THE HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHÂTEAUX
With September, Parisians renounce their allegiance to Neptune. For
that matter, Neptune has little to do even with the seashore season of
the Parisian world. The hoary old fellow is but a detail of the stage
setting. Whatever sovereignty he may have claimed at Trouville, Dieppe,
Dinard, he long ago made over to Venus Anadyomene, and even she cannot
hold her courtiers. There comes a day when the sands that have for
months bloomed riotously in Parisian gowns and sunshades and millinery,
stretch away, yellow and lone, before deserted casinos and empty hotels.
The seashore season is over. The hunting season is on.
Venus Anadyomene has given way to Diana, goddess of the chase. Pagan
Neptune has handed the fashionable crowd over to Christian St. Hubert,
patron saint of venery.
There is an element of farce in certain phases of French hunting, for
the Frenchman is born to theatrical effects as the sparks fly upward,
and the good shopkeeper of Paris goes a-hunting in a fashion that has
been the delight of _Punch_ artists for many years. He is so round
and rosy and valiant and important this French sportsman of _Punch_,
his hunting costume is so elaborate, he is so lavishly equipped with
hunting paraphernalia. The railway stations of Paris are crowded with
hunters of this class when the falling leaves are aswirl in the forests
of France; but Monsieur is only one of many French hunting types, and
the English go far astray when they make the caricature inclusive,
just as they strain the truth when they picture the French follower of
hounds as a dapper and rotund little fop clinging frantically round his
horse's neck and shouting--"Stop ze hunt! Stop zat fox! I tomble! I
faloff! Stop ze fox!"
If the London cockney should arise en masse each October and go forth
to hunt as does the bourgeois of Paris, there would doubtless be
amusing sights in the railway stations of London; and though the fox
hunting of France does not compare favourably with that of England,
there's many a fox-hunting English squire who would fall by the way if
he attempted to ride with a wiry French marquis on an all day and night
wolf hunt through the woods and plains of Poitou.
The chase is a passion with the French, and all classes save those to
which a day's holiday, a gun, and a dog are unattainable joys hail the
advent of the shooting season with enthusiasm. One sees the solitary
hunter in the marshes near the city, or searching patiently for birds
on ground where no placards warn trespassers away. The toy estates that
fringe the woods near Paris are carefully enclosed in high fences
of wire net, and there, on clear autumn mornings, there is a mighty
fusillade among the thickets while Monsieur in his English tweeds, and
Madame in her newest and most impractical shooting costume, and their
equally decorative friends, play at la chasse.
Since the greater part of the French land is subdivided to a remarkable
degree, and the average proprietor cannot shoot over his own place
without danger of killing the owner or the game on adjoining property,
many shooting alliances are made between groups of men owning adjacent
lands, and the privilege of hunting over the whole territory is
accorded to each of the group, while the game killed is apportioned
according to fixed rules. There are other hunting syndicates more
ambitious, renting or owning expensive preserves in country far from
Paris, and, of course, there are the fortunate owners of large estates
who have on their own preserves enough good shooting to satisfy even
the most exacting of English sportsmen.
Millionaire bourgeois own a majority of the important preserves of
Seine et Marne, Seine et Oise, and Oise, and the Rothschilds have the
finest shooting estate in France, at Vaux-de-Cernay. Kings and princes
from all quarters of Europe have shot the birds of the famous banker,
who is a power behind many thrones, and some of the fêtes that have
followed great hunts in the Rothschild coverts have been memorable
ones. Four thousand pheasants were slaughtered to make a holiday for
the last royal guest, and after the hunt came an evening of dazzling
fête and spectacular illumination of all the country round.
There are other estates where the chasses à tir are famous and where
sumptuous entertaining is done during shooting season; but it is in the
chasse à cour that France lives up to its old traditions and can show
the disdainful Englishman sport not known on the English country side.
The area of the French hunting districts is comparatively small, for
over half of the hounds of France are found in Vendee, Anjou, Touraine,
and Poitou, but the packs are many and admirable and the sport is good.
In the remote regions there is boar hunting, that for an exciting
run and a dangerous finish beats anything England has to offer. The
Frenchman will go far for a boar hunt, but he will not take many of
his favourite hounds with him. English foxhounds are cheaper and the
boar is sure to make short work of any dog that runs in on him when he
stands at bay, bristles erect, little eyes red with rage, foam flying
from his champing tusks; so, as a rule, the French dog is used only to
locate the boar, and English dogs are offered up, if sacrifice there
must be.
[Illustration: Baronne Henri de Rothschild at the Meet]
For wolf hunting the French hounds are called into service, though it
is difficult to break any hound to wolf scent, and nothing wears a
dog out more effectually than a wolf chase. Good horses are required,
too, for a wolf hunt is likely to mean a night out and a tremendous
straight-away run over a wide area, and even when dogs and horses and
hunters are of the best, an old wolf will usually give them all the
slip. The beast has phenomenal endurance and cunning. For hours he will
idle along just in front of the hounds, knowing they dare not attack
him while he is fresh. Then, when the pack is beginning to breathe
hard and labour a little, Monsieur _le loup_ shows what he can do in
the way of speed when he really gives his mind to it. Away he flies, a
streak of yellow grey, leaving his pursuers far behind, and the chances
are that pack and hunters have but a magnificent run for their pains.
One of the most famous sportsmen of France, who keeps a pack devoted
altogether to wolf hunting, says that he has killed less than a half
dozen old wolves in his hunting career.
Louveteaux--young wolves--furnish most of the sport, and here the story
is a different one; for the year-old wolf provides a long and brilliant
but usually successful run, and frequently a kill in the night when
flaming torches held by huntsmen in picturesque livery throw weird
lights and shadows over the scene.
Small wonder that the Frenchman who chases wolf and boar returns the
Briton's scorn in kind, and calls the English fox hunt a "promenade à
cheval." There is a certain amount of justice in the phrase, for the
Englishman of fox-hunting fame hunts to ride instead of riding to hunt.
The French sportsman shrugs his shoulders, too, at the stag hunt of old
England.
"To bring a tame deer in a box and push it under the noses of the
hounds--Ce n'est pas la chasse, mon ami," says the Marquis, with fine
contempt, and while his description doesn't apply accurately to all
English deer hunting, it is true that tracking the deer comes nearer
deserving its title of royal sport in France than in England.
Contrary to _Punch_ tradition, the gentleman of France is usually
a good shot. Shooting has been an essential part of his education
and even the veriest dandy of Paris may be uncommonly handy with a
revolver or gun. Such prowess is a part of the traditions of his race.
Duelling was a passion and a diversion with his ancestors; and while
serious duelling is, even in France, a trifle obsolete to-day, the
customs due to it still exist. Monsieur le Marquis fences cleverly
and shoots as well. Possibly he has his private shooting-gallery and
practices there for a while each morning; but, whether or no he has
this private practice, he is fairly sure to turn up at some one of the
public shooting rendezvous during the day. The Tir au Pigeon Club in
the Bois is the nucleus from which all of the open-air clubs of Paris
have developed, and is one of the most popular rendezvous for the smart
Parisian set. The same is true at Deauville, at Nice, and wherever
fashionable Parisian colonies are to be found, and the events at the
exclusive shooting clubs in these places will always bring together
a notable collection of society folk and an impressive exhibit of
Parisian chiffons.
There are many Frenchwomen who can hold their own with the men when
it comes to the handling of a gun, and a few who can follow hounds as
pluckily as any English Diana; while, as for the wearing of charming
shooting costumes, for the covert, or for luncheon with the guns, of
dressing effectively for the meet, of donning exquisite negligées for
the tea hour when the huntsmen may be expected to straggle in, tired,
valiant, and loquacious,--there the Parisienne leads the world. The tea
gowns and shooting costumes of the Place Vendôme and the Rue de la Paix
are the true triumphs of the French hunting season and the wearing of
them is to the average château guest a thing much more important than
the killing of game--is, in fact, her method of following the chase.
Nimrod may enjoy having his adored one by his side in the covert or
running neck and neck with him behind the hounds, but he has little
time for admiring her then. His heart is with pheasant or hare or deer.
The story is a different one when he goes back to the château in the
gathering twilight and finds daintily gowned women waiting, in the glow
of fire and candle-light, to greet him with enthusiasm and listen with
rapt attention while he fights his battles over again. Then is the hour
of the sportswoman, for there's more truth than fiction in the theory
so audaciously exploited in "Man and Superman." The form of the chase
which appeals most keenly to women the world over is the pursuit of
man, and the Parisienne in particular is a zealous devotee of the sport.
A Frenchwoman famous for her advanced ideas,--the "new woman"
translated into French--went to Berlin some years ago, and a
conference of the emancipated was called to do her honour. She came
into the audience hall, exquisitely gowned, the most delightfully
feminine of figures. She looked aghast at the band of strong-minded,
atrociously dressed women assembled to hear her; and then, throwing
aside her premeditated address upon woman's suffrage, she plunged
into an eloquent plea for the union of becoming dress and emancipated
womanhood, winding up with a fervent appeal to her sisters to remember
always that they must dress to please the men.
There spoke the true Frenchwoman, new or old; and the fair guests at
the châteaux, whatever may be their feeling about the chase of stag or
the shooting of birds, never are so lacking in sporting spirit that
they neglect dressing to please the men.
For the Parisienne in general the hunting season means only an excuse
for châteaux visits, and a château visit means only picturesque meets
at which one may wear one's smartest morning frock, chat with friends
from other châteaux, flirt with gallant huntsmen, and, perhaps, follow
the hunt at a discreet distance in cart or automobile; it means
luncheon with the guns in English fashion, and another opportunity
for a smart costume; it means the tea hour of coquetry and chiffons;
it means superb dinners to which come fashionable folk from the
country round about; it means evening festivities of all kinds. Oh, an
excellent opportunity for the displaying of one's wardrobe resources,
is the château visit, and a super-excellent opportunity for _les
affaires de c[oe]ur_ is offered by the informal intimacy of a great
house party.
The pretentiousness of château entertainment depends, of course, upon
the financial condition of the owner, and it is at the country places
of the rich bourgeois, rather than in the most famous historic houses
of France, that money is spent most freely during the château season,
though American millions have made some aristocratic house parties
famous for prodigal extravagance.
Where money need not stand in the way, the programme of entertainment
is often a costly one. Perhaps, as has happened before now, theatricals
are the order of the day, and the entire company of one of the Parisian
theatres is brought down from Paris for the occasion. Or a costume ball
is on the tapis and the great dressmakers of the Rue de la Paix are
called upon for dazzling costumes. Or a popular diseuse or chanteuse
or dancer may be lured away from her café chantant for the evening in
order to enliven the lovers of nature who have fled to sylvan haunts.
And always one can play bridge. Ye gods, how they play bridge during
the autumn days and nights, those transplanted Parisians!
All through the long days when the men are off after bird or deer, the
women, arrayed in the daintiest of bridge coats or frocks, sit around
the card tables playing for stakes that are not always low; and indeed
there are many days when even the men themselves forsake the coverts
for the card tables. During the last château season, rumours ran
concerning eighteen-hour sessions of bridge when mesdames and messieurs
did not lay down their cards save for hasty luncheon and dinner.
Stories were told, too, of immense losses sustained by guests at
several famous houses, and games at a louis a point have ceased to be
rare in the fashionable Parisian set. Some devotees of the game have,
it is said, even installed little bridge tables in the salons of their
loges at the opera and spirited games are played there in the intervals
of the music, or to the neglect of the music.
There are fashionable hostesses who deplore the craze, but the chief
accusation brought against the game is characteristically French. One
hears little protest against the ethics of bridge, but it appears that
the new fad is killing conversation. If this is true, say the critics,
something must indeed be done to save France. Conversation is, with the
French, a religion, a heritage, an acquirement, an art, and this fine
product of the centuries must not be allowed to perish in an epidemic
of gambling.
Even after a night spent at bridge, at least a large percentage of the
château party is up and off to the meet in the grey of the morning.
Madame may, perhaps, sleep later on, but the meet is an occasion, a
social function, a golden opportunity for coquetry; and even if one
does not expect to follow the hounds one must be in evidence at the
reunion. So my lady is up betimes and at work upon her toilette, a
toilette to the planning of which she has devoted anxious hours before
leaving Paris. One must be très chic at the meet, for les messieurs
will be out in force and the sporting scene with its forest setting
will admit of a touch of audacity in dress.
Even the true sportswoman of France does not forget to be coquette,
and her interest in habit or shooting costume does not interfere with
her sporting zeal. There are Frenchwomen who go boar hunting and wolf
hunting with their husbands. Others, like the Baronne de Brandt or the
Marquise de Bois-Hebert, visit the out-of-the-way corners of Europe
in search of exciting sport, and a long list of Parisian society
leaders like the Marquise de Beauvoir, the Comtesse de Fels, the young
Duchesses de Luynes, de Noailles, and d'Uzes, make excellent records in
the home forests.
The name of d'Uzes is important in modern French hunting annals, though
its claims do not rest on modernity. On the contrary the equipage
d'Uzes stands for all that is traditional and historic in French
venery, and the dowager Duchesse d'Uzes, holding fast to the customs
and traditions of the old régime, keeps up the hunt in her forests as
the Ducs d'Uzes have kept it up through many a generation and many a
change in the affairs of France.
Sixty thousand acres of the forest of Rambouillet are leased by the
Duchess for her hunting-grounds, and, though the favourite château of
the President of France lies across the woodland from her own hunting
château of Bonnelles, and his excellency the President of the French
Republic may, if he chooses, shoot birds and rabbits in the forest,
which is the property of the state, it is the Duchess who reigns in
Rambouillet forest and the republican ruler may not chase the stag
there, unless this great lady of old France graciously extends an
invitation to him.
What has Rambouillet to do with presidents and republics? It has always
been the forest of kings, and its memories reach back through the dim
years so far that modern history can but cling to its fingers, while
old story and romance haunt every bosky depth and sunlit glade.
It was the heart of the ancient forest of Yveline, this forest of
Rambouillet, the country of the Druids, a place of mystery and of
fable. Cæsar tells how the Gauls hunted the wild bull in those forest
fastnesses. Charlemagne went a-hunting under the great oaks and
beeches, and by his side rode his empress, Luitgard the beautiful,
while in their train came many a mighty warrior and prince; came, too,
fair princesses whose names alone are keys to old romance,--Hiltrud and
Rhodaid, Gisela and Theodrada and Bertha, each in robe of green velvet
and with silken locks floating free from beneath a golden diadem. For
the lover of pictures they still go riding down the forest aisles,
those princesses of the far away, "swaying the reins with dainty
finger-tips" and smiling on the gallants who rode beside them.
Many a fair lady has ridden in the shades of Rambouillet, with a
courtier at her bridle rein, since Charlemagne's day. Each king of
France in turn has followed the stag there. Some kings have loved
there, some have died there; some, like Louis XIV, have merely been
bored there; but it was when Louis XIII ruled in France that venery
flourished in its greatest pomp and glory. Many hundreds of officials
belonged to the royal hunting equipage in the time of this prodigal
Louis, and all the court followed the king when, with sounding horns
and baying hounds, he coursed through the woods of Rambouillet.
The princes of the blood had their equipages, too, and there is a
story of a long-ago day when three stags broke cover simultaneously on
the sides of St. Hubert's pond, and behind each streamed a brilliant
hunting cortège sporting the gay colours of a princely house. One can
see them there on the banks of the woodland pool--the stags at bay, the
swarming hounds, the liveried huntsmen, the princes and courtiers in
gorgeous array, the background of forest green and the water mirroring
the whole. Extravagant folly, of course, those royal hunts, but a brave
show. Your good republican loves better to see the president go forth
in his tweeds and his slouch hat, with his guides and beaters and his
tweed-clad guests, to shoot the timid little wood creatures that are
driven into the range of the guns and killed by thousands in the name
of sport. It costs less than Louis' hunting, this democratic battue,
and, to-day, the peasants of France have bread,--but for the lover of
romance, Rambouillet is filled with ghosts that make a finer show than
the estimable republican president and his equally estimable but far
from picturesque guests.
Pompous venery went down with all things regal in the Revolutionary
flood, but Napoleon, ever theatrical at heart, appreciated the dramatic
opportunities of the chase, and once more Rambouillet echoed to the bay
of hounds and the call of horns, while the little great man rode in
Charlemagne's paths.
Since then, the career of hunting in France has been a chequered one.
After the revolution of 1848, the forests were leased to the great
nobles, but Napoleon III had the vast domains confiscated after his
coup d'état, and it was then that the Ducs d'Uzes and de Luynes held a
great final hunt before abandoning the forests to the usurper, and made
a kill that is mentioned with awe by latter-day hunters.
But Napoleon cared little for the chase, and in 1868 the dukes were
hunting again in their old haunts. The Duc de Luynes died and the Duc
d'Uzes took over his pack. When he, too, went the way of all flesh,
his widow refused to give up the famous hounds and the traditional
equipage. She re-leased the forest, held tenaciously traditions of the
chase as they had been upheld by a long line of Ducs d'Uzes. While she
lives, at least, the hounds of St. Hubert will occupy their kennels
at La Celle les Bordes, and the red and blue and gold of the equipage
d'Uzes will flash through the leafy lanes of the forest of Rambouillet.
The Bonnelles season begins on the first of September, but only
intimate friends and zealous sportsmen are gathered together in the
château at the opening of the season. Later there will be guests of
ceremony, royal visitors, and all of the gay Parisian crowd whom the
family d'Uzes deigns to entertain.
The dowager Duchess, grande dame of the old school, is mistress of
the château, but she has able assistants in her daughter-in-law, the
young Duchesse d'Uzes, and in her daughters, the great ladies of de
Luynes and de Brissac. They fit in oddly with the venerable customs of
Bonnelles, these typical products of a society essentially modern, but
the combination of new and old is a piquant one, and the excessively
up-to-date young Duchesse d'Uzes never appears to better advantage than
when she kneels in the little church of Bonnelles on St. Hubert's Day,
or, in bravery of blue and scarlet and gold, follows the hounds of
Bonnelles through the forest of Rambouillet.
The château of Bonnelles is an imposing pile set in a beautiful park
of about two hundred acres, and furnishes room for many guests. Life
goes to the same tune there as in the other châteaux during the autumn
season, though there is a hint of old-world dignity mingled with the
modern gaiety, and among the guests are often included interesting
figures not familiar in the very modern salons of Paris. And, too, the
hunting is taken rather more seriously at Bonnelles than at many of the
châteaux, though even there the late season crowd gives itself over to
frivolity rather than to sport.
The kennels of Bonnelles are located at the farm of La Celle les
Bordes, about five miles from the château, and the old seigneurial
farmhouse is used as a hunting-lodge and a museum for relics and
trophies of the chase.
There are packs in France larger than that of Bonnelles. The Menier
family, for instance, has sixty couples in its kennels which are
perhaps the best in France, while the d'Uzes pack numbers only eighty
hounds all told, and of these only sixty run with the pack,--but they
are aristocrats, these hounds of d'Uzes, with pedigrees that might put
nine tenths of the mushroom nobles of France to shame.
The hounds of St. Hubert are the oldest hunting-dogs of history. Before
the time of Charlemagne they were the hunting comrades of kings, and
though the pure St. Hubert strain has lost caste and the best dogs of
the modern French kennels have been crossed with other blood, it is
the old French aristocrat among hounds that gives to the famous French
packs their long melancholy faces, their marvellous scent, and their
melodious voices.
The dogs of Vendee, lineal descendants of the dogs of St. Hubert, were
first favourites in the days of Louis XI, and the d'Uzes hounds trace
their lineage back to two royal dogs of that early time,--Greffier, one
of the king's most valuable hounds, a white St. Hubert crossed with
mastiff, and Baude, the pet hound of Anne of France, daughter to the
king. Since that far-away day, the Vendean strain has been crossed with
royal English buckhound to the great advantage of the French hound,
say those who should know, but, despite this alien blood, it is the
descendant of Greffier and Baude that yelps in the kennels at La Celle
les Bordes when the dog valets put the pack in leash on the morning of
St. Hubert's Day.
[Illustration: The Blessing of the Hounds at Bonnelles]
This third of November is a great day at Bonnelles, for the Duchess
is ardent churchwoman and ardent patron of the chase, and on St.
Hubert's Day the two objects of her devotion fraternize in all pomp and
ceremony. Out from the lodge gates issues the pack, and with the dogs
go the governor of the pack, the two mounted piqueurs, the two chief
foresters, the two chief dog valets, and the lesser officials--all of
whom make up the equipage d'Uzes. The huntsmen are in hunting costume
of the d'Uzes colours, with hunting-horns slung round their necks and
hunting-knives in their belts, the dog valets wear the red and blue
without the gold lace, and the chief dog sports the colours of his
owners.
On they go to the little church of Bonnelles where a crowd is awaiting
them. Outside the church there is a group of onlookers drawn here by
curiosity to see the famous ceremony, but within the doors one finds
a gathering of folk whom one remembers seeing at Longchamps, on the
Avenue des Acacias, in the Casino at Trouville. The little Duchesse
d'Uzes is there, charming in her habit and in her three-cornered
hunting-hat with its blue and red and gold, but she is very solemn
now, this gay little duchess, very solemn indeed; for, as we have said
elsewhere, she is devôte, and even at the blessing of the hounds she
does not relax her pose.
The piqueurs lead the dogs before the high altar, the mass of St.
Hubert is said, and, as the priests lift the host on high, suddenly
there is a carillon of bells, hunting-horns sound the fanfare of St.
Hubert, the crowd rustles to its feet. Out of the church file the
priests in gorgeous vestments and the red-robed acolytes bearing the
blest bread of St. Hubert. The oldest priest crumbles the bread for
the dogs, sprinkles holy water over the quivering muzzles. There is
another peal of bells, the horns sound gaily, the hunting folk spring
to saddle, the guests who are not to hunt climb into their traps and
automobiles, the piqueurs crack the long lashes of their dog whips,
the hounds strain at their leashes, and the whole procession wends its
way merrily toward the place chosen for the meet,--while the outsider
privileged to witness the show rubs his eyes and hurries off to find a
calendar, that he may see whether perchance this is the year of grace
1905 or an earlier and more ceremonious time.
The rendezvous for the meet is at some carrefour or crossroads, where
an old stone cross with ancient inscription usually marks a circular
opening in the forest, and there one may see an amusing sight on any
morning when the hounds are out. Eight o'clock is the rallying hour,
and before that hour, though shreds of night still cling to the trees
and blur the forest roads, the Duchess is on hand with the party from
Bonnelles, to greet her guests.
Up out of the mist they come, gay parties from the neighbouring
châteaux, officers from the nearest garrisons, reinforcements from
Paris. Some are in hunting costume, some are driving smart traps, many
spin up to the rendezvous in automobiles and the snorting and puffing
of their machines mixes oddly with the neighing of horses and the
restless whining of the hounds. The red coats of the huntsmen, the
bright colours of the officers' uniforms, the chic costumes of the
women, lend an aspect of gaiety to the sombre forest setting with its
wreathing grey mist, and there is a chatter of voices, a ripple of
laughter.
The stag which has been tracked and located before the place for the
meet was appointed is reported still close at hand, and the master of
the hunt gives the word. The hounds are unleashed and sent forward,
while at the carrefour, the noise dies down to a murmur or an expectant
hush.
Then there is a crash in the thicket, the hounds give tongue, high,
sweet, and clear on the crisp autumn air the horns sound the "Stag in
view," and away goes the hunt, a glinting line of colour through the
dull November woods. The dogs run close, the hunters ride hard, and
at their head is the little Duchess, reckless, excited, joying in the
sport, true daughter of a hunting house.
It is easy to understand the passion for the chase, when one rides in
the wake of the hounds through the haunted old forest of the Druids
while the horns are playing the ancient hunting-airs of France and the
hounds' sonorous voices ring full and sweet and sad--for there is ever
a melancholy in the music when a pack of St. Huberts is in full cry.
The horses stretch themselves to the chase, the tingling morning air is
full of wood scents, the sun is scattering the mist.
Hola! Hola! Madame la Duchesse hunts the stag!
The trembling hares and birds seek the thick covert, but they are safe.
No presidential battue this, but royal sport. Madame la Duchesse hunts
the stag in the ancient forest of kings.