hurrah
for old Burgundy! hurrah for her wines! Confound the pale fluid, and a
fig for the gout!" Such are the ebullitions of his heart in his jovial
moments; and the following lines, which would spoil in the translation,
give a lively picture of them:

  "Pour trop bien boire un curé de Bourgogne
  De son pauvre oeil se trouvait déferré,
  Un docteur vint:--Voici de la besogne
  Dit-il, pour plus d'un jour;--Je patienterai!
  Ça vous boirez:--Eh bien! soit, je boirai!
  Quatre grands mois:--Plutôt douze, mon maître.
  Cette tisane!--A moi? hurla le prêtre,
  _Vade retro!_ Guérir par le poison!
  Non, par ma soif! perdons une fénètre,
  Puisqu'il le faut, mais--_Sauvons la Maison_."




CHAPTER III.

     Geology--Fossil shells--Antediluvian salmon--The Druids--Chindonax,
     the High Priest--Roman antiquities--Julius Cæsar's
     hunting-box--Lugubrious village--Carré-les-Tombes--The Inquisitive
     Andalusian.


Le Morvan, independently of its hunting and fishing, its lovely climate
and fine wines, pretty girls and jolly _curés_, possesses a more
important class of beauties and perfections, secrets and enigmas, over
which the _savans_ would pore and ponder through many a day and many a
night: those men who, like Eve, long to grasp the fatal apple--the apple
which destroys while it attracts--the apple whose flavour, alas! is so
bitter,--the apple of science. Let the geologists, who are ever bending
in earnest study over the mysteries of nature, and breaking stones by
the road-side,--who are ever seeking to analyse the _matériel_ of
creation,--who are always contemplating the internal and geognostic
constitution of the globe, the red or the blue clay, the yellow gravel,
the trappe, the limestone, the granite, or the slate, to satisfy
themselves what this poor planet is made of,--let them come and ransack
Le Morvan. Let them bring their hammers and chisels, their compasses and
barometers, and above all, their passport,--precious document! an
hundredfold more useful in France, in these liberty days, than a pair of
shoes or a shirt,--let them come, and I promise them endless
discoveries, a rich and ample harvest.

In the meadow lands, when, for the purpose of sinking wells, the soil is
penetrated to an immense depth, the workmen often come to thick strata
of schist, in which they find imbedded trunks and roots of trees, and
stalks of plants and ferns, which now grow in tropical climates only.

In the highest and steepest parts of the mountain chain may be found
marine petrifactions of every variety--the sea-hedgehog, the oyster, the
mussel, and the star-fish; and in the beds of trachytic rock, deposited
in such order that one might fancy they had been placed there by a
careful and tasty housewife, are layers of the most curious shells,
univalve, bivalve, sublivalve and multivalve, madrepors, and shapeless
remnants of creatures now no longer known, and petrified fish.

Some few years ago, an engineer, who was carrying a road through a rock
in the mountain called the Val d'Arcy, found a salmon in the most
perfect condition, even with head and tail, the unhappy wretch enclosed
in the heart of a large stone. I should certainly have pronounced this
fish to be a cod, had not science decided it was a salmon of a large
species--_genus salmo_, sixty vertebræ. It is now to be seen in the
Natural History department, section _Salmonidæ_, of the Museum in the
Jardin des Plantes, at Paris.

Poor old salmon! said I, and I took off my hat when I had the honour of
being presented to him; Poor old salmon! what wouldst thou have said,
some twelve or fifteen thousand years ago, when, free and glorious thou
didst pierce the briny waves,--when, perhaps, thou wast gambolling
amongst the pointed summits of the Alps, plunging in ecstacy into the
emerald depths of oceans now vanished,--what wouldst thou have said,
could the thought have crossed thy brain, that one day thou shouldst be
_here_? Under a glass! ticketted, numbered, pasted to the wall! forming
an item in a collection of things fabulous, and exhibiting thy venerable
form, thine antediluvian physiognomy, to thousands of _badauds_, who
either pass thee without a glance, or examine thee with unfeeling
curiosity, bestowing not a thought upon thy great age or thy cruel fate,
or with a whit more respect for thee and thine awful history, than a
cockney would show to a whitebait caught but yesterday in the Thames,
and served up to him as a fraction of his fishy feast at Blackwall.

Le Morvan, abounding in forests, was a district most congenial to the
gloomy spirit of the religion of the ancient Druids; and therefore, in
the earliest days of the history of France, they consecrated its groves
of splendid oaks to the performance of their terrible rites. Remains of
many of their massive monuments still exist, in the fields, in the deep
valleys, and on the tops of the hills. Antique and mysterious all of
them--three-pointed stones, three-cornered stones, and massive groups of
stones in mystic circle ranged, round which, the peasant will tell you
with bated breath, _les Gaurics_--the spirits of the giants--come to
weep and bewail on the first night of each new moon. During the last
century, a peasant, who was at work in a deep ditch in a beautiful field
of this district, came, in the course of his excavations, upon a stone
which indicated, that he was not far from one of those monuments with
which he was so familiar; and, upon further investigation, it proved to
be the black granite tomb of the famous Chindonax, the high-priest of
the Druids. It contained many relics--the sickle and the collar of
gold, the holy bracelets, the metal girdle, the sacrificial axe, the
knife of brass; and, in the midst, was a glass urn, containing a pinch
or two of grey powder--human dust! proud dust--sad and last remnant of
the Druid Chindonax.

Tumuli were, a century ago, very numerous in the uncultivated and desert
tract of Les Bruyères; but these little artificial hillocks are
disappearing very fast, for the peasants throw them down when they wish
to clear and level the ground. These tumuli always contain collars in
baked clay, arrow-heads, battle-axes of stone, pieces of crystal, and
other articles of a similar description.

Even Julius Cæsar, the cruel conqueror of Gaul, the pitiless victor of
Vercingetorix--Cæsar, who cut off the hands of the Gauls as the only
means of preventing them from fighting--Cæsar admired Le Morvan. He
loved that savage country, he delighted in it; in the deep gorges of its
mountains he pursued the large wolves and the wild boar, and in it he
established the custom of relays of dogs the whole length of the woods.

In this our day, on the summit of a mountain near the one on which is
built the town of Chinon, may be seen the thick strong walls of ancient
Roman buildings--buildings that have been fortified, bristling with
palisades, and surrounded by moats--where Cæsar had his principal
kennel, his hunting-box; in short, the spot which, in the third book of
his 'Commentaries,' he calls _Castrum Caninum_.

In the darkest and most sombre part of this forest, the lovers of
antiquity will arrest their steps, delighted, at the very curious
village of Carré-les-Tombes, so called from the immense number of tombs
formerly found in its environs. So very numerous were they, that in 1615
the Count de Chatelux, seigneur of the parish, had some of them sawn up
to build and pave the present church and tower of the steeple, and also
to roof the choir. They were seven or eight feet in length, and hollowed
out like troughs. Tradition says they were all found empty, with the
exception of five; in these reposed tall skeletons, blanched by time,
each having a helmet on his head, and a Roman sword by his side. The
stones of three only of these five tombs bore any inscription, name,
mark, or sign. On one was a double cross, very coarsely engraved; on the
second, a very large escutcheon, which the antiquaries, in spite of
their magnifying glasses, their science, and their patience, could never
decipher; and on the other, the most curious of the three, a Latin
inscription, in a legible, but very ancient character.

Having one day had the simplicity to translate this inscription to a
young and beautiful Andalusian widow, smart was the rap of the fan that
I had for my pains. I had parried her curiosity as long as I could, for
her dark and dangerous eyes and clear olive complexion, which betrayed
every pulse of her southern blood, combined to put me on my guard.
Reader, will you wonder?--here is the inscription:

     "Qui Dæmone pejus? Mulier rixosa: fug ..."

"But what does it mean?" said my curious brunette.

"Señora, that you are lovely."

"Stuff, sir! not at all;" and she tossed her graceful head pettishly; "I
really wish you to translate it."

"Well--here, then: '_Qui Dæmone pejus_'--dark women; '_mulier
rixosa_'--are the loveliest."

"No, no! I say; I am sure that is not it. Say it, word for word, or I
shall be angry--I vow I shall."

"Word for word!" What was I to do?

"Word for word," reiterated Dona Inez.

"Indeed, Señora, I don't know ... you would not forgive me."

"It is, then, something dreadful?"

"No, not exactly dreadful, but----"

"Dios! Dios! worlds of patience!" and she stamped her tiny foot; "will
you go on? You kill me with vexation. Translate it, I say, word for
word." And here the Dona, with discreet carelessness opening her fan,
prepared to blush.

"'_Qui Dæmone pejus_'--who is there worse than the devil? Hum!"--now for
the pinch, thought I.

"Go on! go on!--the next words."

"'_Mulier rixosa_'--is--a----"

"Well, go on, will you?"

"Yes--a quarrelsome woman!"

Like lightning the fan closed, fell upon the unlucky index of my left
hand, which was thoughtlessly reposing upon the arm of the _causeuse_,
and nearly knocked off the first joint, by way of reward for my
reluctant compliance with her feminine wishes.

"Excuse me, Señora," I said, after I had recovered my breath, "but you
are very unjust. I had nothing to do with writing this ungallant phrase;
it was a brutal Roman, no doubt."

"You are making game of me,--I know you are."

"No, indeed; you insisted upon my translating it word for word, and I
have done your bidding."

"Then the man was a wretch who wrote them."

"I think so too, Señora."

"A brute--an animal!"

"Certainly, Señora."

"A fool--an old horror!"

"Most probably."

"An ignorant slanderer!"

"Oh! surely."

"A monster!"

"I wager anything you like of it." But it was of no use; unconditional
assent failed to pacify her. So she went on for hours; and it cost me
untold pains to earn the brunette's permission to offer her an ice, or
to win one single smile.




CHAPTER IV.

     Le Morvan during the Middle Ages--Legendary horrors--Forest of La
     Goulotte--La Croix Chavannes--La Croix Mordienne--Hôtel de
     Chanty--Château de Lomervo--A French Bluebeard--Citadel of Lingou.


But I must return from my Andalusian belle to the rugged Le Morvan,--a
patriotic, but, in spite of the broken finger, by no means so
captivating a subject.

In feudal times--indeed, even so late as the last century--the district
was a perfect nest of cut-throats, where no one could venture in safety
for any honest purpose; without roads, and without police; full of dark
caverns and half-demolished castles, affording all kinds of facilities
for retreat and concealment; and thus it became the favourite rendezvous
of the worst and most ferocious characters of those lawless times. It is
widely different now. The hunter or the traveller--a woman or a
child--may ramble through the length and breadth of its forests, equally
in vain hoping for the excitement or fearing the danger of any
adventure, beyond the common one of seeing a wolf or wild boar threading
his way amongst the trees--a matter of no consequence at all. If,
however, you love to collect wild and mournful tales--tales, even, of
horror, with which to rivet the attention of the family group over the
fire in the winter evenings,--stop at every ruined wall over which the
lizard is harmlessly creeping; stop at every massive tower in which the
owl is screeching--at every large isolated stone under which the serpent
is hissing; linger along each tortuous path, and your peasant guide will
tell you a tradition for each--for all.

Thus, for instance: you are perhaps a few paces in front of him, in the
forest of La Goulotte; and as the mid-day sun glances through the boughs
above you, you see its rays rest upon a cross at a little distance; it
was, you think, placed there for the rude worshippers of the province,
and you contemplate it with complacent reverence, till Pierre comes up
with you. "'Tis La Croix Chavannes, Monsieur, _la croix sinistre_. See!
in the narrow pass between the two mountains, its black and moss-covered
arms extended; at the end of each is a large knob, resembling a
threatening hand." You walk on, and find the cross riddled with ball,
chipped and notched, and carved with odd names. By the time you have
reached it, Pierre has told you it was set on the spot where, many a
long year ago, the Marquis de Chavannes was found, deluged in blood and
quite dead; he had been pierced through the heart by a treacherous
rival, who had joined his hunting party, and who basely took advantage
of a moment when, in ardent pursuit of the grisly boar, De Chavannes was
utterly unsuspicious of his evil intentions.

A little further on is another cross, at the entrance of a deep, dark
gorge: What does that cross mean? "That one is called La Croix
Mordienne, Monsieur; at its foot our forefathers knelt to recommend
their souls to God, before they ventured their lives in the dangers of
Les Grand Ravins, where too many had been greeted by the bullet or the
dagger." The granite steps of this cross--this cross which was erected
for worship--are worn deep by the knees of suppliants for protection
against the cruelty of their fellow-men; and it is even a more
melancholy monument of the ferocity of those times, than the one which
records the assassination of the unsuspecting Marquis de Chavannes.

Pursue your way, and, crossing a wild and marshy heath, you notice a
lonely house surrounded by thorny broom, the aspect of which is
forbidding, though it is gaily painted. Surely, you think, it can only
be the gloomy tales with which my guide has beguiled this morning's
walk, that make one suspect there is a history connected with that
house; and you ask him its name. "That is Chanty, Monsieur; that was
once an inn. The landlord was a frightful character, even for his own
times. When the doomed traveller halted at his door to seek shelter from
the storm, or to refresh himself and steed the better to encounter the
scorching heat, the villain drugged his wine, and, at nightfall,
following him into the forest, despatched and robbed his then helpless
victim. Or perhaps he would detain him with stirring tales of forest
life, till he found himself too late prudently to go further that night;
and, on his guard against every person but the right, ordering a bed of
his treacherous host, would fall into that slumber from which the
miscreant took safe means to prevent his ever awaking. When, after many
years of impunity in the commission of these fearful crimes, the
officers of justice were at last set upon him, and his house was
searched, in the cellar were found fifteen headless skeletons!"

Such a mass of silent, awful testimony perhaps never was produced to
substantiate the allegation of similar villany against any man; and
atrocities like these, of the early and middle ages, have given their
character to the legends of Le Morvan, which, still carefully related
from one generation to another, are so impressed on the minds of the
people, that the honest peasant of the present day would rather make a
circuit of a dozen or twenty miles, than pass in the deepening twilight
near the scenes to which they relate. Not all the gold of Peru--no, nor
even of California--would tempt _Les Pastoures_ to graze their flocks or
herds near the scene of these horrid events, or pass them when the stars
are spangling the dark arch of heaven.

Here also may be seen the solid walls, the array of towers, the high
belfry, the iron gates, and the ponderous drawbridges of the Château de
Lomervo; and many are the dependent buildings, courts, and gardens,
surrounded by the thick copse wood that covers its domain, which extends
over three neighbouring hills. Under the principal façade is a large
lake, whose blue waves bathe the walls; an immense mirror, ever
reflecting the numberless turrets, and the grotesque birds and beasts
which decorate the extremity of every waterspout; wherein, too, the
tranquil marble giants, who support the broad balcony on their heads,
seem to contemplate and admire their own imperturbable
countenances--countenances that betrayed no shade of feeling at all
that must have passed before their eyes. The gathering of armed knights
for war or revelry; the rejoicings for the birth of an heir, or the
lamentations for the death of the stern gray-headed lord; the bridal of
one lovely daughter of the house of Lomervo, or the solitary departure
of the mail-clad lover of another for the Crusades. But, it is said,
they saw much more than all this: according to popular rumour, these
calm deep waters are the cold and mute depositories of frightfully
tragic secrets. One bright spring morning in the very olden time, says
the tradition, a Lord of this domain left his castle. It was when the
sweet violet first cast its odours on the breeze, when the bright and
abundant bloom of the lilac and laburnum gracefully decorated the
gardens, and the country was reclad in all the charming freshness of the
season. After a short absence, he returned, accompanied by a lovely
bride;--but ere long she died. He went again, returning with another,
and was again received by his vassals with acclamations of joy; but
gloomy suspicions at last arose, for in this way, in succeeding years,
were brought to the Castle eleven young and beautiful damsels. One by
one, they all disappeared. What became of them? No one knew, or, if they
did, dared to tell. When, however, the long-dreaded lord was dead, some
old women declared, that as he became tired of each wife, he stabbed her
at midnight in one of his dungeons, took a sack from a heap which he
kept in the corner, and, sewing her up with his own hands, carried her
noiselessly to the water-gate, and laid her in the bottom of his boat.
Silently and rapidly he rowed to the centre of the lake, and coolly
dropped in his hapless victim amongst the sheltering reeds.

"Ah! Monsieur," the village gossips will still tell you, as they make
the sign of the cross, and tremble till you see their very stuff gowns
shake again; "'tis all true, Monsieur; twenty times have we seen them in
the moonlight--twenty times have we seen the poor souls, in their long
white robes, with their pale faces, and the spot of blood on the left
side, wandering over the lake." Poor Bluebeard, for whom in childhood we
used to feel such awe, was a fool to this baron bold.

There, a little in front of you, is the fortified village of Chamou,
which in former years defended the eastern opening of Les Grand Ravins;
also Lingou, an old citadel, three stories high, whose walls, now
cracked and ivy bound, guarded them on the south. This piece of feudal
architecture, full of trap-doors and dungeons, subterranean passages,
and secret stairs, is another of the places dreaded and abhorred by the
peasantry of Le Morvan; for near the walls, they say, at certain
periods, sounds can be distinctly heard under ground, funeral chaunts,
and the tolling of bells; and if you have the daring to apply your ear
to the sod, you will be able to distinguish sighs and sobs, and the dull
rattle of the earth thrown upon the victim's coffin.




CHAPTER V.

     Castle of Bazoche--Maréchal de Vauban--Relics of the old
     Marshal--Memorials of Philipsburg--Hôtel de Bazarne--Madame de
     Pompadour's maître d'hôtel--Proof of the _curés'_ grief--Farm of
     St. Hibaut--Youthful recollections--Monsieur de Cheribalde--Navarre
     the Four-Pounder--His culverin.


Each of the Radcliffian horrors narrated in the last chapter, though
vastly marvellous, most probably originated in some dreadful deed of
blood, on which the vulgar and superstitious admiration of excitement of
those days delighted to enlarge. We shall now turn to the castle of
Bazoche, where, in former days, dukes, counts and barons assembled every
September with their hunting-train, to enjoy the pleasures of _la grande
chasse_ and all its attendant revelry. The château in later years
belonged to the renowned engineer, Sebastian-le-Prêtre, Maréchal de
Vauban, who was a native of Le Morvan, and born in 1633 in the village
of St. Leger de Foucheret. The humble roof under which this celebrated
man first saw the light is now inhabited by a _sabot_-maker.

Brought up, like Henry IV., amongst the peasants of his native
province, like him he loved the remembrance of all connected with it and
them; and when he died in Paris (1707), he desired that he might be
buried at his beloved Château de Bazoche, where he had so often,
sauntering under the noble _platanes_, sought and found relaxation from
the turmoil and fatigue of a soldier's life, and forgotten the
jealousies and injustice of the court. In the southern part of the
building is the gallant old veteran's sleeping apartment--there still
stands his bed: and his armour, with several swords and other articles
which belonged to him, are still preserved. On the rampart, now probably
silent for ever, are four pieces of cannon of large calibre, which
thundered at the siege of Philipsburg, and were subsequently presented
to the Marshal by Monseigneur, the brother of Louis XIV.

Great were the works accomplished by the genius and perseverance of this
famous general--famous, not only in his own profession, but as one of
the honest characters of an age when honesty was rare indeed. He
improved and perfected the defences of three hundred towns, and entirely
constructed the fortifications of thirty-three others; was present at
one hundred and forty battles, and conducted fifty-three sieges. The
body of this eminent man was, in literal compliance with his orders,
interred in a black marble tomb, under the damp flagstones of the castle
chapel; but his heart, in melancholy violation of the spirit which
dictated them, is enclosed in a monument, surmounted by his bust, in the
church of the Hôtel des Invalides. Opposite to it is the tomb of
Turenne, and under the same roof at last repose the mortal remains of
Napoleon. Could their spirits perambulate this church at the hour when
the dead only are said to be awake, and we could muster the courage to
listen to their whispered communings, what should we hear? How severely
would this tremendous triumvirate judge some of the so-called great men
of our own time!

But there are more modern edifices in Le Morvan, with far more agreeable
episodes attached to them: take, for example, the Hôtel de Bazarne, a
celebrated hostel, built among the green lanes on the borders of a wood
of acacias--a beautiful flowery wood, which, when the merry month of May
has heralded the perfumed pleasures of spring, dispenses them on every
breeze over the adjacent country.

Bazarne, in its healthy situation and splendid environs, boasts the best
of cookery. The last owner of Bazarne was--Reader, the utmost exercise
of your lively imagination will never supply you with the right
name--was an _ancien maître d'hôtel_ of Madame la Marquise de
Pompadour--Madame de Pompadour's steward! What could he have to do in
the wilds of Le Morvan? Grand Jean was a curious little man, lively and
brisk as a bird or a squirrel, powdered, curled, and smelling of rose
and benjamin as if he were still at Versailles or Choisi. Grand Jean
decorated the back of his head with a little pigtail, which much
resembled a head of asparagus, and was always jumping and frisking from
one shoulder to the other. His snuff-box was of rare enamel, his ruffles
of point-lace, and his artistic performances in the culinary art were
all carried on in vessels of solid silver. He was, from the point of his
toe to the tips of his hair, the aristocrat of the saucepan and the
stove.

Grand Jean acquired, in our provincial district, a reputation perfectly
monumental for the richness of his venison pasties, the refined flavour,
the smoothness and the exquisite finish of his _omelettes aux truffes_
and _au sang de chevreuil_. All the world of Le Morvan used to visit
him. And the good _curés_? The good _curés_?--ah! they all went to visit
him by caravans, as the faithful wend their way across the deserts to
Mecca to pray at the tomb of the Prophet. And, when he died, they
mourned indeed; the worthy divines, incredible as it may be, drank water
for three days, in proof of the sincerity of their woe. Who would have
doubted it?

To the north of Bazarne, and on the road to the best district for sport,
is seen at the foot of the gray mountains peeping cheerily, and like a
white flower amidst the sombre foliage of the chestnut-trees, St.
Hibaut, an immense farm, situated in an isolated spot, and built of the
lava from an extinct volcano. Saint Hibaut, ah! the moment the pen
traces that dear name my aching heart beats and throbs within my
breast--before my eyes pass to and fro the memories of a vanished
world--I seem to feel the fresh and odorous breezes from thy flowers,
thy mossy banks and scented shrubs, and hear thy murmuring rills and the
dash of thy wild torrents. St. Hibaut! lovely spot where flew so swiftly
and so sweetly the brightest and gayest hours of my early years--St.
Hibaut, the memory of thee burns within my heart: but those within thy
walls, do they still think of me?

Alas! in this world of tears and deception, of moral tortures and often
of physical suffering--what is there more delightful, more consolatory
than to sip, nay plunge the lips, and drink, yes, drink deep from that
fresh and blessed spring, the memory of by-gone days. How great the
burden of the man who has been the sport of fortune, whose life has been
one continued sorrow, who, never satisfied with the present moment, is
always hoping for better and happier days, and always regretting those
which have been and are now no more. O! Reader--if many griefs have been
your portion, if it has been your sad fate to tread with naked feet the
thorny paths of life, if the foul passions of envy, rage, and hatred
have found a place in your heart, close your eyes, forget your
miseries--open, open for a moment that golden casket called the memory,
in which are preserved, embalmed and imperishable, all those happy
incidents which were the delight of your youth. Yes! open wide that
casket, ponder well, and with renewed fondness o'er these treasures of
the mind, and believe me after such holy reflections you will feel
yourself more able to meet the contumely of the world, and find yourself
a happier and a better man.

Saint Hibaut, situated in a wild country, surrounded by lonely heaths
and deep ravines, and water-courses whose sides are covered by almost
impenetrable thickets, was at the time I speak of, that is to say, when
I was eighteen years of age, the property of Monsieur de Cheribalde,
the most intrepid, determined and ardent sportsman, who ever winded a
horn, wore a huntsman's knife, or whistled a dog.

Distant very nearly twenty miles from any human habitation, it was at
times, the favourite rendezvous, the head-quarters of a great number of
chevreuil, boar and other denizens of the forest. In winter, when the
snow covered the earth for several weeks, the famished and furious
wolves assembled in the neighbourhood in packs, carrying off in the
broad daylight everything they could lay their teeth on; sheep and
shepherd, dogs and huntsman, horse and horseman, bones, hair, and skins
half-tanned, old hats and shoes--even the corrupt bodies of the dead
were torn from their resting-places, and eaten by these horrid animals.

On moonlight nights, these brutes would come fearlessly up to the very
walls of the farm, dancing their sarabandes in the snow, howling like so
many devils, shrieking and showing their long white teeth, and demanding
in unmistakable terms something or somebody to devour; their yells,
their cries of rage, of victory, and of love, intermingled with the
funereal song of the screech-owl, and the lugubrious melodies which the
current from the blast without caused in the large open chimneys,--was
the concert, which from December to April lulled the inmates of St.
Hibaut to sleep; music that would I doubt not have reduced even the
formidable proportions of the inimitable Lablache, and made Mario sing
out of tune.

But these were the good old times, the good old times! Well do I
remember, when the shadows of those winter evenings lengthened, when
nightfall came, and when at last the moon arose, bringing out in light
and shade every object within the court-yard, and at some distance from
the house, then it was that Monsieur de Cheribalde went his rounds. I
see him in my mind's eye now, with his gun on his shoulder, followed by
his five enormous bloodhounds strong and fierce as lions, and Navarre,
surnamed the Four-Pounder, who walked a few paces to the right and left,
opening his large saucer eyes, poking and squinting into every bush and
corner.

Navarre, for forty years the head gamekeeper of the domain, was his
master's right hand, his _alter ego_. He had never in his whole life
been beyond his woods,--had never seen the church-steeple of a great
town. To him, the dark belt of firs that skirted the horizon, was the
limit of the world; and when told that the sun never set, and that when
it sank behind the mountains, it was only continuing its course, to beam
bright in other skies and on other lands, and to ripen other
harvests,--Navarre smiled, and did not believe a word. Happy Navarre!
what did it signify to him what was done, or what happened behind those
hills? He was thin and dry as a match, and tall as a Norwegian spruce,
with a face covered with hair; he smoked, and tossed off glass after
glass of brandy, like a Dutchman. In addition to these peculiarities,
Navarre was lame of the right leg, a boar having one day kindly applied
his tusky lancet to his thigh, and gored him seriously, before, hand to
hand, he managed to finish him with his hunting-knife.

At the first glance, Navarre's aspect appeared strange and forbidding,
and savage as the locality in which he lived. The fact was, that, like
Robinson Crusoe, he was frequently arrayed in a suit of skins of which
he had been the architect, on a fantastic pattern, that his own queer
imagination had created.

On great occasions the veteran keeper donned a helmet, or a gray
three-cornered hat, of so ridiculous a shape--so royally absurd--that
for my life, when he was thus attired, I could not, even in the presence
of his master, refrain from laughter; then he would tell you, with a
gravity it was impossible to disturb, that it had taken him fifteen
days, eight skins of wild cats, and twelve squirrel's tails, to achieve
this happy _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the tailoring art. But I once said to
him, "My good Navarre, in the name of heaven tell me, from what Japanese
manuscript did you fish out that odious hat? Why, with such a shed, you
might very well be mistaken for Chin-ko-fi-ku-o, high-priest of the
temple of Twi. Do give me the address of your hatter, my dear friend."
Navarre, furious, gave no reply.

But the time really to admire him--to see the head gamekeeper in all his
splendour--was in winter, in a hard frost, when, covered with skins and
motionless, he lay in ambush in a black ravine, waiting for a boar. Oh!
then, for certain, the sight of him was anything but encouraging; for he
looked like some unknown animal, some variety of the species _Bonassus_,
a crocodile on end, a crumpled-up elephant, or a great bear on the
watch. And when he loaded his rifle--a sort of culverin or wall-piece,
which no one but himself knew how to manage--gracious powers! he was
something to see. His first movement was to seize the gigantic weapon in
the middle, as a policeman would fasten upon a favourite thief; and then
he set himself to blow into the barrel with such fury, that had there
been an ounce of wadding left, the blast would have blown it all through
the enormous touch-hole. Being well assured after this that neither an
adder nor a slow-worm had taken up his domicile within the barrel, he
began to load. One charge--two charges--then a third, "as a compliment,"
and after this, a fourth, "for good luck." On this infernal
charge--imperial, as he called it--this Vesuvius, this volcano of
saltpetre, he threw half-a-dozen balls, or, if he was out of them, a
handful of nails; and then he rammed--rammed--rammed away, like a
pavior.

My hair stood on end, and every limb trembled when he fired it off--holy
St. Francis!--the very forest bent, and coughed, and sighed; and it made
as much flame, smoke, noise, and carnage, as a battery of horse
artillery. One might have heard it all over Burgundy, or Provence for
what I know; and hence, no doubt, his _sobriquet_ of "the Four-Pounder."
I always thought his shoulder must be made of heart of oak. On one
occasion he did me the incomparable favour of loading my gun in this
fashion, but luckily for me, informed me of this piece of civility
before we started; and greatly was he chagrined when I declined to fire
it. In the common occurrences of life, Navarre was a right good fellow;
he had great good sense, could take a joke, was simple and modest in
his manners, and very kind-hearted and retiring. But once in the forest,
the dogs uncoupled, and the business of the chase commenced, he bounded
to the front; his eyes flashed, his nostrils dilated, he took a deep
breath, listened, and snuffed the air; he limped no longer; and as his
courage was unequalled, and his knowledge of wood-craft profound, the
proudest of every rank were content to follow where he led.




CHAPTER VI.

     Bird's-eye view of the forests--The student's visit to his uncle in
     the country--Sallies forth in the early morning--Meets a
     cuckoo--Follows him--The cuckoo too much for him--Gives up the
     pursuit--Finds he has lost his way--Agreeable vespers--Night in the
     forest--Wolves--Up a beech tree--A friend in need--The student bids
     adieu to Le Morvan.


We have alluded in the opening chapters to the inexhaustible wealth
drawn by the inhabitants from the woods of Le Morvan, though we have as
yet touched but slightly on their beauties. To see them at one _coup
d'oeil_, in all the splendour of their extent, one ought to call for
the veteran, Mr. Green, and, safely (?) lodged in his car, with plenty
of sandwiches and champagne, fly and soar above these forests of La
Belle France. By St. Hubert, gentle reader, your eyes would be feasted
with a glorious sight. Beneath your feet you would, in autumn, behold a
verdant expanse in every variety of light and shade--a sea of leaves,
which, though sometimes in repose, more often moan and murmur, while the
giant arms they clothe rock to and fro in the gale, like the restless
waves of the troubled deep.

Here Nature displays all her sylvan grandeur; here she has scattered,
with a liberal hand, every charm that foliage can give to earth, and
many a lovely flower to scent the evening breeze. Descend, and in this
immense labyrinth you will find a tangled skein of forest paths, in
which it is never prudent to ramble alone; as will be seen by the
following adventure, which befell a young student who once went to Le
Morvan, anticipating infinite pleasure in spending a few weeks at the
house of an old uncle, a rich proprietor and owner of a large farm in
the forest of Erveau.

Residing from his infancy in the department of the Seine, he was quite
ignorant of a forest life; and the morning was yet early when he arose
from his bed and sallied forth to enjoy the fresh and fragrant air, of
which he had a foretaste at his open window, and take a ramble till the
hour of breakfast summoned him to his uncle's hospitable fare. All
without was life and sweetness; every bush had its little chorister; the
sun brilliant, but not as yet high in the heavens, threw his bright rays
in chequered light and shade between the trees, and made the pearly
tears of night, which hung quivering on each bending blade of grass,
sparkle like diamonds of the purest water. The student was in raptures,
and after a brief survey of the garden, he cast a longing eye upon the
woods which he so much wished to penetrate. On he walked, stopping
occasionally to muse on the enchanting scene around him, when all at
once he espied, on the lofty branches of an ash, a cuckoo! At the sight
of this splendid bird, our Parisian sportsman felt his heart pit-a-pat
and jump like a girl's in love; and without stopping any longer to
admire the marvels of Nature, he turned hastily back to his uncle's
abode, in search of a gun, with which to annihilate the luckless
harbinger of spring. He soon found one, ready loaded, in the hall; and,
with his heart full of hope and his legs full of precaution, he glided
mysteriously from one tree to another, endeavouring, by all possible
means, to conceal his approach from the wily cuckoo, which, perched on
high, was throwing into space his two dull notes, regular and monotonous
as the tick-tick of an old-fashioned clock.

Warily and stealthily did the student approach; bent nearly double, he
scarcely drew his breath, as his distance from the tree grew less; but,
says the song of the poacher,--

  "If women smell tricks, cuckoos smell powder."

And again,--

  "'Tis a difficult thing to catch woman at fault,
  More difficult still, an old cuckoo with salt."

Without appearing to do so, from the height of his leafy turret, the
prudent cuckoo kept a wary eye upon the tortuous movements of his enemy;
but as he saw at a glance what sort of a customer he had to deal with,
he evidently did not feel any particular hurry to shift his quarters:
only every time he saw the double barrel moving up to the Parisian's
shoulder, and that hostilities on his part were about to be opened, he,
as if just for fun, dropped his own dear brown self on the branch below
him, flapped his wings, and soon perching himself on a tree a little
further off, gravely re-opened his beak and resumed his monotonous
chant.

The young student, piqued and mortified at this discreet behaviour of
the cuckoo, which, like happiness, was always on the wing, perseveringly
followed the provoking bird--one walked, the other flew, the distance
increased at every flight, and thus they got over a great deal of
ground; the young man still believing his uncle's farm was close behind
him--the cuckoo perfectly easy, knowing full well he could find his
leafy home whenever he might please to return to it. So, for the
fiftieth time, perhaps, the cuckoo was vanishing in the foliage, when a
sudden thought cramped the legs and cut short the obstinate pursuit of
the young lawyer; he then, for the first time, remembered the wholesome
advice his uncle had given him on his arrival.--"Beware, my fine fellow,
beware of going alone in the forest, for to those who know not how to
read their way, that is, on the bark of the trees, the mossy stones, and
dry or broken twigs, the forest is full of snares and danger, of
deceitful echos and strange noises that attract and mislead the
inexperienced sportsman."

"By Juno," thought our hero, "as it is most certain that in Paris they
are not yet clever enough to teach us geography on the bark of trees, I
am an uncommonly lucky fellow to have just remembered the dear old
gentleman's warning. Hang the infernal cuckoo! Go to the devil, you
hideous cuckoo! Good morning, sir, my compliments at home." And then,
with his terrible carbine under his arm, he retraced his steps,
expecting every moment to see peeping through the trees in front of him,
his uncle's large white house and lofty dove-cote.

But, alas! no such thing met his hungry eyes; still on he walked, trees
after trees were passed, glade after glade, and many a long avenue, but
neither white farm-house nor gay green shutters greeted his anxious
sight. "How odd," thought he, "how very odd; this, I feel confident, is
the identical spot near which I first noticed that odious cuckoo; here
is the self-same little regiment of white daisies that my feet pressed
not half an hour ago; see now, this chestnut, this immense chestnut,
whose monstrous roots lie twisting about the ground like a black brood
of ugly snakes--certainly this was the way I came, surely I saw these
roots, and yet no house appears." And thus, from time to time, he
reasoned with himself, looking on either side for some object that he
could recognize with certainty; at last, grown thoroughly hungry and
impatient, he hallooed and shouted, but no voice replied, not the
slightest sound was floating in the air. It was then he felt he had lost
his way,--that he was alone, yes, alone in the forest of Erveau, in a
leafy wilderness stretching many miles.

Many a vow he made and many a blackberry he picked as he walked hither
and thither, in every direction. The day wore on, the sun had long
passed the meridian, and with the coming evening rose a gentle breeze,
which moaned in the dry ferns; and this and the rustling of the giant
creepers that reached from tree to tree, and swung between the branches,
fell mournfully on the student's ear. A vague fear, a fatal
presentiment of evil began to creep over him; again he shouted, the echo
from a dark wild ravine alone replied; he fired his gun again and again,
the echo alone answered his signal of distress, and nothing could he
hear, except at intervals, far, far away in the green depths of the
forest, the notes cuckoo--cuckoo.

Faint and weary, from hunger and fatigue, the young man, no longer able
to proceed, fell down at the foot of a spreading beech, and gave way to
an agony of grief; drops of cold sweat stood upon his brow; the clammy
feeling of fear took possession of his heart, and though, perhaps, he
would have had no objection to try the fortune of the pistol or the
sword, in any college broil or senseless riot of the populace, the
circumstances under which he then stood were so new to him, that he was
quite unmanned and incapable of further exertion.

In blood-red streaks sank the setting sun, his large yellow orb glancing
through the trees like the dimmed eye of some giant ogre; twilight came,
and soon after every valley lay in shadow; the breeze, as if waking from
its gentle slumbers, whistled in the highest branches, and, increasing
in force, rocked the lower limbs, which moaned mournfully as the night
closed in.

Hungry and alarmed, and now quite worn out with his lengthened walk, the
young Parisian lay stretched on the moss, listening with painful anxiety
to this melancholy conversation of the woods, when, suddenly, and as
night fell, spreading over the earth her sable wings and shaking from
the folds of her robe the luminous legions of stars, he heard a
prolonged and sonorous howl in the distance--a strolling wolf--

  "Cruel as Death! and hungry as the grave!
  Burning for blood! bony and gaunt and grim,"

had scented the Parisian and was inviting his good friends with the long
teeth, to come and sup on the dainty morsel. Touched as if by a hot
iron, up got the terrified youth, and striking his ten nails into the
friendly tree near him like an Indian monkey, he was in an instant many
feet above its base. Here, astride upon a branch, shivering and shaking,
each hair on end, and murmuring many a Pater and Ave Maria, unsaid for
years, he passed the most horrific night that any citizen of the
department of the Seine had ever been known to spend in the middle of
the forest of Erveau.

The following morning, but not until the sun had already run nearly
half his course, for he never dared to leave his timber observatory
before, _le pauvre diable_ dropped down from his perch like an
acorn--and, marching off with weary steps, and scarcely a hope that ere
another night fell he should gain the shelter of some cottage, he
dragged himself along. On he rolled from side to side, torn with the
thorns and bitten by the gnats that swarmed around him, sometimes
calling upon his mother, sometimes upon the saints--when a wood-cutter
happily met, and seeing his exhausted condition, threw the slim student
over his shoulders like a bundle of straw, and carried him to a
neighbouring village. There, he was put to bed and attended with every
care, when he soon recovered--and received the charming intelligence
that he was about forty miles from his uncle's house--that he had been
wandering for that distance in the most beautiful part of the forest of
Erveau, and that if by any chance he had deviated a little more to the
right in his unpleasant steeple-chase across the woods, he would have
gone, in a straight line, eighty-six miles without meeting house or
cottage or human soul until he found himself at the gates of Dijon,
chief town of the Côte-d'Or, where he might and would, no doubt, have
been able to refresh himself with a bottle of Beaune and inspect the
Gothic tombs of the great Dukes of Burgundy.

Grateful was the unlucky lad to think that he had not taken this road,
and truly glad was he when, under the woodcutter's care, he reached his
uncle's white house. No sooner, however, was he fairly recovered from
his misadventure, than he packed up his superb cambric shirts, his Lyons
silk socks, patent leather boots, and white Jouvin gloves; squeezed the
hand of his aunt, gave a doubtful shake to that of his uncle, and
started in the _malle poste_ for the capital. His father's brother and
Le Morvan never saw him more.

Such adventures, however, as these are rare, and you must have, indeed,
a double dose of bad fortune to be lost in such a woful way, and spend,
without meeting any mortal soul, thirty long hours in the woods: for
though the tract of forest is very extensive, there are strewed, here
and there, several merry villages, large farms, and hunting-boxes,
snugly hidden, it is true, beneath the trees,--but which an experienced
huntsman very soon discovers when he stands in need of assistance or a
night's lodging.




CHAPTER VII.

     Charms of a forest life to the sportsman--The Poachers--Le Père
     Séguin--His knowledge of the woods and of the rivers--The first
     buck--A bad shot.


However dangerous the forests of Le Morvan may be, and certainly are, to
the citizen of Paris, whose knowledge of wood-craft, whatever may have
been his delightful visions of forest life, of fairy revels, and
hair-breadth escapes, is about equal to his proficiency in navigation,
they are no labyrinth to the true sportsman of this province; in his
mind, they are mapped with an accuracy perfectly astonishing to the
uninitiated in the countless indications of nature, of which the eye of
man becomes so keenly observant when thrown constantly into her
fascinating society. Let a man of a vigorous health, active frame, and
contemplative mind once enter, even for a short time, upon the
enjoyments of sporting, wild and varied as are those of Le Morvan, it
would be difficult to withdraw him from its delights, and persuade him
that it is in any way desirable to return to the crowded haunts of men,
and condemn himself to resume the harassing struggle for wealth or a
competence in his own legitimate sphere.

No; there scarcely breathes the human being who could be so insensible
to the charms of scenery like that of Le Morvan as to do so without a
pang. 'Tis a chalice of gold, brimful of real pleasures for those who
love the joys of the open air; 'tis alive with fish and game, and has
its vineyards and its cornfields too.

But we are thinking of the forests only, of the boar--that potentate of
the solitudes--and the wild cat: of the ravines and caves, to which the
hardy and venturous hunter, through bush, brake, or briar, over
streamlet or torrent, will chace the ravenous wolf,--who, bearing the
iron ball in his lacerated side, ever and anon gnaws the wound in his
rage, and slinks on weeping tears of blood. The roebuck and the hare,
the feathered and the finny tribe, are ever presenting an endless
alternation of amusement more or less exciting; and the sportsman has
but to settle with himself, when the rosy morn appears, whether he will
bestride his gallant steed, or throw the rod or rifle over his
shoulder,--his day's pleasure is safe.

It matters not whether the falling leaf announces that the woods are
clearing for him, the deep snow warns him to look to the protection of
his flocks from the dangerous intrusion of the wolves, or the genial air
and the brilliant flies tell him that the silvery tenants of the many
streams and rivers that intersect the forest are ready to provide him
sport.

Arouse thee, sportsman! when the dark clouds of night fly before the
rays of Phoebus as a troop of timid antelopes before the
leopard,--when the lark abandons his mossy bed, and soaring sends forth
his joyous carol,

  "----blythe to greet
  The purpling East,"

then, O sportsman, up, and to horse! Away! bending over the saddle-bow,
follow the wild deer across the heath--inhale the perfume of the
trampled thyme. Draw bridle for a moment, and pity the thousands of thy
fellow-men to whom the pure air and light are denied, and let thy
heartfelt thanksgivings for thy free and happy lot ascend to the azure
battlements of heaven. Beneath your gaze lie valleys whence rise the
morning mists as do the clouds from the richly-perfumed censer, and
float over the bosom of the plain ere they wreathe the mountain side;
all the bushes sing, every leaf is shining to welcome the glorious sun
as he rises majestically over that high dark range, and the bright blue
dome of day is revealed in all its purity.

Plunge onward to the forest--you will perhaps fall in with one of the
_braconniers_--must I call them poachers?--of which there are many; all
alike, in one sense, yet each having the most whimsical characteristics.
The reader knows my friend Navarre, but I must now introduce him to
another of the cronies of my youth, the Père Séguin, the thoughts of
whom revive all the sweet recollections of my home when my family lived
in the ancient and picturesque Vezelay.

Séguin's "form and feature" are as well impressed upon my memory as
those even of Navarre. Could any one forget him? I should think not; for
he was so fantastic and mysterious, such a determined sportsman and
eccentric desperado, that he was known to all Le Morvan.

As well as I remember, he was about fifty-five years of age when I first
knew him; from his earliest boyhood he had fancied and loved a
forester's life, and for more than forty years had realized his dreams
of its wild independence. The woods, the rocks, the streams had no
secrets for him; he understood all their murmurs and their silence--he
knew the habits of every bird and beast of these forests and the
whereabouts of every large trout in his clear cold hole.

But it is of no use to describe Père Séguin; to know him you must hunt
with him, and that pretty often, too--as I have done from my earliest
youth. I am now with him, on one of those joyous mornings of my boyhood,
and having threaded the woods for an hour, he has placed me in ambuscade
at the corner of a copse. Here, after a short delay, he pulls out his
watch, a time-piece weighing about two pounds, and after a mute
consultation with the hands, says in a low decided tone:

"Good! Three o'clock. Stop here, youngster, and in an hour I shall send
you a buck."

"A buck at four o'clock? How are you to tell that?" And I felt that I
opened my eyes as an oyster does his bivalve domicile at high water. "A
buck! you are joking."

"I never joke," said the Père Séguin with a hoarse grunt, walking away,
and his face did not belie his words.

"Well, then, but how can you possibly--Stop, do, for one moment. Hear
me! holla! Père Séguin! I say, you old humbug.--By Socrates, he is off."

But Père Séguin was already striding fast and far through the bending
branches, wilfully, if not really out of hearing, and I had nothing to
do but to watch for the promised game. I had no watch, and it seemed to
me long after the appointed hour, when my reverie was disturbed by a low
voice, from I knew not where,--from heaven, from earth, from a murmuring
brook, from a tree,--which dropped these words in my ear.

"Silence--four o'clock--the buck."

At that moment I saw the ears of the roebuck, and soon after the animal
itself, pausing for a moment in his leisurely course, just where he
ought to be for a good shot. But amazement and trepidation seized me. I
fired in a hurry, and the deer bounded off unscathed. "How clumsy," said
I to the Père Séguin, as he emerged from the thicket, "and how
unfortunate, for I have some friends coming to dine with me this week."

"Never mind, never mind," replied the poacher; "I will fill your larder
to-morrow."

"Well, you are a good fellow, but remember I require also some fish--a
fine dish of trout."

"Very well," growled the Père, "you shall have one;" and without a word
more the _braconnier_ is off; and soon after I meet him with his rod, a
young fir-tree, on his shoulder, a box of worms as large as snakes, and
with the most entire confidence in his piscatory powers, proceeding on
his way to the stream that will suit his purpose. In the evening he
reappears, taking from the fresh grass in which he has carried them,
three or four magnificent fish studded with drops of gold. White wine
and choice aromatic herbs flavour them, and you rejoice in the pleasure
and praises of your friends as they partake of the savoury meal.

And now for a sketch, if possible, of this excellent purveyor. Père
Séguin was tall as an obelisk, strong as a Hercules, _vif_ as gunpowder,
thin and sinewy as any wolf in his beloved forests. His ear large, flat,
and full of hair; his teeth long, white, regular, and sharp as those of
his favourite and extraordinary dog; his eyes yellow, calm, and piercing
as those of a mountain eagle, and his chin had never been desecrated
with a razor. A kind of brushwood covered his face, and through it
peeped, with the tip of his hooked nose, the features I have described.
This immense uncultivated beard, tucked carefully within his waistcoat,
reached nearly to his waist. Did I say it had never been shaved? I might
add, it had never been combed. Lurking in it you might see leaves,
white hairs, red hairs, bits of a butterfly's wing, two or three jay's
feathers, a nutshell, some tobacco, a blade or two of grass, the cup of
an acorn, or a little moss. Indeed, so strangely was it garnished that,
when asleep on the grass under the trees, a robin was once seen to hover
over him undecided as to whether she would build her nest in it, or pick
out materials to make one elsewhere.

Of uncommon intelligence, peculiarly taciturn, brave, frank, loyal, and
incapable of a bad action, his mind was of a gloomy cast; he was always
alone, he had no friends, he wanted none, and, if not hunting, reading
the Bible or muttering to himself, with his eyes fixed on the ground. He
lived like the woodcock, sad and solitary in his hole.

The peasants dreaded him, and never spoke of him but as the _Sorcier_,
the _Vieux Diable_; when naughty little children refused to learn their
letters or to go to bed, it was only necessary to threaten them with
sending for the Père Séguin and his red dog, and the whole of the rosy
troop would scamper off to their nursery in an instant.

I need scarcely say that amongst his other perfections he was a perfect
shot--the best in the department,--and the moment he touched the
trigger death winged his charge at two hundred paces. With a single ball
from his rifle would he bring down the wild cat from the highest
branches, and cut the poor squirrels in two, stop the howl of the wolf,
or shiver the iron frontal bones of the wild boar.

In short, his gun was his joy, his friend, his mistress, his all; he
spoke to it, caressed it, rocked it on his knees as a mother would her
sick child, and took a thousand times more care of it than he would have
bestowed upon the most lovely wife, had he ever done anything so rash as
to marry. It was a singular accident that brought us acquainted; and if
I had had any respect for chronology, I should have related it before.

One day, when rambling over the mountain in search of game, I put up and
fired at a hare; she was evidently hit, and I gave chase, yet though
puss had but three legs effective I could not overtake her,

  "I follow'd fast, but faster did she fly;"

at last, a bank stopped and turned her, and I was on the point of taking
possession when a large red brindled dog dashed past and anticipated my
purpose, carrying off my hare, without bestowing so much as a glance
upon me,--no, not even appearing to see that I was there. Electrified
with astonishment, my left leg seemed pinned to the spot, while the
right, extended on a level with my shoulder, emulated that of Cerito in
"Giselle;" but recovering myself, I followed the thief, who made off
with the speed of a greyhound, in the direction of a neighbouring wood,
and on arriving at a little green knoll almost as soon as he did, I came
suddenly upon a strange and uncouth-looking figure who was reclining
comfortably on the grass beneath the shade of a large walnut-tree.




CHAPTER VIII.

     Le Père Séguin's collation--The young sportsman and the hare--The
     quarrel--The apology--The reconciliation--The cemetery--Bait for
     barbel--Le Père Séguin's deceased friends--The return home.


The extraordinary personage in whose presence I so suddenly found myself
was the celebrated Père Séguin, who, tired with his morning's sport, was
taking his noontide meal; that is, appeasing his appetite, always
enormous, with a loaf of black rye bread, into which he plunged his
ivory teeth with hearty rapidity, now and then taking a mouthful out of
a turnip he had pulled in a field hard by. The abominable quadruped was
there too, planted on his haunches, just in front of his master, looking
as innocent as a lamb, though still holding my hare between his teeth,
probably not daring to lay it down without permission.

Père Séguin ate, drank, twisted his wiry moustache, dipped his turnip in
the coarse salt, and from time to time cast a glance at his vile dog,
without deigning to speak a word, or even to acknowledge my presence.
Furious at this behaviour, I bowed and said to him, "So, you are the
owner of this precious cur?"

The poacher signified his assent by a slight movement of the head.

"Well, if the dog belongs to you, the hare in his mouth belongs to me."

"Does it?" said the Père Séguin, and he looked at his dog, who winked
his eye and shook his paw: "my dog tells me he caught this hare
running."

"I know it, the rascally vagabond! and with no great trouble either,
seeing that the hare was half dead, and had but three legs to go upon."

Père Séguin threw his yellow eye on the cur again, and, as if he had
understood all we said, he once more shook his paw, and gave a sort of
sneeze.

"My dog repeats, he coursed the hare well, and has a right to her."

"What do you mean by saying he has a right to her, when I tell you the
hare belongs to me?"

"And my dog says the reverse."

"Go to Dijon with your dog!" I exclaimed, "I tell you the hare is mine."

"My dog never told a lie," rejoined the _braconnier_, and he dipped the
remnant of his turnip for the twentieth time in the salt. "Never."

"Then _I_ am the liar," said I, beginning to feel hot, "I am the liar,
ah! am I? By Jupiter! your dog, you bearded fool--your cur of a dog? I
do not care a _sous_ for his carcass any more than I do for yours. I'll
have my hare."

"Don't get excited, young man--don't be savage, I beg of you; for, as
sure as I am a sinner, you'll have a crop of pimples on your nose
to-morrow,--and red pimples on the nose are not pretty."

"Keep your jokes to yourself, old man, or on my honour you shall repent
it!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" grinned the Père Séguin, "Ha! ha! ha! capital turnip."

"Houp! houp! houp!" went the dog.

I was bewildered; such a strange adventure had never befallen me before.

"Once, twice--will you give me my hare?"

"Have I any hare of yours?"

"You? No, but your dog."

"Ha! that's another affair. You must settle that with him. Take your
hare, and let me eat my turnip in peace."

Enraged at this, I rushed at the carroty dog, but he was off in an
instant, jumping first behind the tree, and then behind his master,
keeping my hare all the time fast in his mouth till I was fairly out of
breath, and aggravated beyond expression.

I looked towards the poacher. He was quietly plucking the top off a
fresh turnip, but under the air of icy indifference which pervaded his
whole exterior I detected a sarcastic smile, which fully convinced me
that I was the laughing-stock of man and beast. I took my resolution,
and Père Séguin, who had followed my movements with his eye, said drily,
as I was going to put a cap on, "What are you going to do young man?"

"Oh, nothing! just to kill your dog for taking my hare."

"Bah! you're joking."

"Joking! am I? You shall see;" and I proceeded quietly to raise my gun.

"Gently, my lad," roared the Père Séguin, and he seized the weapon in
his iron grasp.

"I may be but a 'lad,' but I'll not give up my rights; the hare is mine,
and I'll have her. Let go my gun!"

"No!"

"By----"

"No!"

"Then look out for yourself," said I, and with a rapid movement I
attempted to draw my _couteau de chasse_; but long before I could get
it out, he had seized me with both hands, and in a twinkling I measured
my length upon the turf, and the knife was in his possession.

"Child of violence!" he said, as he set me again on my legs, and pushed
me from him, "Do you then already love to shed blood? Would you kill a
man for a hare? Have you not the sense to distinguish a joke from an
insult? There," he added, giving me back my knife, which had fallen from
its sheath in the struggle, "young man, do your worst!"

But I was now as angry with myself as I had been with the old man, and
heartily ashamed of my conduct. I turned on my heel, and walked off,
vexed beyond expression at my intemperate folly.

The very next day, as good fortune would have it, I met him again in the
forest, and lost not a moment in asking his forgiveness for my brutal
conduct of the previous day.

"Ah! you acknowledge your fault, do you?" replied the Père Séguin,
"enough, that shows you have a heart. I bear you no ill-will; you are
_vif_ as the mountain breeze, but that comes of being young. Give me
your hand, and when you want a dove or lilies of the valley for your
sister, venison or wild boar for your friends, I, my gun, and my dog,
are at your service; but"--and he whispered in my ear--"no more knives."

"See! see!" and I opened my jacket, "it is gone. I threw it into the
moat this morning."

"'Tis well! very well! You have had a happy escape, young man. _Au
revoir._ Now, Faro, take your leave of Monsieur;" and instantly obeying
a sign from his master, the red dog licked my boots. A moment more, and
they were both lost to view in the forest.

From that time I was frequently with the Père Séguin, for he seemed to
have a fancy--a sort of affection for me, and on my part I had an
incomprehensible pleasure in his society, though in the early part of
our acquaintance I could not divest myself of an undefined dread of him;
and had some difficulty in reconciling myself to the harsh and guttural
tones of his voice, and his peculiarly severe physiognomy. Nevertheless,
many an evening did I slip away from the paternal hearth, much to the
distress of my poor mother, to seat myself on one of his wooden stools,
and eat the chestnuts he was roasting in the embers, while he related,
by the pale light of his small charcoal fire, which but dimly showed the
extent even of his small room, frightful stories of ghosts, suicides,
drownings, and fearful murders, with which he delighted to terrify me;
and, dear reader, he succeeded to perfection, for all the time I sat
listening to them I was cold, and trembled like a leaf in the northern
blast.

Well do I remember--yes, as well as if it had been yesterday--going out
with him to fish for barbel, and joining him over-night to go in search
of bait. I found him crouched by his fire, eating potatoes out of the
same plate with his dog. This frugal meal over, he took up a small
lantern, a large box, and a long spade, and beckoned me to follow him.

The moon was rising as we left the hut, but red as blood, lightning
streaked the sky at short intervals, and the wind howled as if a storm
was approaching. Père Séguin rubbed his hands, and an expression of
satisfaction passed across his extraordinary countenance; for, living as
he did a lonely wandering life, he had become superstitious, and firmly
believed that worms caught at certain hours of the night, and in a
breeze that foretold an approaching tempest, were more likely to attract
the fish than those taken in the daylight. To this article of his creed
I offered no objection, but I own my heart shrunk within me when I
observed that he took the direct road to the burial-ground. "Père
Séguin," said I, "we need go no further; the turf in this lane is
capital; we shall find all we want here without a longer walk." "Since
when," he inquired in a voice that seemed to come from between his
shoulders, "since when have young fawns taught the old roebuck the way
to the forest-glades?" And he strode on without a word more, still in
the direction I so much abhorred.

Arriving at the cemetery, Père Séguin walked leisurely round it, paying
as much attention to me as if I had not been with him, and I followed
like a criminal going to the scaffold. After having made a careful
examination of the wall, he stopped suddenly, gave me the lantern and
the spade, and leaped upon the top, desiring me to do the same. I
hesitated, and fell back, for I felt more inclined to throw them down
and run away, and Père Séguin saw it.

"Ha! ha!" he exclaimed, fixing his yellow eye upon me. "I thought you
were heart of oak, young Sir; are you only a man of straw?"

I gave no answer, but I leaped on to the wall like a rope-dancer.

"Hum!" he muttered; "good legs, but a faint heart." And he begun rapidly
to turn up the rank grass, and pick the large red worms from amongst the
roots, when, looking up in my face, he said, with infinite coolness,
"Why, you are as pale as my mother was on the day of her death! What
ails you?"

"Ails me!" I replied, repressing my fears, "why to tell you the truth,
I'd just as soon be anywhere else as here."

"Pooh! pooh! young man; one must accustom one's self to everything in
this world. We must learn--be always learning. Remember, for instance,
for I'll be bound that you never heard of such a thing before, that
worms taken in a burial-ground are the finest possible bait for barbel,
do you hear?--taken by moonlight from the roots of the hemlock."

"Good heavens! Père Séguin, I would rather never catch a fish for the
rest of my days than touch one of those worms!"

"Nonsense, my lad--nonsense; they are admirable bait--fine fat
fellows--sure to take. We shall have a wonderful day to-morrow. You will
soon see how the giants and gourmands of the streams will snap at these
beauties."

"Hang the barbel, Père Séguin!--let us leave this cold churchyard. I
feel sick, and a clammy cold creeping over me already--do let us be
gone;" but he would not move.

"Don't feel unwell, pray don't; it is a well-known fact, that any person
who feels ill in a churchyard is sure to die within the year."

"Let us leave then, for I do feel very ill;" but the purveyor of worms
was now too much occupied to listen to me.

Hopeless, therefore, of inducing him to leave till he had filled his
box, I sat down on a tombstone, and the noise he made with the spade in
the silence, the darkness, and the peculiar and sickening odour of the
place, filled me with an indescribable sense of fear and horror.

At length the poacher paused, and having disentangled a very long worm
from the twisted roots of a large clod, he said, "This makes one hundred
and thirteen--a holy number. Now I've done, my lad; let us be off."

"Yes--oh, yes!"--for the minutes seemed hours--"let us go instantly;"
and I sprang from the tombstone, while Père Séguin proceeded
deliberately to fill up the holes, and replace the turf, whistling
through his moustache just as if he had been in the middle of his
garden.

"One hundred and thirteen!--I like that number."

"So do I, Père Séguin; but do let us be going. If we remain here, they
will think that we have killed and buried some one. Do, pray, be off;"
and I made for the wall.

"Stop!" he said suddenly, drawing himself up to his full height, six
feet three, "Stop!" and throwing out his long arms, which made his
shadow on the stones resemble an immense black cross, "Hold there! Look!
Do you see that tomb--that large gray stone?"

"I see nothing, Père Séguin, I will see nothing. I close my eyes, and
only desire to be gone."

"As you please," said the poacher; "but you are wrong. I could have told
you a curious history--a most interesting history."

"Thanks for your histories--much obliged to you; but I have had enough
of them." Still Père Séguin would persevere: "A woman, who has appeared
to me three times--yes, three following days--spoken to me, pulled me by
the fingers and by the beard eight days after her death."

"Yes! yes! I know; but which way are we to get out of this infernal
place?"

"Why, what a hurry you are in!--I say stop, and let me say good night to
her!"--and Père Séguin approached the tall gray stone, the moon shining
full upon it, and struck it with the handle of his spade, calling each
time in a solemn voice, "Madeleine! Madeleine! Madeleine!"

Had I been at that frightful moment cut in four quarters, not one drop
of blood would have been found in my veins; my teeth chattered with
terror, and I would have given every acre of my inheritance for strength
enough to run away. "Madeleine! Madeleine!" le Père Séguin continued in
a low and churchyard tone, "Madeleine!" he cried, leaning on the gray
tomb, "'tis me, Séguin--le Père Séguin; good night, good night,
Madeleine!"

I could not speak, I could not move; and certainly had the lady
whispered only one single little word in reply, I should have fainted.

"Well, it is all over; she is dead for certain now!" said the poacher,
shaking his head. "Alas! poor Madeleine! Gone in the flower of her age!
Dead at two-and-twenty, for having offered me a violet! Dead! Let us
begone."

I beg you to understand I did not put him to the necessity of repeating
his words, but found my legs in excellent running order in a moment.

"Hold! not so fast!" said my companion, just as I was springing at the
wall, and thought myself out of danger, "Hold! Down there, my young
gentleman, in that dark corner amongst the brambles. You see that little
heap of earth, which one might fancy a dead man alive had pushed up
with his knees; well, there also is one of my comrades. Ho! halloo,
Jerome!"

"Père Séguin," said I, "this is unworthy of you; you have no right thus
to mock at and disturb the dead; you only want to torment me; and I have
already told you, and I repeat it, I feel exceedingly ill."

"Come, come along then--let us go. I shall return here presently to
sleep. Good night, Madeleine!--good night, Jerome!--good night, all of
you who are sleeping so quietly under the green turf!"--and it seemed to
me, as these adieus were uttered, that icy breezes passed from every
tomb across my face, whispering in my ears, "Good night!" and that the
firs, the yews, the cypress bending across our path seemed to salute us
as we left the horrible precincts.

We soon regained the town, and on the road there I would not have turned
my head for a crown of rubies; Père Séguin, meanwhile, coolly carrying
his box of worms, which I would not have touched for the best place in
Paradise.

The next morning, instead of fishing for barbel, I was unable to rise
from my bed; and for fifteen nights I never closed my eyes without
seeing in my dreams ghosts, and all the horrid details of the churchyard
and the charnel-house.




CHAPTER IX.

     Passage of the woodcock in November--Their laziness--Night
     travelling--Mode of snaring them at night--Numbers taken in this
     way--This sport adapted rather for the poacher--The _braconnier_ of
     Le Morvan--His mode of life--The poacher's dog--The double poacher.


The object of this chapter will be to give the reader some little
insight into the habits of the woodcock, and the mode of snaring them in
the forests of Le Morvan, during the month of November. At the close of
this month, Dame Nature's barometer, their instinct, far better than the
quicksilver, tells them the December rains are close at hand; and that
if they remain in their hiding-places in the low grounds, they will be
driven out by the approaching deluge. They at length make up their minds
to set forth on their travels. With a long-drawn sigh, therefore, the
woodcock bids farewell to the old oaks that have sheltered it all the
summer, and taking leave of its friendly comrades, the squirrels, it
sets out on the first fine night for a more genial climate, to the
delight, no doubt, of the neighbouring worms, who pop their heads out of
window to witness its departure; and the moment their enemy is fairly
out of sight, perform many a pirouette on the tip of their tails, and
dance upon the grass in honour of the joyous event.

If a woodcock was not a woodcock, that is, one of the laziest birds in
the creation, it might easily reach, in a few days' flight, the dry
heaths, the hills, and elevated regions, which it loves; but woodcocks
abhor all violent exercise, always preferring the use of their feet to
that of their wings, which latter they never agitate, except when
necessity requires. Well, they have now set out, and after marching all
night by slow and easy stages, when morning comes our woodcocks make a
halt wherever they happen to be, breakfast as best they may, and then
ensconce themselves in some snug spot, where they doze the livelong day,
till, refreshed by their twelve hours' rest, they set off again with
renewed strength the moment the sun has gone down.

Thus it is that during the middle of November there is no regular
flight, but a kind of circulation, of woodcocks, perambulating from the
lower to the higher regions, and the _gourmet_ and the sportsman fail
not to stop them on their way.

As it is necessary in this kind of _chasse_ to spend the night under the
trees and on the damp moss, those who wish to enjoy it prepare for it
accordingly by dressing themselves like Navarre, in a suit of
sheepskins, and lay in a good store of cold meat and brandy.

During their nocturnal peregrinations, instinct leads the woodcock to
follow ascending roads and open pathways, especially such as are
completely exposed to the mild winds of the south and south-east only;
they avoid walking through the woods, where the road is encumbered with
brambles and other obstacles, which would oblige them to hop or fly far
oftener than they like, occasionally leaving a portion of their feathers
behind them. Moreover, their feet are tender, and they in consequence
prefer the paths that are overgrown with grass, the open glades, or
roads cut through the moss.

It is now that the sportsman who is well versed in the private history
of the woodcock prepares his snares; for at this period of the year it
is by them that they are taken.

Penetrating, therefore, the depths of the forest, the experienced
_chasseur_ soon discovers, in some secluded spot, a path well carpeted
with verdure, lighted by a few stray moonbeams and sheltered from the
wind, where he forthwith begins to lay his snares. Should the path be
broad, he proceeds to contract it, strewing it partially with stones,
brambles, and thorns; he likewise cuts down some twigs and branches, and
sticks them into the ground at intervals, so as to present as many
impediments and _chevaux de frise_ as he can to thwart the progress of
the lazy bird. The middle of the path should be left quite free, and
wide enough to allow a couple of woodcocks to walk abreast. Into this
narrow passage they all walk without suspicion, and their further
progress is prevented by their falling into the trap which is laid to
receive them.

This snare is placed across a hole about the size of a crown piece, and
consists of a strong noose made of horsehair, which is fixed to a peg,
and so arranged that the slightest touch causes it to rebound and catch
them by the leg.

In the hole is laid a fine, fat, red worm, healthy and tempting, and, in
order to prevent the poor prisoner's escaping, the sportsman has devised
a method of keeping him down in spite of himself, by pinning him to the
ground at one end with a long thorn--it is presumed worms do not feel;
his miserable contortions attract the attention of the hungry woodcock,
who immediately seizes this irresistible tit-bit.

Every preparation completed and the snare baited, the hole, the worm,
and the noose are carefully covered over by a withered leaf--a second
snare, similarly concealed, is set on the right, a third in the middle,
and so on at a distance of three or four feet from each other. All is
now in readiness, and twilight finds the sportsman covered up in his
skins at some fifty paces from his traps. Here, after having comforted
his inward man, and sharpened his sight by swallowing two or three
glasses of cognac, addressing between them an invocation to his patron
saint, he listens and waits.

On come the long-bills, looking right and left, pecking the ground,
peering at the moon and the stars, and eating all they can find in their
way. They now approach the dangerous defile, and some of the younger
ones fly over the traps; others, more prudent, turn back; but the main
body hold a council of war, when the staff officers having decided that
these Thermopylæ must be passed, first one woodcock and then another
taking heart proceeds, and the sportsman hugs himself in his success on
perceiving the whole troop making towards the baits he has spread for
them. Before long one of the birds gets its leg entangled, totters,
falls, rises again, but in doing so is made fast by the noose, and in
spite of its efforts is unable to advance a step further. Another,
hearing the sound of a worm struggling at the bottom of a hole, darts
in its beak, with the charitable intention of ending the prisoner's
sufferings, and on raising its head is suddenly seized by the neck. The
sportsman now steals softly from his hiding-place, and, stooping down,
smashes the woodcock's brain with his thumb nail, and so on with the
next, after which he retreats to his post, and keeps up the game till
dawn. Some persons will in this manner catch from twenty to thirty
woodcocks in a single night; but they must be favourably placed, have a
great number of snares, and, moreover, possess a considerable degree of
skill, and tread lightly, (for the most important point, in this sport,
is to make as little noise as possible,) and be very quick at putting
the snares in order the moment they have been used--no easy work, in
good sooth, seeing that it must be performed by an occasional ray of
moonlight.

If late on the ground, and you have not sufficient time to obstruct and
barricade the road as directed above, the earth may be turned up in the
middle of the path and the snares placed across it; the woodcocks, in
the hope of finding something to eat, will immediately walk on to
it--but although this method occasionally succeeds it is far from being
as good as the first, for the soil does not offer the same resistance
as the turf, the holes get filled up, and the birds escape more easily.

The sportsman should mind and bag his game as fast as it is snared, or
master Reynard, who has been watching the whole affair, will pounce upon
his birds and carry them off, with a dozen nooses into the bargain.

Poachers reap an ample harvest of cash by this mode of taking woodcocks,
while other sportsmen generally reap the rheumatism; and, truth to say,
the silence and immobility that must be observed all night long, the
intense cold, and the damp fogs which cover the forest in the early
morning, are not very agreeable, and most gentlemen prefer staying at
home, enjoying the innocent diversion of playing the flute, quarrelling
with their wives, or emptying the bottle.

To succeed well in snaring woodcocks requires both skill and experience,
and a thorough knowledge of the woods, the winds, the colour of the
clouds, the age of the moon, the state of the atmosphere; and, in fact,
short of being a poacher or a conjuror, how is it possible to know that
the woodcocks will pass one spot rather than another in a space of
several score of square miles, and amongst so many and such intricate
paths. The _braconnier_ alone is infallible on these points, and curious
specimens of the human biped are these same poachers!

In the first place it must not be imagined that the poachers of Le
Morvan bear the slightest resemblance to those of England. They are as
much alike as Thames water and Burgundy wine. The English poacher is a
rank vagabond, who invades every one's game-preserves at dead of night,
and kills whatever he finds, whether hares, partridges, dogs, pheasants,
or gamekeepers,--while ours are men following a legitimate occupation.

In Le Morvan, forests are open to all; there are no palings to get over,
and no keepers to fear; the public may hunt, shoot, or snare what they
please.

The poacher commences his hard apprenticeship in early childhood. Nature
directs him to adopt this course of life, and endows him with a bold
heart, a cool head, a sinewy frame, and an iron constitution. The
incipient poachers soon leave the inhabited districts to live in the
forests, with trees for their roof, and moss for their bed. They study
alike the woods and the stars, and know the forest by heart, with its
roads and glades, beaten tracks and untrodden paths. From sunrise to
sunset they are always-a-foot, walking through the thickets, tramping
over heaths, or stooping amongst the brushwood, listening, and looking
everywhere, and by night and by day constantly making their observations
on the direction of the wind, the habits of the animals that pass them,
or the birds that fly over their heads.

In this way they ferret out every nook and every winding in the forest,
and now here and now there build themselves a hut, live upon fruit,
chestnuts, and their game, which they roast upon embers; and never come
into a town except to purchase powder, shot and ball, or perhaps a pair
of shoes, some tobacco, and brandy.

Such is the rough life of the youthful poacher, nor has he any companion
during this wild period of his existence, excepting a dog, the faithful
partner of his joys and dangers, and who becomes a devoted friend and
brother for life. They live together, talk to each other, understand
each other, and guess each other's slightest wish. I have seen a poacher
talking to his dog by the hour together, the man laughing fit to split
at what his canine companion was telling him in his own peculiar way,
while the dog, rolling on the grass, barked with delight at what his
master answered.

When on their shooting expeditions, a sign from his master, a nod, a
wink, an uplifted finger, or the slightest whisper, are either of them
sufficient for his guidance; he stops, or dashes onward, takes a leap,
or crouches down, as the case may be, and never is he known to be at
fault.

On his part the poacher has only to refer to his dog as to the pages of
a book, and he reads at once in his slightest movements what is in the
wind, what bird lies hidden in the grass, or what beast is cowering in
the thicket. By the position of his head, the manner in which he
scratches the ground, pricks his ear, or carries his tail, he
understands as plainly as if he spoke whether he announces the proximity
of a wolf, a partridge, a woodcock, a roebuck, a hare, or a rabbit.

I have known poachers who have told me half an hour beforehand what we
were going to meet. Another would bid his dog bring him a leaf, a
branch, a flower, or a mushroom, and off he went, sought, found, and
brought back the identical article required. "Now, sing," said the
poacher, and the dog began to sing; not, indeed, exactly like Mario, but
he produced a kind of melodious growl, a sort of improvised musical
lament over his solitary life, which had its charm. Most poachers are
exceedingly fond of music, and as they are always singing in their
leisure moments, of course their dog joins them; so that when they are
both in the humour for it, they execute duets in the depths of the
forest that make the very nightingales jealous.

By the time a poacher has acquired a complete knowledge of wood-craft,
and that he knows familiarly every path and every bush in the forest,
every hole and every stone in the mountains, together with the habits,
character, and favourite haunts of every species of game; has made a
reputation, and put by some money; that he is beginning to turn gray,
and is verging on forty, his fondness for this savage kind of life
begins to diminish, his rough exterior becomes somewhat softened, he
purchases a solitary little cottage in some secluded spot, comes oftener
into town, and occasionally partakes of its pleasures.

In poaching, as in everything else, there are varieties of taste, and
degrees of superiority. Some fish, others hunt only the roebuck and the
boar, others shoot squirrels and wild cats, others again excel in
snaring woodcocks, while some are dead hands at scenting and tracking a
wolf. Each poacher has his peculiar line, and each line furnishes a
livelihood.

But when it happens, once in a way, that there is a man who unites a
profound knowledge of the forest to an equally profound knowledge of the
waters--who hunts, tracks, and shoots all sorts of game with equal
success, and is also an expert fisherman, then he is a superior man of
his kind, complete at all points, a sort of Napoleon in his way, and his
countrymen bestow on him the title of the "double poacher,"--for thus
was called my worthy friend Le Père Séguin.




CHAPTER X.

     The woodcock--Its habits in the forests of Le Morvan--Aversion of
     dogs to this bird--Timidity of the woodcock--Its cunning--Shooting
     in November--The Woodcock mates--The Woodcock fly.


In the last and preceding chapters, the imaginative and romantic have
predominated almost to the entire exclusion of any description of the
wild sports of Le Morvan, and I fear that the sporting reader, not
generally of a very sentimental taste, will ere this have become
impatient, and perhaps a little angry at the delay. I trust, however,
that I may be able to soften his indignation, and by the following
sketches gratify the expectations naturally raised in his mind by the
first words of the title-page. Of boar and wolf-hunting we shall speak
further on: my present object will be to give a description, not only of
the woodcock-shooting in Burgundy and Le Morvan, but also of the habits,
etc., of that bird.

In the forests of which we are writing, the woodcock is not a mere bird
of passage, as in other European countries; it does not fly beyond sea,
like the swallow and most of the emigrating feathered tribes, nor does
it disappear like the quail, at a fixed period, and reappear at a given
moment. Here the woodcock seldom if ever deserts the forests which have
been its constant abode, and the sportsman is sure to find it nearly all
the year round. I have said nearly, for though not seeking other climes,
it requires a change of locality to secure a certain temperature.

For instance, in the months of May, June, July, and August, woodcocks
are to be found in elevated spots, such as mountains covered with large
trees, or in warm open places on their slopes. At the first approach of
cold weather they leave the hills, and come down into the plains,
concealing themselves in the underwood, or the fern, or in the high
grass, when the snow begins to fall. The woodcock is a melancholy bird,
and somewhat misanthropic. Its habits are eminently anti-social; it
flies but little, so little indeed that its wings seem scarcely of any
use, and with the laziness already alluded to that forms its
characteristic feature, it seeks out a solitary spot, and having dug a
hole amongst the dry leaves, there it will squat for days together
without stirring. It likewise delights to cower under the gnarled roots
of an old oak, or to hide itself in a holly-bush, and apparently derives
so much satisfaction from its own meditations, and seems to hold all
other birds of the forest in such utter contempt, that it never by any
chance deigns to join their sports, or mingle in their joyous songs. The
woodcock seeks the darkest and most silent thickets, and likes a marly
soil, damp meadows, and the neighbourhood of brooks and stagnant water.

But though motionless and torpid, so long as the sun is above the
horizon, woodcocks are always on the alert, and wake and shake their
feathers the moment night comes; leaving the shady thickets and grassy
spots, they flock to the glades and little paths of the woods, and
thrust their long beaks into the soft, damp soil--for this bird, be it
remembered, never touches either corn or fruit, but lives entirely upon
grubs and earth-worms.

It naturally follows that the woodcock, which finds its food in slimy
marshes, with head bent, and eyes fixed upon the ground, possesses none
of the gaiety and vivacity of other birds, holds but a very low place in
the scale of animal intelligence, and possesses a large share of that
stupidity peculiar to the dull species that were formed to live in the
mire.

The size of the woodcock varies exceedingly; they are much smaller than
the domestic fowl, but heavier and larger than the heath partridge; yet
there are some which are as small as a wood-pigeon, and even less. Their
plumage is dark, and harmonizes admirably with the trunks of the trees
and moss amongst which they dwell. Even in the daylight, and at a
distance of only twenty paces, it is impossible to distinguish a
woodcock, as it lies motionless, with closed wings, and neck extended on
the ground, amongst the withered leaves.

When walking on the grass, there is a certain elegance in its movements,
while the beautiful _chiar' oscuro_ tints of its wings, the gray and
orange hues on its breast, its long black legs streaked with pink, its
large beak, small head, and symmetrical proportions, combine to render
it a bird of no ordinary beauty. Though its eyes are piercing and very
open, the woodcock only sees distinctly at twilight, and its flight is
never so even or so rapid, nor its motions so brisk, or its gait so
regular, as at nightfall or at dawn of day.

The flesh is black, firm, and of a game flavour, and, with the wise, is
a most dainty morsel, a royal tit-bit. But dogs think differently, and
have such an aversion to its smell, that they hunt, seize, and bring it
back much against their will; and, difficult as it may be to account
for this antipathy, it seems to be as inherent in canine nature, as the
antipathy which all ladies show to contradiction is in the human.

Far removed from the strife that occasionally rages amidst the feathered
tribes of the forest, or the more formidable struggles of its
four-footed inhabitants, whose howls occasionally startle the silence of
night, and quite indifferent as to whether a fox or a wolf is seated on
the sylvan throne, the woodcock, like a true philosopher, in the depths
of the thicket, leads a calm and sedentary life, requiring no other
elements of happiness than moonlight, rest, and a few worms. Its tastes
are so humble, its wants so few; it mixes so little with the world, and
is so ignorant of all intrigue, that nothing can exceed its innocence.
Like those honest country-folks who can never manage to shake off their
native simplicity, its instinct never puts it on its guard against a
snare, and consequently it falls into the first that is set for it.

A complete stranger to the fierce emotions that excite the savage nature
of those animals that live constantly at war with one another, the
peaceful woodcock--the bird of twilight--is startled by the least noise,
and stunned by the slightest accident. Many a time, at dawn of day, when
lying in wait for the passage of a fox, a roebuck, or a wolf, have I
seen two, three, four, even five woodcocks slowly issue from their leafy
covert, and advance with measured step towards the open glade,
apparently without imagining that by leaving the shade of the trees they
were exposing themselves to being seen. On they walked, searching by the
way, plunging from time to time their long beaks into the grass, and
shaking their heads right and left to enlarge the hole, they breakfasted
luxuriously on the worms that crept out of it.

Concealed behind an oak-tree, I have sometimes been highly amused by
watching their motions, nor had I the least wish to disturb them, not
caring to rouse the echoes of the forest for such insignificant game. So
the woodcocks went on with their manoeuvres, holding down their heads,
with eyes intent upon the grass, evidently engrossed by their own
occupation. In this manner they unconsciously advanced close to me, when
suddenly rising from the ground I gave a loud shout, at which the
startled birds were so panic-struck that they literally fell down, and
fluttering their wings, without having the power to fly, looked at me
with rolling eye-balls, while their beaks opened as if to call for help,
emitting nothing but inarticulate sounds, that seemed so many prayers
for mercy. Somewhat relieved of their worst fears, on perceiving that I
had no evil intentions, they rushed away head over heels, and sought
refuge under their favourite roots. The recollection of this scene,
which only lasted seven or eight seconds, has often made me laugh.

Yet notwithstanding this general want of presence of mind, the woodcock
displays some cunning in extreme danger,--such as when the shot is
whistling past its feathers, or when the hawk is wheeling about in the
air above its head; its faculties then seem to awaken, its blood
circulates more freely, a spark of intelligence seems to flash across
its usually obtuse brain, and the magnitude of the peril suggests an
excellent means of escaping from its enemies. During the daytime, for
instance, when, snugly ensconced in its hole, and with its ear close to
the ground, the woodcock hears you approach from afar, instead of rising
and taking refuge amongst the trunks of the surrounding trees, it first
reflects solemnly whether it is worth while to disturb itself for so
slight a noise, and quit its leafy bed, where it lies so warm and
comfortable. After all, it may be only a hare running past--or perhaps a
roebuck grazing in the neighbourhood--so the woodcock waits, then
listens, then stands up and begins to move; on hearing your thick shoes
trampling the withered branches, it stands motionless, not daring to
stir, nor can it make up its mind to fly until it feels the breath of
your dog. Then it rises rapidly enough.

It flies straight, but its flight is not even, and at the distance of
about fifty paces, and just as you are going to fire, the woodcock, well
aware that the sportsman's eye is upon it, and shrewdly guessing that
thunder and lightning is about to follow, changes his tactics, and
lowering its flight, so as to avoid the mortal aim, suddenly plunges
down behind a bush. The sportsman, who, not aware of this specious
manoeuvre, fires at this juncture, thinks the bird has fallen dead,
and forthwith runs to pick it up, but no woodcock can he find; for on
raising his eyes, lo! and behold, he sees the provoking bird some five
hundred paces distant, cleaving the air with sails full set; and as his
eyes follow it still further, he perceives it flying with all its might,
ever and anon prudently ducking down to avoid the second barrel.

This is one of the woodcock's best stratagems, and it succeeds ten times
out of twelve, at least with the tyros among sportsmen.

When fairly tired by its flight, the woodcock drops into the underwood,
and is then completely lost to the sportsman; for, once on the ground,
it runs with the greatest celerity, its wings working rapidly like a
couple of paddles, and vanishing beneath the leaves, falls fainting into
some snug corner.

In Brittany and in Lower Normandy this ornament of the table and delight
of the sportsman is found in great numbers at a certain season of the
year. In Picardy, and in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, I have sometimes
knocked over as many as twenty woodcocks in one day, while on the morrow
and the day following I could not flush three. Such is not the case in
Le Morvan, where they are, as we have before remarked, to be found all
the year round; the proper seasons, however, for shooting them are
three. These are, the month of November, before the rains set in; the
month of April, when they mate; and the sultry months of June and July;
the period of drought and of the dog-days. In the interim of these
epochs they are allowed to enjoy themselves, and suffered to fatten
quietly in their dark thickets. I shall, therefore, only notice these
three periods.

In foggy or cloudy nights, when the branches of the trees are dripping
wet, the woodcock, ensconced in its hole, feels no hunger, moves not,
and would not venture abroad for love or money; but should the sky
prove clear, and the moon shine forth, lighting up the forest paths, the
delighted bird steals from its dwelling, shakes its feathers, and
sallies forth on its adventures. For the woodcock, like poets and
lovers, is fond of the moonlight and the sweet perfumes of evening.
Hence it is that sportsmen in France call the full moon of November "the
woodcock's moon," and they hail its appearance with as much rejoicing as
do the foxes, wild cats, and poachers, all of whom make sad havoc
amongst the long-beaked tribe during this fatal period.

The woodcock has been described as an idle, heavy, timid, and stupid
bird, which passes the greater portion of the day in lethargic slumbers,
in gazing at the south, at the growing grass, or the falling leaves;
rejoicing only in silence and solitude; and such is the case during nine
months of the year. In the spring, however, it is quite otherwise; the
woodcock then mates, and, ere April showers have passed away, becomes
animated, sociable, and full of life; and, more extraordinary still, its
voice, till then mute, may actually be heard.

Yes, at this delightful season the woodcock is no longer silent, its
tongue is loosened, it breathes its tale of love, and, with joyful
notes, proclaims its happiness morning and night; and yet there are
those who would make us believe that the tender passion is useless, that
love is tom-foolery, or that it does not exist. To these blind
blasphemers, who thus deny its power, I would respectfully say, Come to
Le Morvan, and observe the woodcock, and then dare to say that love is
an untruth. Why, love is the great magician of the universe, the sun of
our minds, a path of fragrant violets, a perfect copse of _millefleurs_,
before which we all bend our hearts, aye, and, with vastly few
exceptions, our heads too. Yes, we all, at some period of our lives,
taste the delicious draught, and some drink deep of it, either to their
life-long happiness or the reverse. Love effects many a miracle, changes
everything, bows the neck of the proud, opens the eyes of the blind, and
shuts them for those who have very good sight; teaches the dumb to
speak, and those who are very loquacious to be silent. When the rosy and
naked little boy makes his appearance with his quiver, all is joy and
unreflecting happiness; when he is at home with his mamma, alas! the
world is all in shadow. The woodcocks, in like manner, are amiable,
eloquent, and engaging as long as the fumes of love affect their brain;
but when these are dissipated, they are dumb, and ten times more stupid
than they were before; and, dear me, how many human woodcocks, robed in
satin and balzarine, or sheathed in kerseymere trousers, are the same.

But, shades of Buffon and Linnæus! we must not thus rattle on, but
proceed to describe the nuptial couch of the delicious bird under our
consideration. The woodcock, like all those of the feathered tribe that
do not perch, makes its nest on the ground, which is composed of leaves,
fern, and dry grass, intermixed with little bits of stick, and
strengthened by larger pieces placed across it. This nest, made without
much art or care, in form like a large brown ball, is generally placed
under, and sheltered by the root of some old tree. Four or five eggs, a
little larger than those of the common pigeon, of a dirty gray and
yellow colour, and marked with little black spots, are the proofs of its
maternity. The woodcock, as I have before remarked, has only the gift of
talking in the spring season, when soft breezes fan the air, and they
educate their young. Nevertheless, it is in this season that
woodcock-shooting is the most amusing. Then is the time for gentlemen to
shoot; the _braconnier_ despises it. From the middle of April to that of
May is the important epoch at which the generality of animals marry,
and the woodcocks are not behindhand in this respect; they leave their
well-concealed retreats, become humanized, solicit the attentions of
their feathered ladies, and fly with gay inspirations amongst the
neighbouring bushes. But though as much in love as a widow, the woodcock
does not on that account forget its habitual prudence; like the usurer
who lends his money, and takes every precaution, the woodcock is equally
careful, and does not leave its nest till twilight has draped the earth
in the gray mantle of evening. When the humid atmosphere descends slowly
on the trees, when the cool breezes of night ascend the valleys, when
distant objects begin to assume a fantastic shape, when the branches of
the oak near you, like the arms of a giant, wave to and fro, and seem to
ask you to approach; when the withered tree, devoid of leaves, looks
like a brigand on the watch, or your comrade, ensconced against it,
seems to form a portion of it at a hundred yards off; when, in short,
the sportsman can see only a few yards before him, then is the moment
that the circumspect and wily woodcock leaves its abode, and pays a
nocturnal visit to his friends; and man, his enemy, and still more
cunning, is on the alert. The sport which we are about to describe, and
which does not last longer than from thirty to forty minutes, has
something particularly taking in it. At the close of day a universal
silence reigns in the forest, and every sportsman is at his post with
bated breath, and eyes dilated as wide as a woman's listening to a
neighbouring gossip's tale, when, all at once--pray note this well,
reader--a little fly, which plays a prominent part in all sport _à
l'affût_ (in ambush)--a little fly, about the size of a pea, regularly
makes its appearance, and wheeling round your head, fidgets you for five
minutes with its buzzing b-r-r-r-r-r-r-oo. In this way the little insect
informs you the woodcocks have left the underwood, that they are
approaching, and that it hears them coming; and odd or marvellous as it
may seem, this signal of the little fly, which never misleads you--this
signal which falls upon your ear just at the proper and precise moment,
is as certain as that two and two make four. Be not sceptical, and
imagine that this is chance; no such thing. Go when you will to the
_chasse à l'affût_, station yourself in whichever part of the forest you
like, be assured the fly will be there; it was never otherwise. The
question is, who sends the fly? how does it know the sportsman? and by
what mysterious chronometer does it regulate with such exactness its
movements? _Chi lo sa?_ He who doth not let a sparrow fall to the ground
without He willeth it. Equally incomprehensible is the departure of this
little insect, which, the concert over, and when you are thoroughly on
the _qui vive_, ceases its buzz, and is heard no more. At this very
moment, the silence in which you have till then remained is suddenly
broken by shouts of "They come! they come!" quickly followed by bang,
bang, bang along the glade; and here indeed they are, at first by twos
and threes, and then a compact flight, whirling along with appealing
cries of love, fluttering, and flapping their wings, and pursuing one
another from bush to bush. They show now neither fear nor
circumspection, and crazy, blind, and deaf, scarcely seem to notice the
noise, the flashes, or the cries of the sportsmen. At length all is in
complete confusion. They toss and twirl about like great leaves in a
hurricane, and finally fly, with their ranks somewhat diminished, to
their several homes. This sport lasts but a short half-hour; after
which, the woodcocks having said all they had to say, made and accepted
their engagements for the following day, vanish as if by magic, like the
puff of a cigar, a shadow, or a royal promise, and the same silence that
preceded their arrival reigns once more in the forest. No gun is loaded
after their departure; the sportsmen assemble, count the dead, never so
numerous, as one might suppose, and having bagged them, also retire from
the scene. I have known one person kill four couple of woodcocks in this
manner, but it was quite an exceptional case; two or three is nearer the
usual number. Chance, as in war, in marriage, in everything, is
frequently the secret of success; but if you are not cool and collected,
and handy with your gun, you will scarce carry a _salmi_ home to your
expectant friends. To the young sportsman, the novelty, confusion, and
hubbub of these evening shooting-parties are perfectly bewildering;
Parisian cockneys, above all, are quite beside themselves, shutting
first one eye and then the other, firing, of course, without having
taken any aim, and eventually beating a retreat without a feather in
their game-bags. But to the veteran, this fevered half-hour, this brief
_chasse_, is most delightful; everything conspires to make it lively and
exciting. The party, ten or twelve jolly dogs, have generally dined
together, and the onslaught over, they all return by the pale moonlight,
shoulder to shoulder, singing snatches of some old hunting-song, the
stars overhead and the woodcocks on their backs. A young Parisian and
college friend of mine, Adolphe Gustave de----, very rich and very
witty, whom, after many unsuccessful attempts, I induced to leave the
capital, and pass six months with me in the deserts, as he called them,
of Le Morvan, loved this species of sport intensely, though he never
shot anything. His bag, however, was always better filled than that of
any of his comrades, for though a wretched shot, he had the wit to stand
near a good one, and as he was wonderfully quick with his legs, eyes,
and fingers, he was constantly picking up his neighbour's birds, vowing
all the time they were his own shooting.




CHAPTER XI.

     Fine names--Gustavus Adolphus and the cabbages--Gustavus Adolphus!
     no hero!--The Parisian Sportsman--Partridge-shooting
     despicable--Wild boar-hunting--Rousing the grisly monster--His
     approach--The post of honour--Good nerves--The death--The trophy
     and congratulations.


Few persons well acquainted with France can have failed to observe how
fond the lower orders, indeed all classes, are of giving high-sounding
names to their children; and it is sometimes truly amusing to notice the
strange upset of associations which in consequence jar the auricular
nerve, and illustrate the singularly exalted notions of the godfathers
and godmothers. "Gustave Adolphe!" I once heard an old cook vociferate
from the kitchen of a small inn to a boy in the yard. "Gustave Adolphe!"
shrieked the aged heroine of the sauce-pans, pitching her voice in A
alto, "_Coupez donc les choux!_" Cutting cabbages! What an antithesis to
the glorious victor of Lutzen. The remark will apply with equal force to
the Gustave Adolphe of the last chapter, though on a different point,
and the contrast between the great Gustavus and he of Paris, was most
diverting. My accomplished friend, a charming dancer, a _beau parleur_,
a first-rate singer, who made sad havoc among the fresh and fair
gazelles of every ballroom, this tremendous _chasseur-de-salon_, I very
soon perceived, was by no means so tremendous in the stubbles;--a covey
fairly startled him, and if a hare rose between his legs he turned quite
pale.

"My good fellow," I said to him one day, seeing his extraordinary
trepidation, "if you are so staggered by a covey of partridges, what in
the world will you do when I set you face to face with a wolf or a wild
boar?"

"Oh! that is a very different affair. A wolf or a wild boar? Why, I
should kill one and eat the other, of course."

"Not so easy," I should think, "for a novice like you."

"Novice, indeed! me a novice. Oh! you are quite in error. The fact is,
these devils of birds and rabbits lie hidden, do you see, under the
grass like frogs, one never knows where; so that I never see them till
they are all but in my eyes, or cutting capers like Taglioni's under my
feet, and your dogs putting out their tongues, and staring at me."

"Why, of course they do; the intelligent brutes are ready to expire at
your awkwardness."

"Much obliged to you for the compliment. Again, you say, they turn their
tails to the right by way of telling me that I am to go to the left; and
to the left, when I am to walk to the right. Who, I ask you, is to
understand such telegraphs as these? I have not yet learned how to
converse with dogs' tails--intelligence, indeed! I believe it is all
humbug; for, when my whole soul is absorbed in watching the tips of
these very tails, a crowd of partridges jump up just in front of me,
making as much noise as if they were drummers beating the retreat. If I
am hurried and stupefied"....

"And if," I added, "you are much disposed to throw down your gun as to
fire it."

"Well! supposing I am; what is the wonder? 'Tis no fault of mine--I am
not used to partridge-shooting! I am not a wild man of the woods, like
you! I did not cut my teeth gnawing a cartridge, as you did!"

"Come, come! don't be affronted."

"Affronted? No; but you have no consideration. You're a Robin Hood, an
exterminator! if you look at one partridge, you kill four! You sleep
with your rifle, turn your game-bag into a nightcap, and shave with a
_couteau-de-chasse_!"

"May be so! but let us have the fact."

"The fact! Then I hate your long-tailed dogs, and your detestable
flights of noisy birds! Let me have them one by one, like larks in the
plain of St. Denis, and I'll soon clear the province for you."

"Upon my word, Adolphe, we should have something to thank you for!"

"I tell you what, Henri; those partridges, after all, are trumpery
things to kill. 'Tis mere hurry that prevents my hitting them. Don't
imagine I am frightened! If you wish to give me real pleasure, let us go
to India and shoot a lion or a tiger;--give me a chance with an
elephant!"

"Willingly; but allow me to suggest, that if we set out for India, we
shall not get back in time for dinner."

"We will keep in Europe, then; but, at least, show me some game worthy
of me. A serpent--I will cut him in two at a stroke. A bull--I will soon
send a brace of balls into him."

"Well done! just like a Parisian."

"Parisian! Pray what do you mean by that?"

"A boaster, if you prefer the word."

"Ha! ha! a boaster, indeed! Do you mean to say that I'm afraid of a
bull?"

"Of course not. However, as there are no bulls here, I will send the
head _piqueur_ upon the track of a wild boar which was seen near the
chateau last night; he will exactly suit you. I consider him as doomed."

"Thank you, Henri; thank you; the moment I am fairly in front of him, I
shall fire at his eyes, and no doubt lodge both balls in them. Poor
Belisarius! how he will charge me in his agony! but I shall retire,
reload, and then, having drawn my hunting-knife, dispatch him without
further ceremony."

"Never fear, you shall have the post of honour; and if you do not turn
upon your heel, why, my dear friend, you will rise at least a dozen pegs
in my estimation."

"Turn on my heel! you little know me; and then, what a sensation I shall
create in Paris with my boar's skin. I'll have it stuffed, gild his
tusks, and silver-mount his hoofs. I shall be quite the hero of the
_salons_."

That very afternoon orders were given to the head-keeper to send the
_traqueurs_ into the forest on the following day, and on their return,
they announced that not only traces of wild boar had been met with, but
one had actually been seen. Great were the preparations and cleaning of
rifles and _couteaux-de-chasse_ when this intelligence was received;
but, in spite of his assumed composure, Adolphe's ardour seemed
considerably to diminish, and the conversation that evening over the
fire was not calculated to inspire him with fresh courage.

"How very soon they find the boar!" said he to me. "Tell me how the
affair commences."

"Why these _traqueurs_ are not long in discovering him. They know
exactly where to look for one, for they study their habits; the traces
of the grisly rascal are seen by them immediately; they mark his
favourite paths, the thickets he prefers, the marshy ground in which he
delights to wallow, and then as to the times he is likely to be seen,
they can tell almost to a minute when he will pass,--for the wild boar
is very methodical, and an excellent time-piece. The animal, therefore,
having been traced, and his retreat carefully ascertained, a day is
fixed, and each person having been assigned a separate post, remains
watching for his appearance on his way to or from his haunt."

"Oh! of course, they merely watch and wait," replied Adolphe, with a
hollow, unmeaning laugh.

"Yes; but you don't suppose that a boar will allow himself to be killed
as easily as a squirrel. I fear, in spite of all your professions, you
will find it not so agreeable a sport as shooting larks on the plain of
St. Denis. The bristly fellow who comes trotting and grunting towards
you, showing his teeth, stopping occasionally to sharpen them against
the root of some old oak, is not generally in the best of humours; but
you can, at any rate, reckon upon the great advantage,--the want of
which you deprecate in partridge-shooting. For instance, you cannot fail
to see him; you have notice of his coming; you are not taken off your
guard, and they very seldom appear but one at a time. It is a combat
face to face, and his, with two long prominent teeth, so unfortunate in
a woman, and positively hideous in a boar, effectually warns you that it
is well you should be prepared to receive him. But the excitement is
grand; after the volley every one is at him with his knife, and, with
the exception of a few inexperienced dogs, and a Parisian novice like
yourself, who, of course, are occasionally put _hors de combat_, the
affair ends gloriously. Yes, yes, I am beginning to think you are
right, Adolphe; partridge-shooting and knocking over a timid hare is
very cowardly sport."

The _traqueurs_ also, whom Adolphe catechised, in the hope of preserving
his own skin entire at the same time, though they gave him all sorts of
good advice, failed not to add to it, as people of their class generally
do, a budget of most fearful histories and hair-breadth escapes--of
horses and dogs ripped open, and men killed or gored; but that which put
a finishing-stroke to Adolphe's courage, was the entrance of a friend of
mine, who had himself been a sad sufferer in one of these adventures.
Wounded, but not mortally, the boar had charged him before he could
reload, tearing up with his tusk the inside of his thigh; and, as he lay
insensible on the ground, gnawing one of his calves off before any one
could come to his assistance. During the next two months death shook him
by the hand in vain, for he had fortunately an excellent constitution;
"And, though the proportions of his left leg," whispered I, "have been
restored by a slice out of a friendly cork-tree, he is, as you see,
quite recovered."

"True enough!" said the new arrival, who had overheard the concluding
remark, "and if you have any doubts, Sir, I will show you my leg;" but
Adolphe, thoroughly convinced, declined the offer, and retired to his
room for the night.

The dawn was yet gray, when the court-yard of the Château d'Erveau
presented a very animated appearance; horses, dogs, and beaters were
walking up and down, neighing, yelping, and conversing,--the huntsman
every now and then winding his horn, giving notice to the inmates that
all was ready. The morning was superb, and as the party filed out of the
yard, doffing their beavers to the ladies, who, screened behind their
window-curtains, dared not return their salute, Adolphe was a little
reassured. Long, however, before they reached their hunting-ground, his
chivalrous feelings had so far forsaken him, that he had serious
thoughts of returning, on the plea of indisposition.

"Why do you lag so far behind?" said I, riding up to him at this
juncture, "why your nose is quite white. Nay, don't blush; braver men
than you have felt far from comfortable the first time they went
boar-hunting. You are afraid. Come, don't deny it; but, never mind, I
will not quit you for a moment."

"With all my heart; for, though I cannot exactly say I am afraid, yet
that infernal cork-leg is continually dancing before my eyes."

"I have not the least doubt of it; and, by Terpsichore! what a pretty
thing it would be to see the handsome Gustave Adolphe de M---- dancing
polkas and redowas in the drawing-rooms of the Faubourg St. Germain with
a cork-leg or a gutta-percha calf! The very idea gives me the cramp in
every toe."

Conversing much in the same strain, the eight _chasseurs_ arrived at the
rendezvous, where they dismounted. The beaters and _gardes-de-chasse_
were all at their posts, and on the alert to the movements of the boar,
and as we advanced deeper in the forest, the conversation, which had
been so lively on our setting forth, flagged, and at length subsided
into an occasional remark on the obstacles which impeded our progress.
Nothing renders a man more reserved than his approach to an anticipated
danger. I looked askance at Adolphe, and saw that his teeth rattled like
castanets; and when the foremost keepers, in doubt as to the track, blew
a plaintive note, which, ere it died away, was answered by another in
the distance, showing that we were in the right one, Adolphe's
breathing became stentorious behind me. And then as the branches and
hazel twigs, through which we forced our way more rapidly, flew back and
struck him in the face, he supplicated me to stop.

"Not so fast, my dear friend, not so fast! Have mercy on my Parisian
legs! Misericorde! I cannot proceed. Do stop! There, my nose is skinned
by that last branch! Good--there, my breeches are breaking! For pity's
sake, stop!" But to stop was impossible; and I remained silent, having
quite enough to do looking out for myself. At length we arrived at the
appointed spot. Adolphe, in a state bordering on the crazy, his clothes
in shreds, his face and hands bleeding from the thorns, anger in his
blood, and perspiration on his brow, his furious eyes looked at me as if
I had been the author of his misfortunes. And here a scene would most
undoubtedly have ensued, but happily the head _piqueur_ arrived,
informing us that the boar was in a thick patch of underwood, about two
miles from thence, in which he was supposed to be taking his mid-day
_siesta_, and that a number of peasants having headed him on one side,
he could not well escape. Our measures were quickly taken.

"Serpolet," said I to the _piqueur_, "have you seen the animal?"

"At a distance, Monsieur."

"What is he like?"

"Oh! a tremendous fellow--long legs, enormous head, large tusks, and
such a muzzle!--he breaks through everything. A fortunate thing,
Monsieur, the dogs were not with us."

"Well!" said I to my father, "of course this gentleman is to have the
place of honour."

"The place of honour!" cried Adolphe, "which is the place of honour?"

"Why, the most dangerous to be sure," replied my father, "the third or
fourth post from where he breaks cover. The first or second shots seldom
kill him; wounded, he continues his course, and, savage and ferocious,
generally turns upon the third or fourth _chasseur_, at whom, with
lowered head and glaring eye, he charges in full career. Oh! it is then
a splendid sight, worth all the journey from Paris! Forward, my lads,
forward! Hurrah! for the boar!"

"And thus--" groaned Adolphe, with thickened speech, not at all charmed
with this description of his onset.

"And thus," remarked my father, with a bow of the old _régime_, "you
shall be fourth, and you will see the sturdy grunter in all his beauty.
Come, my boys! a glass of the cognac all round; then silence, and each
to his post. Here, Serpolet, forward with them, and remember, gentlemen,
the word of command is 'Prudence and coolness!' Off! and may your stout
hearts protect you!"

Then filing out from the glade where we had halted, each of us proceeded
to his destination, the valiant Adolphe following Serpolet like a dog
going to be drowned.

"Monsieur," said Serpolet, "you don't seem used to this fun; let a
graybeard and an old huntsman advise you. I have seen the
animal--actually seen him--a terrible boar, I promise you, as black as
ink, clean legs, and ears well apart,--all true signs of courage. As
sure as my name is Serpolet, he will make mince-meat of us--sure to
charge. Take my advice, Monsieur; never mind what the gentlemen say
about waiting; don't you let him get nearer to you than five-and-twenty
paces; if not, in three bounds he will be at you; and in another second
you will be opened like an oyster. Take care, Monsieur!"--and, wishing
him success, Serpolet joined the beaters, who were waiting, all ready
to advance.

"What shall we do?" said Adolphe as soon as he was gone.

"Do, why, take a look about us."

We were in a kind of low, open glade, about eighty paces in length, with
an immense oak in the centre--a solitary spot, full of thick rushes,
tufts of grass, brambles, and matted roots; in short, just the place
that a boar would make his head-quarters. Adolphe accompanied me step by
step, examined me from head to foot, and looked in my face as if he
would read my every thought.

"Well, Adolphe," said I, after I had considered the principal points of
our position, "the moment has at length arrived when you must draw your
courage from the scabbard; and I hope it will shine like the light, for
something tells me you will require it ere long."

"I'll tell you what; I beg you will not commence any of your long
orations."

"If I talk to you now, it is because I shall not be able in a few
minutes. Pay attention, therefore, to my instructions. Remain, I advise
you, behind this oak, then you will have nothing to fear, and be sure
not to leave it. I will place myself at the angle down yonder."

"Down there! Why you said you would not leave me for an instant."

"Come, come, don't be absurd; the moments are precious; you see I shall
only be distant an hundred yards."

"An hundred yards! I tell you what--if you go ten yards, I go too."

"What! are you afraid? We are alone; come, be frank."

"No! I am not afraid, but my nerves are shaken; I am thoroughly done up
with the scramble we have had through these woods; and then that rascal
Serpolet, who prophesied that I shall be opened like an oyster--you
shall not go, for I feel sure that when this brute of a boar makes his
appearance, I shall be unable to look him in the face."

"My dear friend, I will do as you desire. We have still half an hour to
wait; but remember, no imprudence--and if you should see my finger
raised, mind, not a word or a sign."

As I uttered this apostrophe, a long and harmonious note from the
head-keeper's horn, vibrating in the distance, came and died away upon
our ears; after which, a confused clamour of voices arose, and as
suddenly ceased.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" said I; "the _traqueurs_ are on the move, the curtain
is raised, the play is about to commence--and, dear friend, be silent as
death, for the actor will soon make his appearance on the stage."

During the next ten minutes, a murmur of voices and confused sounds were
again borne on the wind to the two sportsmen, announcing that the line
of beaters was steadily advancing, and now they could distinctly hear
them at intervals, striking the trunks of the trees with their long
iron-shod poles, thrusting them in the underwood, and shouting in chorus
the song of the boar.

Again the horn is heard; but now its notes are sharp, shrill, jerking
and hurried.

"That, my good Adolphe, denotes that the boar has risen, has been driven
from his lair, is in view, flying before the beaters, and I am very much
mistaken if he does not ere long pay us a visit."

Another blast is heard, but in very different tones to the last, and
silence is again spread over the forest.

"There, Adolphe--there's a joyous and melodious note; it tells me that
the monster is following his usual paths--we are sure to see him soon.
By St. Hubert, what lucky dogs we are!"

But the Parisian answered not, and leaned against his oak, a perfect
picture of despair.

"Adolphe," I reiterated, "he won't be here yet, but speak low, or we may
spoil everything. How do you feel? Do you think you can take good aim,
and pull the trigger?"

"I feel," whispered Adolphe, "that I am not cut out for boar-hunting."

"Bah! Why, the other day you seemed to think it would be delightful, and
now you don't appear to like the sport; keep your heart up, be cool, and
all will be well;--it is only on grand occasions--those when real danger
presents itself, as you told me the other day--that the proofs of
undoubted courage show themselves; and then the ladies of the Faubourg
St. Germain that you were to soften with your tales of forest
life--'Mademoiselles,' you were to commence, 'when I was in Le Morvan,
we had famous wolf and boar-hunting, and on one occasion'"....

"No! no!" groaned the Parisian, "I shall commence thus: On one occasion,
nay, ladies, on all occasions, I much prefer being in your delightful
society to that of the boars of Le Morvan."

"Nonsense, good Adolphe, you are laughing; why, you were to have the
skin stuffed, the tusks gilt, the feet silver-mounted, and the tail was
to be scarlet and curly. What! do you think no more about it?"

"Oh, yes! and of the cork calves also."

"Pooh! have we not two good hunting-knives and four iron bullets in the
rifles, and a magnificent oak, a perfect wooden tower, for a
breastwork."

"Yes! we have all this."

"And is not courage your father, and an excellent aim your mother, and
is not death to the boar in our barrels?"

"Certainly!--death--oh! what a word at such a crisis!"--and on the
instant two shots were heard, which made him jump again.

"Ah! ah!--good; that's the old gentleman who has led off the ball; the
music of his rifle is not to be mistaken. The grisly vagabond has by
this time two bits of iron in his flanks, which will considerably hasten
his march. Silence! and be on the _qui vive_. Listen! Hear you not the
distant crash in the bushes?" Two fresh shots were now fired, but
nearer. "Said I not so? he is running the gauntlet--one more shot. Hush
again! there he is, tearing along. Hark! not a whisper; your eye on the
open, your ear to the wind, and your finger on the trigger!" But it was
not the boar; for at the moment two roebucks and a fox broke near us,
bounding along at full speed, when Adolphe, his face as pale as his
cambric shirt, muttered, as he nearly fell upon his knees--"Oh!
Paris--oh! Chevet--oh! Boulevard des Italiens--I shall never see ye
more!"

"Why, Adolphe! what the deuce is the matter with you? in the name of
France, be a man. If my time is to be taken up with looking after you, I
shall be in a nice situation. No nonsense--no useless fears? Do you, or
do you not feel able to take part in the approaching drama?"

"No, I don't--I only just feel able to get up this tree."

"What! are you in such a funk as all that? Why, what a poor creature you
must be! You are the very incarnation of fear!"

"Fear? I have no fear. Who says that I have? I don't know how it is, but
I certainly do feel something--a sort of qualm, something like
sea-sickness--everything seems going round--no doubt a sudden
indisposition--such a thing might happen to the bravest man--Napoleon,
they say, was bilious at Borodino. We part for a few minutes only, dear
friend; I shall ascend the oak--an English king once did the same."

Another blast of the keeper's horn was now heard on the left.

"What does that mean?" cried Adolphe, one leg in the air.

"That signifies, the boar is making right for us."

"Does it? Then I am up;" and, with the agility of a cat, he was in an
instant safely lodged in the branches. "Ah! my friend! how different it
feels up here--the sickness is quite gone off, hand me the gun."

"In the name of Fortune," said I, "hold your coward tongue--here's the
boar;" for I could now hear his snorting and loud breathing in the copse
hard by.

"Do you hear him?" said Adolphe from his perch, his cheeks as green as
the leaves which covered him.

"Hear him?" I exclaimed, "yes, I partly see him. What a monster! How he
tears the ground!--how he bleeds and gnaws his burning wounds!--every
hair of his back stands up, smoke and perspiration flow from his
nostrils, and his eyes, glaring with agony and concentrated rage, look
as if they would start from their sockets!"

On came the beaters, and in a few minutes the panting beast burst from
his thicket, and rushed across the open; my eye was on every movement,
and, firing both barrels, the contents struck him full in front. It was
his death-blow, but the vital principle was yet unsubdued; and,
summoning up all his dying energies--those which despair alone can
give--he came at me with a force that I could never have withstood.
Fortunately the Parisian's gun was close to me, and the charge stopped
him in full career. This was the _coup de grâce_. He still, however, by
one grand effort, stood nobly on his haunches, opened his monstrous
mouth, all red with blood, gave out one sharp deep groan of agony from
his stifled lungs, and, falling upon his side, after many a wild
convulsion, at length stretched his massive and exhausted frame slowly
out in death.

"Hurrah! Adolphe! you rascally acorn! shout, you _badaud_! give the
death-whoop, and come down!"

"Is he really dead?"

"Dead! Why, don't you see he is? Come down I say--come, descend from
your Belvedere--the farce is played out, and your legs are all right.
You are a rank coward! however, no one is aware of it but me. Don't let
others see it!" and in a minute Adolphe was at my side.

"Listen, you fire-eater! and I will make you a hero, though you could
not manage to make yourself one. There were four shots fired; now, take
your gun, and remember that the two first, those ghastly holes in the
chest, were your handiwork--do you hear?"

"Yes, but what a horrible morning! what a brute! what a savage country!"

"True, it is not like the Boulevard des Italiens;" and a few minutes
after, Adolphe received, with some confusion, attributed to modesty, the
congratulations of all the party. This diffidence, as it may be
imagined, did not last long; his assurance soon returned, and the
hurrahs had scarcely died away, before he had imagined and given a very
graphic description of the last moments of the gallant boar. His toilet
made, the monstrous carcass was placed upon a litter, hastily
constructed with the branches of a tree, and the peasants, hoisting it
on their shoulders, bore the deceased monarch of the woods in triumph
to the chateau.

In the evening, Adolphe's self-satisfaction was completed by an ovation
from the ladies, who bestowed upon him the most flattering epithets.
From the prettiest lips I heard, "What! this Parisian! this pale and
slender young man, with such delicate hands and rose-coloured nails,
fought face to face with this terrible beast? Admirable! And he was not
frightened?"

"Frightened, ladies," said I, "why he was smoking a cigar all the time!"
And the secret was so well kept, and Adolphe so bepraised, that I am
sure had I felt disposed to throw a doubt upon the circumstances, he
would have stoutly contended that he really did kill the animal himself;
and, to say the truth, he was to a certain extent authorized to say so,
for the head, handsomely decorated, was sent to his mother, the
following words having been nicely printed on the tusks:

     "Killed by Gustave Adolphe de M. the 15th of August, 18--."

In the course of time Adolphe's nerves improved so much that he could
manage to knock down a leash of birds, or roll over a hare; but boars
and wolves he declined to have anything further to do with; and when I
met him by accident some years after, in the presence of mutual friends,
he said, "Ah! de Crignelle, what two famous shots those were I put into
that boar! But, gentlemen," he continued, with a sigh which seemed
pumped up from his very heels, "what terrible forests those are of Le
Morvan, and how dangerous the _chasse aux sangliers_!"




CHAPTER XII.

     The _Mares_--Manner in which they are formed in the depths of the
     forest--_Mare_ No. 1.--Description of it--The appearance of the
     spot--Mode of constructing the hunting-lodge--Approach of the
     birds--Animals that frequent the _Mares_ in the evening.


Of all the various sports of Europe, that which produces the greatest
excitement, that which is, more than any other, full of deep interest,
dangerous and difficult, is without doubt hut-shooting at night on the
banks of one of our large _Mares_.[1] Here the sportsman, left to
himself, is deprived of all help; concealed in a corner of a wood, or
squatting at the foot of a tree, he requires all his courage, all his
experience; for he then finds himself engaged in a deadly conflict with
the most subtle and ferocious beasts, possibly a mouthful for the
largest and most powerful jaws, and at the mercy of the quickest ears of
the forest. Motionless in his hut, like a spider in its web, nothing can
put him off his guard--neither the view halloo of the passing huntsman,
the cheerful notes of his horn, nor the music of the dogs, can distract
his attention. All around is calm, solitude and gloom surround him, no
voice interrogates him, no eye sees him; he is alone, quite alone, his
blood circulates tranquilly through his veins, his faculties are all on
the stretch, he waits, he bides his time. The shadows lengthen, twilight
arrives, the forest puts on the garb of evening, the silence and
solitude are more deeply felt, night is at hand, the moment so ardently
desired approaches. Imagination begins to work, phantoms of every
description come across his brain, and glide before his eyes, he hears,
and fancies he sees the sylvan spirits dancing before him; his ears are
full of mysterious and unearthly sounds, plaintive and melancholy,
celestial harmonies, fairy melodies of another world, interrupted
conversations between the winds, the trees, the herbage and the earth,
as if they were offering homage to the great Creator of the universe.

Firm at his post, and uninfluenced by this phantasmagoria of the brain,
without movement and almost without breath, the sportsman waits
hopefully; for the greatest virtue in this kind of sport is patience,
the second courage, first-rate--his heart should be of marble, his flesh
of steel, and his members should possess a power of immobility as great
as that of a sphynx in an Egyptian temple. Yes! the sport _aux mares_ is
the most stirring, the roughest that I am acquainted with, not so much
on account of the real danger attending it, but in consequence of those
fictitious, unknown, and imaginary, produced by the silence and
loneliness of the forest. It is my intention, therefore, in describing
this kind of sport, to enter into the most ample details, in order that
I may make myself thoroughly understood. I shall take, as representing
very nearly all the pieces of water to be met with in the forest, three
kinds of _Mares_ of different dimensions. I shall explain their
position, the relative value they possess in the eyes of the sportsman,
the game, large and small, to be found on their banks, and the most
propitious time for approaching them, and I shall endeavour, if
possible, to impress my readers with the pleasures and adventures which
have on several occasions agitated me.

If the woods and forests of Le Morvan, which, by the clouds they
attract, the thunder-storms that continually fall over them, and the
moisture that generally prevails, feed a great many streams, the
district is not the less deprived, by its elevated position, of large
rivers and extensive sheets of water; for the rains, falling down the
sides of the trees, and penetrating the thick mossy grass at their
roots, do not remain for any length of time on the surface of the earth.
The whole forest may, in fact, be described as a large sponge, through
which the water filters, descending to the inferior strata, where it
finds the secret drains of Nature, and is by them conducted into the
plains. The roots being thus continually watered, the trees are fresh
and vigorous in their growth, and produce a most luxuriant foliage; the
ground itself, however, is generally dry under foot, and in some places
rocky.

It is therefore very rare, quite an exceptional case, to find on the
elevated heaths, or in our forests, any lakes or large pieces of water;
nevertheless they are to be seen here and there, and then the cottage of
the peasant, or the hut of the wood-*cutter is sure to raise its modest
head on their banks; in time these humble edifices are augmented in
number till they sometimes become a considerable village. If the spring,
once a silvery thread, and now a brawling rivulet, changes its character
to a deep and considerable stream, farm-houses, a chateau, or a
hunting-box are soon erected near it. If it is merely a tiny source
rising from the earth, or springing from some isolated rock, and soon
lost in the moss, without even a murmur, calm and silent, as the life of
the lowly peasant, which is slowly consumed in the scarcely varying path
of labour,--then no one takes the least notice of it.

Sometimes, however, the tears which the earth thus sheds, this crystal
thread, scorned by the unobserving passer-by, is arrested in its timid
course by some trifling obstacle--a rising path, a fallen branch or
tree. This little streamlet swells, frets the immediate spot of ground,
imperceptibly increases in size, and becomes after many efforts, the
patient work of months and years, something like the basin of a large
_jet d'eau_, a liquid cup lost in the recesses of the woods, reflecting
only a very small portion of the blue heavens above; unknown to man, but
always frequented by thousands of delighted and happy insects, and
little birds that come there in the great heats of summer to refresh
themselves, to skim across the surface, and sip, with head uplifted
towards heaven, its pellucid waters. These little springs, lost in the
thickness of the mossy turf and the dead leaves, like a gray hair in
the dark tresses of some village beauty, which accident or a lover could
alone discover, when thus interrupted and formed into a bowl of water,
such as I have described, is called a _Mare_.

If, therefore, the sportsman in traversing the depths of the forest
should chance to discover one of these mirrors of the passing butterfly,
of the flower which inclines its slender form towards it, or of the bird
that sings and plays in the branches that overspread its surface, he
must not look contemptuously upon it, for this little liquid pearl, thus
concealed in the shade, which the hot rays of the sun would dry up like
an Arabian well, if they could reach it, may prove to him a mine of
varied reflections--a page of nature's great book, and in it he may
possibly find, if he have an observing eye and an understanding heart, a
type of this lower world, with all its hateful passions, its follies and
virtues, its wars, rivalries, injustice and oppression.

One day, when out shooting, and following by tortuous paths, to me
unknown, the bleeding traces of a roebuck which I had wounded, I had the
good fortune to meet with one of these _Mares_. The piece of water of
which I thus became what I may term the proprietor, was from fifty to
sixty feet in circumference, though at the first glance I fancied it
was only half the size, so completely was it covered near the side by
thorns and briars, and in the centre by lilies, flags, and other aquatic
plants. By certain other signs, also, the gigantic creepers, and the
barkless and headless trees, bending and falling with age; by the deep
thickets that surrounded it, and by the solitary aspect of the pool, I
felt convinced that mine was the first footstep that had trodden its
precincts,--that I was the Christopher Columbus of the place.

Enchanted with my discovery, I determined to mark the spot, for I
thought it a _Mare_ of peculiar beauty. It was almost surrounded by wild
fruit trees, which grow in great numbers in our forests: here were the
sorb, or service tree, and the medlar, bending to the ground under the
weight of their luxuriant fruit; intermingled with these waved the lofty
and slender branches of the wild cherry, the berries of which, now ripe,
and sweet as drops of honey, and black as polished jet, offered a
delicious repast to clouds of little birds, that hopped chirruping from
twig to twig: and lastly, I may mention a fine arbutus, which in its
turn presented a tempting collation to the notice of many a hungry
bullfinch. The soft turf around was strewed with the shining black and
bright red berries, which the last breeze had shaken from the verdant
branches.

To describe the crystal notes, the liquid cadences, the merry songs of
the feathered inhabitants of this hive, that pursued one another
rejoicing amongst the leaves, is impossible. Besides, my unexpected
appearance threw them into perfect consternation; and this greatly
increased when, drawing from my side my hunting-knife, I began to cut
down, in all directions, the bushes which intercepted a nearer approach
to the miniature lake.

The storm of helpless anger, menaces, and complaints from these little
creatures was quite curious. "Oh! the wretch!" a cuckoo seemed to say;
"what does he mean by coming here, showing us his ugly face?"--"Oh! the
horror," cried a coquette of a tomtit, holding up her little
claw.--"_Hélas! hélas!_ our poor trees, our beautiful leaves, and our
lovely greensward--see how he is cutting away--Oh! the wicked man! the
destructive rascal!" they all piped in chorus. But I paid no attention
to them, and went on hacking away, and whistling like one of the
blackbirds. This indeed I continued to do for several days, working like
a woodman, and all alone, for I did not wish to associate myself with
any person, lest he should claim a share in my discovery; but it was
long before I began to enjoy the fruits of my hard labour. The trunks
were sawn, the branches lopped, and after considerable trouble I at last
cleared my piece of water from the bushes and parasitic plants which
blocked it up. The evening breeze now circulated rapidly over it, and
the sun could look in upon it for at least two hours of the day.

My friends who saw me leave the house every morning with a basket of
tools at my back and a hatchet at my side, like Robinson Crusoe, and who
witnessed my return each evening heartily tired, with torn clothes,
scratched hands, and dust and perspiration on my face, without a single
head of game in my bag, could not comprehend why I went out thus alone
into the forest, and remained there the livelong day. Often did they
persecute me with questions, and try in every way to penetrate the
mystery; all in vain, my whereabouts remained hidden like a hedgehog in
his prickly coat, and I managed matters so well that during two
successive years I was the unknown proprietor and Grand Sultan of my
much-loved _Mare_.

But when my task was finished, a task that hundreds of birds, perched in
the oaks, the elms, and the adjoining thickets, viewed with mingled
feelings of approbation, disapprobation, curiosity, or interest,--when
the last stroke of my hatchet was given, I said to myself, while looking
on the result of my unremitting toil, "'Tis well, and what a change has
taken place in this little corner of the forest. In truth, it looks
superb."

The little lake was now a perfect oval, and the water, not very deep,
but limpid as crystal, was full of green and coloured rushes--the
surface being partly covered by the white and rose-tinted flowers of the
water-lilies, which reposing delicately on their large flat green
leaves, looked like velvet camellias placed upon a plate of sea-green
porcelain. In the mossy turf which bordered it, beds of violets, pink
daisies, and lilies of the valley, sent forth a cloud of perfume, and on
the large forest trees hung festoons and garlands of the honeysuckle and
the clematis; so that the _Mare_ and the surrounding foliage, would,
seen from above, have appeared like a large well with leafy walls, or an
immense emerald, which some spirit of the air, returning from a marriage
of the gods, had inadvertently dropped on his way home.

Having given a description of the lake, I must describe my picturesque
and sylvan hut. This, constructed of trunks of trees, branches and
osiers, was placed about twenty paces from the water, completely
concealed by the bushes that encircled it; the inside was fitted up in
rustic taste with seats of wood, the whole carpeted with turf, and the
entrance planted with every kind of odoriferous flower.

This _Mare_, approached by marks known only to myself, became
thenceforward the source of all my pleasures. At that period very young,
and equally careless, I would not have parted with my large liquid
_tazza_, my little lake, my leafy castle, for all the vulgar comfortable
_chateâux_ in the neighbourhood.

If I have lingered too much over this subject, the reader must forgive
me for elaborating this picture--this portrait I may call it of my
_Mare_. He has before him a type of all the others, and this again must
be my excuse, it is so dear to the unfortunate to stir the still warm
embers of by-gone memories,--so dear to rouse from their slumbers the
treasured recollections of early days,--to wake those sweet spirits of
the mind, those phantoms robed in azure blue, and decked with the
pearls, the joys which never can glide again across the dreamer's
path--the joys of youth.

Oh _souvenirs_ of childhood!--of happy hours so quickly gone,--bright
visions that gild, yes, light the darkest clouds of after years,
blessed, blessed are ye! Alone, friendless, far from those I love, with
the heart steeped, drowned in sorrow, a sombre sky before my eyes,
wintry clouds, that distil but melancholy thoughts all around me,--well,
I, the poor sparrow, who has been cast from his nest by the raging
storm,--I hush my griefs to rest in tracing the picture of past
delights. Yes, memory comes to my relief; I build again in the casket of
the mind my sylvan hut, careless and full of youthful fancies. I am
again seated in the depths of my native woods, speaking to the
light-hearted thrush, and whistling to the breeze.

Once more I bathe myself in the golden rays of the mid-day sun; I tread
again the forest paths, and am intoxicated with the delicious perfume of
its wild flowers. Hark! again I hear the cooing of the amorous doves,
and in the distance the notes of the dull cuckoo, bewailing his solitary
life.--But no more....

The _Mares_, very different from one another, and having each of them
very different admirers, are of three kinds; they are either small or
large, near or distant from the village or neighbouring hamlet; and
according as they are circumstanced in one or other of these respects
they are more or less valuable. The largest, the deepest, the least
known, those in short that are situated in the recesses of the forest,
are the best and most frequented by game; to balance this advantage they
are the most fatiguing and the most difficult to approach.

In the violent heats of July and August, when the sun burns up the
herbage, when the wind as it passes parches the skin, and the sultry air
scarcely allows the lungs to play--when the earth is quite dried up--the
hot-blooded animals, whose circulation is rapid, remain completely
overpowered with the heat in their retreats all day, either stretched
panting on the leaves, or lurking in the shade of some rock; but the
moment the sun, in amber clouds, sinks below the horizon, and twilight
brings in his train the dark hours of night, and its humid vapours, the
beasts of the forest are again in movement, again their ravenous
appetite returns, and they lose no time in ranging the woods, seeking
how and where they may gratify it. Then it is these large _Mares_,
silent as a woman that listens at a keyhole--silent as a catacomb, is
all at once endowed with life,--is filled with strange noises, like an
aviary, and becomes, as night falls, a common centre to which the hungry
and thirsty cavalcade direct their steps.

The first arrivals are hundreds of birds, of every size and colour, who
come to gossip, to bathe, to drink, and splash the water with their
wings. Next come troops of hares and rabbits, who come to nibble the
fresh grass that grows there in great luxuriance. As the shades grow
deeper, groups of the graceful roebuck, timid and listening for
anticipated danger, their large open eyes gazing at each tree, giving an
inquiring look at every shadow, are seen approaching with noiseless
footsteps; when reassured by their careful _reconnaissance_, they steal
forward, cropping the dewy rich flowers as they come, and at last slake
their thirst in the refreshing waters.

At this instant you may, if you are fatigued, and so desire it, finish
your day's sport. You may bring down the nearest buck; and then as the
troop, wild with affright, make for the forest, the second barrel will
add a fellow to your first victim.

But, no! pull not the trigger; stop, if only to witness what follows.
See the roebuck prick their ears; they turn to the wind; they appear
uneasy; call one to the other, assemble; danger is near, they feel it,
hear it coming; they would fly, but find it is too late; terrified, they
are chained to the spot. For the last half hour the wolves and
wolverines, which followed gently, and at a distance, their own more
rapid movements, have closed in upon them from behind, have formed the
fatal circle, have noiselessly decreased it as much as possible, and at
length come swiftly down upon the helpless creatures; each seizes his
victim by the throat, the tranquil spot is ere long full of blood and
carnage, and the echoes of the forest are awakened to the hellish yells
of the savage brutes that thus devour their prey.

The cries of agony, of death and victory, sometimes last for a quarter
of an hour; and during the fifteen minutes that you are watching the
scene from your hut, you may fancy the teeth of these brutes are meeting
in your own flesh, and feel a cold paw with claws of steel deep in your
back or head.

The slaughter over, these monsters pass like a flight of demons across
the turf, vanish,--and again all is silent. And when the tenth chime of
the distant village clock is floating on the breeze, though it reaches
not your cabin--when the falling dew, now almost a shower, has bathed
the leaves, with rain chilling their fibres--when the bluebells and the
foxgloves and all the wood-flowers rest upon their stems--when the
songsters of the grove, with heads comfortably tucked under their warm
wings, sleep soundly in their nests, or in the angles of the
branches--when the young fawns, lost in some wild ravine, bleat for
their mothers whom they never will see more; and the gorged wolves,
their muzzles red with blood, are stretched snoring in their dens and
lurking-places--then it is the heavy boars, shaking off their laziness,
leave their sombre retreats--take to the open country, and trotting,
grunting, and with hesitating footsteps, come and plunge their awkward
and heavy bodies in the marshy waters, and wallow in the soft mud.


[1] Query,--fox-hunting and stag-hunting.--TRANSLATOR.




CHAPTER XIII.

     Appearance of the _Mare_ in the morning--Forest etiquette--Mode of
     obtaining possession of the best _Mare_--Every subterfuge fair--The
     jocose sportsman--The quarrel--Reveries in the hut--Comparison
     between meeting a lady and watching for a wolf.


The _Mares_ on the borders of which these scenes of strife and carnage
take place, are found by the morning sun surrounded by a crimson circle,
and all the horrid details of the battle-field--proof that the weak have
been slaughtered and overcome by the strong; a humiliating sight! for
the desolation created by the bad passions of man is far too like it.
Sometimes these _Mares_ are from two to three hundred feet in
circumference, and these may be truly termed the diamonds of the forest.
The _Mare_ No. 1., fed by small but always flowing springs, is full,
when others are dried up, and is frequented by troops of animals, savage
and meek, which thirst and heat drive there from all points of the
compass. These _Mares_, but little known, few in number, much sought
after--become, more especially at the period of the dog-days, very
difficult to find. Considered always as the property of the first comer,
the poacher, who is better acquainted than any other sportsman with the
localities in which they are to be found, generally takes up his
quarters near them late at night, and installs himself; sleeps there,
sups there, and, determined not to leave it under any pretext, laughs in
the face of the unfortunate wight who arrives after him, in the happy
delusion that he has anticipated every one else. For it is a forest law,
and acknowledged by all, that two sportsmen cannot, without disturbing
one another, sit down at the same _Mare_; possession is in this not only
nine but ten points of the law; and, if a mere lad, with a
fowling-piece, happens to place himself first on its banks, no giant
seven feet high would think of using his superior strength to expel him.

Such is the law--such is the custom--to act in defiance of it would
expose the culprit to the chance of receiving a charge of No. 3 in his
jacket; and as each _Mare_ has its wooden hut, in successive summers,
constructed by you, embellished by me, knocked in, cut about, injured by
some one else, and repaired by all--the first man who puts the stock of
his gun on the floor of the cabin becomes immediately and incontestibly
the lucky proprietor of it for that night.

And how shall I explain to you the thousand cunning tricks, the
diabolical, the ingenious finesses, the Philipistic and Machiavellian
diplomacy, which sportsmen employ one towards the other to obtain
possession? Two friends, for instance, meet by accident on the same
road; with what perfect and impudent lies do they entertain each
other!--with what gusto do they try and take one another in!--what
cheating doubts do they not mutually endeavour to raise, in their desire
to induce each other to take the wrong road! With the effrontery of a
_diplomate_, with the assurance of a secretary of legation,--one
affirms, his hand on his heart, and looking towards heaven, that he is
going to the left, when it is his positive intention, well-considered
beforehand, to go to the right. No, France and England, Bresson and
Bulwer, playing their game of chess of the Spanish marriages on the
green cloth of political rascality,--never said anything comparable to
the devices of these lying chevaliers of the forest.

Everything is permitted--every stratagem is fair, so long as either is
endeavouring to triumph over his adversary; and then, when they have
gone so far as to be able to wish one another good afternoon, and each
has convinced himself that he has put the other on the wrong road--that,
thank the stars, his rival is off, that he is far off, that he cannot
see him--what haste! what strides and leaps to get speedily to the spot,
and make himself safe! The running of the celebrated Greek, who, with
his breast laid open by a ghastly wound, ran eighty miles in ten hours
to announce to the impatient Athenians the victory of Marathon, was the
pace of a tortoise compared with the demon-racing of these _chasseurs_.

And, after all this anxiety and rapid locomotion,--after turning and
winding in and out of the wood, and round the wood to avoid the
open--across the brook to avoid the bridge--through the brambles and
thick underwood to avoid the open path--when you think you have cheated,
or, at any rate, distanced your enemy,--when you perceive in front of
you the object of your hopes,--the well-known and much-desired hut which
seems to invite you to repose after your long day's walk--why, at that
interesting moment, even your own, your very own brother would be a
veritable Bedouin in your eyes, a man to be put out of the way any how,
if he attempted to stop you.

At such a crisis, if a real sportsman were to hear that his house was on
fire, that his banker was off to America, taking with him his wife and
his money, he would not, I say, in such a moment turn his head round to
see 

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