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.
Wolf-hunting in the forests is an expensive amusement, whether they are
killed by the method I have described,--namely, of employing beaters,
and shooting them when breaking through the line of sportsmen, or
running them down with dogs. The peasants and _traqueurs_ have to be
paid, in the first case; hunters and hounds have to be purchased and
maintained, in the second, without counting the innumerable incidental
expenses which a kennel of hounds always brings in its train. This kind
of establishment is too extravagant for our country-gentlemen, and thus
it is that for one wolf killed in the great meetings, or with the dogs,
thirty are taken in pits and snares, or by some species of stratagem.
Every small farmer or large proprietor, to protect his family and his
cattle,--every shepherd, to protect himself and his flock, invokes to
his aid the genius of strategy; and as the mind of man is a sponge full
of expedients, from which once pressed by the hard fingers of necessity
many an ingenious device is extracted, innumerable are the various
seductive baits that in our plains and forests are placed in the way of
the gluttonous appetite of the wolf; and I shall now describe the
inventions that are more generally adopted.
The favourite trap employed in Le Morvan is the _Traquenard_. This is
the most dangerous, and the strongest that is made, requiring two men to
set it; it has springs of great power, which once touched, the jaws of
the trap close with tremendous force. Each jaw, formed of a circle of
iron, four or five feet in circumference, is furnished along its whole
length with teeth shaped like those of a saw, but less sharp, which shut
one within the other. To these redoubtable engines of destruction is
attached an iron chain, six feet in length, and at the other end of it
is a bar of iron with hooks; these hooks or grapnel, which catch at
everything that comes in their way, impede the escape of the wolf when
once seized, and prevent him from going any great distance from the spot
where he has been caught. The trap should not be tied or fixed in any
way, for then the wolf would probably in his first bound, his first
frantic movement of terror, either break some part of it, or in his
violent endeavours to escape, succeed, only leaving a leg behind him.
In placing the trap and chain, a little earth is taken away, so that
both are on a level with the turf; after which, the jaws being opened,
they are covered with leaves in as natural a manner as possible. Great
care must be taken by the person who sets the trap that he does not
touch it with his naked hand; this should invariably be done with a
glove on, otherwise the wolf--always extremely difficult to catch by
reason of his delicate sense of smell--would be awakened to his danger.
The mode of taking the wolf by means of the _Traquenard_, is as
follows:--A spot having been selected in the depths of the forest, and
in a sombre pathway unfrequented by the beasts of prey, the trap is set
about an hour before the sun goes down, and a dog, young pig, a sheep,
or some other animal which has been dead a few days, is divided into
five parts; one of the portions is suspended to the lower branch of the
tree, under which the trap is set; and the other four, being each
attached to a withe or the band of a faggot,--not rope, for in that the
wolf detects the hand of man, and he hates the smell of the
material,--are drawn by men along the ground in the direction of the
four points of the compass. These men are mounted either on horseback,
or on an ass, or they put on a pair of _sabots_ and walk, each of them
dragging after him, through the wood and along the unfrequented paths,
his portion of the bait, stopping every now and then to let the soil
over which it passes be as much as possible impregnated with the smell
of the flesh on the verge of corruption.
The _traineur_ should always walk as much as possible through those
parts of the forest that are the clearest of underwood, for in these
spots the wolf is least on his guard; and when he has thus traversed
from 2,500 to 3,000 paces--the distance required in order to give the
animal, (who will at first follow his track with caution and even
suspicion,) time to regain his confidence--he stops, throws the bait
over his shoulder, and walks home, leaving the result to chance, and the
hunger of the savage game. When four or five other traps have been set
for the same night, in a radius of three or four miles thus prepared, it
rarely happens that some of these various lines--which intersect each
other on every side and in every direction, taking in a considerable
surface of ground--are not hit upon during the night by the roving
wolves: and be sure that each wolf whose olfactories discern the scented
line, and who at length arrives at the trap, is a wolf taken.
Well do I remember the fever of impatience with which I was seized, the
first time I was present at the preparations for this sport, and the
desire I had to know what would be the result of our machinations; so
much so, indeed, that the arrangement being completed, I positively
refused to return to the _château_;--climbing into a thick tree, distant
about a hundred paces from the trap, I passed the whole night there on
the watch, shivering in my jacket, sitting astride upon one branch, my
feet on another, and Navarre at my side. Poor Navarre! he had in the
beginning of the evening brought all his astronomical knowledge to bear
upon me, with a view of proving that the night would be terribly
unwholesome; that we should have a furious hurricane and be deluged with
rain, blinded by the lightning, and terrified by the thunder; and that,
in the way of eating and a cordial, the only thing he had in his
game-bag was a sorry piece of black bread, hard enough to break the
tooth of a boar. I had a stiff tustle with him before he gave in; but
finding he could not damp the burning curiosity which devoured me, and
that my ears were deaf to the somewhat rough music of his reasoning and
his predictions, the worthy man at length closed the fountain of his
eloquence, and, though growling and mumbling in an under tone at my
juvenile obstinacy, which had deprived him of his bed and his supper,
quietly took his seat in the tree; then drawing from the bottom of his
pocket some tobacco and a short pipe--his consolation in his greatest
misfortunes--he whiffed away, burying his irritated countenance in his
breast by way of showing his vexation.
It seems to me but yesterday these eight hours passed in the forest in
the silence of that starlight night, hid in the branches, and waiting
for the wolves! We caught three, and nine galloped under the very oak in
which we were seated. This midnight scene was exciting beyond
description; and the worthy Navarre, notwithstanding his pipe, his
fox-skin cap, and his goat-skin riding-coat, caught such a melancholy
cold, that he did nothing but sneeze and hoop the whole of the next day,
making more noise than all the dogs and cattle in the farm put together.
Wolf-hunting with traps has its dangers and its inconveniences, and the
_Traquenard_ must be used with great caution. Every morning it should be
visited and shut; otherwise a man, a horse, a dog, or some other animal,
may fall into it, and be taken. In order, therefore, as much as possible
to prevent accidents, our peasants, farmers, and poachers, when using
this kind of trap, always tie stones, or little pieces of dead wood, to
the bushes and branches of the trees near the spot in which it is set;
they likewise place the same kind of signal at the extremity of the
pathway which leads to the trap, as a warning to those who may walk that
way; and the peasants, who know what these signals dancing in the air
with every puff of wind mean, turn aside, and take very good care how
they proceed on their road.
In spite of all these precautions, however, very sad occurrences will
sometimes happen in our forests. Some years ago a trap was placed in a
deserted footway, and the usual precautions were taken of hanging stones
and bits of wood in the approach to the path at either end. The same
day, a young man of the neighbourhood, full of love and imprudence--upon
the eve, in fact, of being entangled in the conjugal "I will"--anxious
to present to his _fiancée_ some turtle-doves and pigeons with rosy
beaks, with whose whereabouts he was acquainted, left his home a little
before sunset to surprise the birds on their nest; but he was late, the
night closed in rapidly, and with the intention of shortening the road,
instead of following the beaten one he took his way across the forest.
Without in the least heeding the brambles and bushes which caught his
legs, or the ditches and streams he was obliged to cross, he pressed on;
and after a continued and sanguinary battle with the thorns, the stumps,
the roots, and the long wild roses, came exactly on the path where the
trap was set. The night was now nearly dark, and, in his agitation and
hurry, thinking only of his doves and the loved one, he failed to
observe that several little pieces of string were swinging to and fro in
the breeze from the branches of a thicket near him. Dreadful indeed was
it for him that he did not; for suddenly he felt a terrible shock,
accompanied by most intense pain, the bones of his leg being apparently
crushed to pieces--he was caught in the wolf-trap!
The first few moments of pain and suffering over, comprehending at once
the danger of his position, he with great presence of mind collected all
the strength he had, and by a determined effort endeavoured to open the
serrated iron jaws which held him fast: but though despair is said to
double the strength of a man, the trap refused to give up its prey; and
as at the least movement the iron teeth buried themselves deeper and
deeper with agonizing pain into his leg, and grated nearly on the bone,
his sufferings became so intense that in a very few minutes he ceased
from making any further attempts to release himself. Feeling this to be
the case, he began to shout for help, but no one replied; and as the
night drew in he was silent, fearing that his cries would attract the
notice of some of the wolves that might be prowling in the
neighbourhood, and resolved to wait patiently and with fortitude what
fate willed--what he could not avert. He had under his coat a little
hatchet, a weapon which the Morvinians constantly carry about with them,
and thus in the event of his being attacked by the dreaded animals, he
trusted to it to defend himself; but he was still not without hope that
the wolves would not make their appearance.
The night lengthened; the moon rose, and shed her pale light over the
forest. Immovable, with eyes and ears on the _qui vive_, his body in the
most dreadful agony, he listened and waited: when, all at once,
far--very far off, a confused murmur of indistinct sounds was heard.
Approaching with rapidity, these murmurs became cries and yells; they
were those of wolves--and not only wolves, but wolves on the track,
which must ere a few minutes could elapse be upon him. A pang of horror,
and a cold perspiration poured from his face;--but fear was not a part
of his nature, and by almost superhuman efforts, and, in such an awful
moment, forgetting all pain, he dragged himself and the trap towards an
oak tree, against which he placed his back.
Here leaning with his left hand upon a stout staff he had with him when
he fell, and having in his right his hatchet ready to strike, the young
man, full of courage, after having offered up a short prayer to his God,
and embraced, as it were, in his mind his poor old mother and his bride,
awaited the horrible result, determined to show himself a true child of
the forest, and meet his fate like a man. A few minutes more, and he was
as if surrounded by a cordon of yellow flames, which, like so many
Will-o'-the-wisps, danced about in all directions. These were the eyes
of the monsters; the animals themselves, which he could not see, sent
forth their horrible yells full in his face, and the smell of their
horrid carcases was borne to him on the wind. Alas! the _denouément_ of
the tragedy approached. The wolves had hit upon the scented line of
earth, and following it; hungry and enraged, were bounding here and
there, and exciting each other. They had arrived at the baited spot....
What passed after this no one can tell--no eye saw but His above: but on
the following morning when the Père Séguin, for he was the unfortunate
person who set the _Traquenard_, came to examine it, he found the trap
at the foot of the oak deluged with blood, the bone of a human leg
upright between the iron teeth, and all around, scattered about the turf
and the path, a quantity of human remains: bits of hair, bones,--red and
moist, as if the flesh had been but recently torn from them,--shreds of
a coat, and other articles of clothing were also discovered near the
spot; with the assistance of some dogs that were put on the scent, three
wolves, their heads and bodies cut open with a hatchet, were found dying
in the adjacent thickets. The bones of their victim were carried to the
nearest church; and on the following day these mournful fragments, which
had only a few hours before been full of life and youth and health, were
committed to the earth.
When the venerated _curé_ of the village, after previously endeavouring
in every possible way by Christian exhortation to prepare his aged
mother to hear the sad tale, informed her that these remnants of
humanity was all that was left of her boy, she laughed--alas! it was the
laugh of madness--reason had fled! Many a time have I met the aged
creature strolling in a glade of the forest, or seated basking in the
sun outside the door of her cottage. Her complexion was of the yellow
paleness of some old parchment, she was always laughing and
singing--always rocking in her arms a log of wood, a hank of hemp, or
bundle of fern--objects which to her poor crazy eyes represented her
child;--her child as it was in its tender years: she called it by his
name, she kissed, embraced and dandled it, rocked it on her knees; and
when she thought it should be tired, sang those lullabies which had
soothed the slumbers of him who was now no more. I have witnessed the
horrors of war, I have heard many a tragic story, but never has my heart
been more touched with feelings of profound grief than the day on which
I first met this poor creature--this widowed mother, then seventy years
of age--singing and walking in the forest, carrying and dandling in her
shrivelled arms a shawl rolled up; kissing and talking to the silent
bundle, smiling on it,--sitting at the foot of a tree, and opening that
bosom in which the springs of life had for years been dried, to nurse
and nourish once more what seemed to her still her baby boy.
The morning after the dreadful catastrophe of which I have just spoken,
the path in which this terrible tragedy took place was closed, and trees
were planted along its length, so that no person could in future pass
that way. But the Père Séguin has often shown me the oak, at the foot of
which during that fearful night the young peasant suffered such agonies,
made such incredible efforts, and drew with such indomitable courage his
last breath. This tree is still called by the peasants, "The Widow's
Oak," or, "The Oak of the Wolves."