Chapter 8

The start was very pretty--one rode straight into the forest, the riders spreading in all directions. The field was never very large--about thirty--I the only lady. The cor de chasse was a delightful novelty to me, and I soon learned all the calls--the débouché, the vue and the hallali, when the poor beast is at the last gasp. The first time I saw the stag taken I was quite miserable. We had had a splendid gallop. I was piloted by one of the old stagers, who knew every inch of the forest, and who promised I should be in at the death, if I would follow him, "mais il faut me suivre partout, avez-vous peur?" As he was very stout, and not particularly well mounted, and I had a capital English mare, I was quite sure I could pass wherever he could. He took me through all sorts of queer little paths, the branches sometimes so low that it didn't seem possible to get through, but we managed it. Sometimes we lost sight of the hunt entirely, but he always guided himself by the sound of the horns, which one hears at a great distance. Once a stag bounded across the road just in front of us, making our horses shy violently, but he said that was not the one we were after. I wondered how he knew, but didn't ask any questions. Once or twice we stopped in the thick of the woods, having apparently lost ourselves entirely, not hearing a sound, and then in the distance there would be the faint sound of the horn, enough for him to distinguish the vue, which meant that they were still running. Suddenly, very near, we heard the great burst of the hallali--horses, dogs, riders, all joining in; and pushing through the brushwood we found ourselves on the edge of a big pond, almost a lake. The stag, a fine one, was swimming about, nearly finished, his eyes starting out of his head, and his breast shaken with great sobs. The whole pack of dogs was swimming after him, the hunters all swarming down to the edge, sounding their horns, and the master of hounds following in a small flatboat, waiting to give the coup de grâce with his carbine when the poor beast should attempt to get up the bank. It was a sickening sight. I couldn't stand it, and retreated (we had all dismounted) back into the woods, much to the surprise and disgust of my companion, who was very proud and pleased at having brought me in at the death among the very first. Of course, one gets hardened, and a stag at bay is a fine sight. In the forest they usually make their last stand against a big tree, and sell their lives dearly. The dogs sometimes get an ugly blow. I was really very glad always when the stag got away. I had all the pleasure and excitement of the hunt without having my feelings lacerated at the end of the day. The sound of the horns and the unwonted stir in the country had brought out all the neighbourhood, and the inhabitants of the little village, including the curé and the châtelaine of the small château near, soon appeared upon the scene. The curé, a nice, kindly faced old man, with white hair and florid complexion, was much interested in all the details of the hunt. It seems the stag is often taken in these ponds, les étangs de la ramée, which are quite a feature in the country, and one of the sights of the Villers-Cotterets forest, where strangers are always brought. They are very picturesque; the trees slope down to the edge of the ponds, and when the bright autumn foliage is reflected in the water the effect is quite charming.

Mme. de M., the châtelaine, was the type of the grande dame Française, fine, clear-cut features, black eyes, and perfectly white hair, very well arranged. She was no longer young, but walked with a quick, light step, a cane in her hand. She, too, was much interested, such an influx of people, horses, dogs, and carriages (for in some mysterious way the various vehicles always seemed to find their way to the finish). It was an event in the quiet little village. She admired my mare very much, which instantly won my affections. She asked us to come back with her to the château--it was only about a quarter of an hour's walk--to have some refreshment after our long day; so I held up my skirt as well as I could, and we walked along together. The château is not very large, standing close to the road in a small park, really more of a manor house than a château. She took us into the drawing-room just as stiff and bare as all the others I had seen, a polished parquet floor, straight-backed, hard chairs against the wall (the old lady herself looked as if she had sat up straight on a hard chair all her life). In the middle of the room was an enormous palm-tree going straight up to the ceiling. She said it had been there for years and always remained when she went to Paris in the spring. She was a widow, lived alone in the château with the old servants. Her daughter and grandchildren came occasionally to stay with her. She gave us wine and cake, and was most agreeable. I saw her often afterward, both in the country and Paris, and loved to hear her talk. She had remained absolutely ancien régime, couldn't understand modern life and ways at all. One of the things that shocked her beyond words was to see her granddaughters and their young friends playing tennis with young men in flannels. In her day a young man in bras de chemise would have been ashamed to appear before ladies in such attire. We didn't stay very long that day, as we were far from home, and the afternoon was shortening fast. The retraite was sometimes long when we had miles of hard road before us, until we arrived at the farm or village where the carriage was waiting. When we could walk our horses it was bearable, but sometimes when they broke into a jog-trot, which nothing apparently could make them change, it was very fatiguing after a long day.

Sometimes, when we had people staying with us, we followed the hunt in the carriage. We put one of the keepers of the Villers-Cotterets forest on the box, and it was wonderful how much we could see. The meet was always amusing, but when once the hunt had moved off, and the last stragglers disappeared in the forest, it didn't seem as if there was any possibility of catching them; and sometimes we would drive in a perfectly opposite direction, but the old keeper knew all about the stags and their haunts when they would break out and cross the road, and when they would double and go back into the woods. We were waiting one day in the heart of the forest, at one of the carrefours, miles away apparently from everything, and an absolute stillness around us. Suddenly there came a rush and noise of galloping horses, baying hounds and horns, and a flash of red and green coats dashed by, disappearing in an instant in the thick woods before we had time to realize what it was. It was over in a moment--seemed an hallucination. We saw and heard nothing more, and the same intense stillness surrounded us. We had the same sight, the stag taken in the water, some years later, when we were alone at the château. Mme. A. was dead, and her husband had gone to Paris to live. We were sitting in the gallery one day after breakfast, finishing our coffee, and making plans for the day, when suddenly we saw red spots and moving figures in the distance, on the hills opposite, across the canal. Before we had time to get glasses and see what was happening, the children came rushing in to say the hunt was in the woods opposite, the horns sounding the hallali, and the stag probably in the canal. With the glasses we made out the riders quite distinctly, and soon heard faint echoes of the horn. We all made a rush for hats and coats, and started off to the canal. We had to go down a steep, slippery path which was always muddy in all weathers, and across a rather rickety narrow plank, also very slippery. As we got nearer, we heard the horns very well, and the dogs yelping. By the time we got to the bridge, which was open to let a barge go through, everything had disappeared--horses, dogs, followers, and not a sound of horn or hoof. One solitary horseman only, who had evidently lost the hunt and didn't know which way to go. We lingered a little, much disgusted, but still hoping we might see something, when suddenly we heard again distant sounds of horns and yelping dogs. The man on the other side waved his cap wildly, pointed to the woods, and started off full gallop. In a few minutes the hill slope was alive with hunters coming up from all sides. We were nearly mad with impatience, but couldn't swim across the canal, the bridge was still open, the barge lumbering through. The children with their Fräulein and some of the party crossed a little lower down on a crazy little plank, which I certainly shouldn't have dared attempt, and at last the bargeman took pity on us and put us across. We raced along the bank as fast as we could, but the canal turns a great deal, and a bend prevented our seeing the stag, with the hounds at his heels, galloping down the slope and finally jumping into the canal, just where it widens out and makes a sort of lake between our hamlet of Bourneville and Marolles. It was a pretty sight, all the hunters dismounted, walking along the edge of the water, sounding their hallali, the entire population of Bourneville and Marolles and all our household arriving in hot haste, and groups of led horses and valets de chiens in their green coats half-way up the slope. The stag, a very fine one, was swimming round and round, every now and then making an effort to get up the bank, and falling back heavily--he was nearly done, half his body sinking in the water, and his great eyes looking around to see if any one would help him. I went back to the barge (they had stayed, too, to see the sight), and the woman, a nice, clean, motherly body with two babies clinging to her, was much excited over the cruelty of the thing.

"Madame trouve que c'est bien de tourmenter une pauvre bête qui ne fait de mal à personne, pour s'amuser?" Madame found that rather difficult to answer, and turned the conversation to her life on the barge. The minute little cabin looked clean, with several pots of red geraniums, clean muslin curtains, a canary bird, and a nondescript sort of dog, who, she told me, was very useful, taking care of the children and keeping them from falling into the water when she was obliged to leave them on the boat while she went on shore to get her provisions. I asked: "_How_ does he keep them from falling into the water--does he take hold of their clothes?" "No, I leave them in the cabin, when I am obliged to go ashore, and he stands at the door and barks and won't let them come out." While I was talking to her I heard a shot, and realised that the poor stag had been finished at last. It was early in the afternoon--three o'clock, and I suggested that the whole chasse should adjourn to the château for goûter. This they promptly accepted, and started off to find their horses. Then I had some misgivings as to what I could give them for goûter. We were a small party, mostly women and children. W. was away, and I thought that probably the chef, who was a sportsman as well as a cook, was shooting (he had hired a small chasse not far from us); I had told him there was nothing until dinner. I had visions of twenty or thirty hungry men and an ordinary tea-table, with some thin bread and butter, a pot of damson jam, and some sables, so I sent off Francis's tutor, the stable-boy, and the gardener's boy to the château as fast as their legs could carry them, to find somebody, anybody, to prepare us as much food as they could, and to sacrifice the dinner at once, to make sandwiches--tea and chocolate, of course, were easily provided.

We all started back to the house up the steep, muddy path, some of the men with us leading their horses, some riding round by Marolles to give orders to the breaks and various carriages to come to the château. The big gates were open, Hubert there to arrange at once for the accommodation of so many horses and equipages, and the billiard and dining-rooms, with great wood-fires, looking most comfortable. The chasseurs begged not to come into the drawing-room, as they were covered with mud, so they brushed off what they could in the hall, and we went at once to the goûter. It was funny to see our quiet dining-room invaded by such a crowd of men, some red-coated, some green, all with breeches and high muddy boots. The master of hounds, M. Menier, proposed to make the curée on the lawn after tea, which I was delighted to accept. We had an English cousin staying with us who knew all about hunting in her own country, but had never seen a French chasse à courre, and she was most keen about it. The goûter was very creditable. It seems that they had just caught the chef, who had been attracted by the unusual sounds and bustle on the hillside, and who had also come down to see the show. He promptly grasped the situation, hurried back to the house, and produced beef and mayonnaise sandwiches, and a splendid savarin with whipped cream in the middle (so we naturally didn't have any dessert--but nobody minded), tea, chocolate, and whiskey, of course. As soon as it began to get dark we all adjourned to the lawn. All the carriages, the big breaks with four horses, various lighter vehicles, grooms and led horses were massed at the top of the lawn, just where it rises slightly to meet the woods. A little lower down was Hubert, the huntsman (a cousin of our coachman, Hubert, who was very pleased to do the honours of his stable-yard), with one or two valets de chiens, the pack of dogs, and a great whip, which was very necessary to keep the pack back until he allowed them to spring upon the carcass of the stag. He managed them beautifully. Two men held up the stag--the head had already been taken off; it was a fine one, with broad, high antlers, a dix cors. Twice Hubert led his pack up, all yelping and their eyes starting out of their heads, and twice drove them back, but the third time he let them spring on the carcass. It was an ugly sight, the compact mass of dogs, all snarling and struggling, noses down and tails up. In a few minutes nothing was left of the poor beast but bones, and not many of them. Violet had les honneurs du pied (the hoof of one of the hind legs of the stag), which is equivalent to the "brush" one gives in fox-hunting. She thanked M. M., the master of hounds, very prettily and said she would have it arranged and hang it up in the hall of her English home, in remembrance of a lovely winter afternoon, and her first experience of what still remains of the old French vénerie. The horns sounded again the curée and the depart, and the whole company gradually dispersed, making quite a cortège as they moved down the avenue, horses and riders disappearing in the gray mist that was creeping up from the canal, and the noise of wheels and hoofs dying away in the distance.

* * * * *

We were pottering about in our woods one day, waiting for Labbez (the keeper) to come and decide about some trees that must be cut down, when a most miserable group emerged from one of the side alleys and slipped by so quickly and quietly that we couldn't speak to them. A woman past middle age, lame, unclothed really--neither shoes nor stockings, not even a chemise--two sacks of coarse stuff, one tied around her waist half covering her bare legs, one over her shoulders; two children with her, a big overgrown girl of about twelve, equally without clothing, an old black bodice gaping open over her bare skin, held together by one button, a short skirt so dirty and torn that one wondered what kept it on, no shoes nor stockings, black hair falling straight down over her forehead and eyes; the boy, about six, in a dirty apron, also over his bare skin. I was horrified, tried to make them turn and speak to me, but they disappeared under the brushwood as quickly as they could, "evidently up to no good," said W. In a few moments the keeper appeared, red and breathless, having been running after poachers--a woman the worst of the lot. We described the party we had just seen, and he was wildly excited, wanted to start again in pursuit, said they were just the ones he was looking for. The woman belonged to a band of poachers and vagabonds they could not get hold of. They could trace her progress sometimes by the blood on the grass where the thorns and sharp stones had torn her feet. It seems they were quite a band, living anywhere in the woods, in old charcoal-burners' huts or under the trees, never staying two nights in the same place. There are women, and children, and babies, who appear and disappear, in the most extraordinary manner. Many of them have been condemned, and have had two weeks or a month of prison. One family is employed by one of the small farmers near, who lets them live in a tumbledown hut in the midst of his woods, and that is their centre. We passed by there two or three days later, when we were riding across the fields, and anything so miserable I never saw; the house half falling to pieces, no panes of glass, dirty rags stuffed in the windows, no door at all, bundles of dirty straw inside, a pond of filthy water at one side of the house, two or three dirty children playing in it, and inside at the opening, where the door should have been, the same lame woman in her two sacks. She glowered at us, standing defiantly at the opening to prevent our going in, in case we had any such intention. I suppose she had various rabbits and hares hung up inside she couldn't have accounted for. There was no other habitation anywhere near; no cart or vehicle of any kind could have got there. We followed a narrow path, hardly visible in the long grass, and the horses had to pick their way--one couldn't imagine a more convenient trysting-place for vagabonds and tramps. It seems incredible that such things should go on at our doors, so to speak, but it is very difficult to get at them. Our keepers and M. de M., whose property touches ours, have had various members of the gang arrested, but they always begin again. The promiscuity of living is something awful, girls and young men squatting and sleeping in the same room on heaps of dirty rags. There have been some arrests for infanticide, when a baby's appearance and disappearance was too flagrant, but the girls don't care. They do their time of prison, come out quite untamed by prison discipline, and begin again their wild, free life. One doesn't quite understand the farmer who gives any shelter to such a bad lot, but I fancy there is a tacit understanding that his hares and rabbits must be left unmolested.

It is amusing to see the keepers when they suspect poachers are in their woods. When the leaves are off they can see at a great distance, and with their keen, trained eyes make out quite well when a moving object is a hare, or a roebuck, or a person on all fours, creeping stealthily along. They have powerful glasses, too, which help them very much. They, too, have their various tricks, like the poachers. As the gun-barrel is seen at a great distance when the sun strikes it, they cover it with a green stuff that takes the general tint of the leaves and the woods, and post themselves, half hidden in the bushes, near some of the quarries, where the poachers generally come. Then they give a gun to an under-strapper, telling him to stand in some prominent part of the woods, _his_ gun well in sight. That, of course, the poachers see at once, so they make straight for the other side, and often fall upon the keepers who are lying in wait for them. As a general rule, they don't make much resistance, as they know the keepers will shoot--not to kill them, but a shot in the ankle or leg that will disable them for some time. I had rather a weakness for one poaching family. The man was young, good-looking, and I don't really believe a bad lot, but he had been unfortunate, had naturally a high temper, and couldn't stand being howled at and sworn at when things didn't go exactly as the patron wanted; consequently he never stayed in any place, tried to get some other work, but was only fit for the woods, where he knew every tree and root and the habits and haunts of all the animals. He had a pretty young wife and two children, who had also lived in the woods all their lives, and could do nothing else. The wife came to see me one day to ask for some clothes for herself and the children, which I gave, of course, and then tried mildly to speak to her about her husband, who spent half his time in prison, and was so sullen and scowling when he came out that everybody gave him a wide berth. The poor thing burst into a passion of tears and incoherent defence of her husband. Everybody had been so hard with him. When he had done his best, been up all night looking after the game, and then was rated and sworn at by his master before every one because un des Parisiens didn't know what to do with a gun when he had one in his hand, and couldn't shoot a hare that came and sat down in front of him, it was impossible not to answer un peu vivement peut-être, and it was hard to be discharged at once without a chance of finding anything else, etc., and at last winding up with the admission that he did take hares and rabbits occasionally; but when there was nothing to eat in the house and the children were crying with hunger, what was he to do? Madame would never have known or missed the rabbits, and after all, le Bon Dieu made them for everybody. I tried to persuade W. to take him as a workman in the woods, with the hope of getting back as under-keeper, but he would not hear of it, said the man was perfectly unruly and violent-tempered, and would demoralize all the rest. They remained some time in the country, and the woman came sometimes to see me, but she had grown hard, evidently thought I could have done something for her husband, and couldn't understand that as long as he went on snaring game no one would have anything to do with him--always repeating the same thing, that a Bon Dieu had made the animals pour tout le monde. Of course it must be an awful temptation for a man who has starving children at home, and who knows that he has only to walk a few yards in the woods to find rabbits in plenty; and one can understand the feeling that le Bon Dieu provided food for all his children, and didn't mean some to starve, while others lived on the fat of the land.