The Merry Past 



The Comte d'Artois, afterwards Charles the Tenth, 

 from his eminence as a shot and his love for the 

 sports of the trigger, to which he dedicated to the 

 latest hour of his monarchy a great portion of his 

 time, acquired the nickname of Robin des Bois. 



Though after the Revolution there was considerable 

 diminution in the splendour of the royal hunt, a day 

 with Charles X, in 1828, would have seemed somewhat 

 extraordinary to sportsmen of the present age. The 

 King went to St. Germain in state. First came a 

 strong advance body-guard, consisting of twenty or 

 thirty lancers, riding at a hand gallop, clattering over 

 the stones and making a most tremendous row ; 

 immediately after them followed a splendid coach, 

 the whole body gilded, with the white fleur-de-lis and 

 the arms of France upon the panels, with four foot- 

 men in state liveries stuck up behind. It was drawn 

 by eight short-tailed, bay, English horses, six-in-hand, 

 and a postilion on the leader, in a cocked hat, blue 

 and silver-laced coat, and immense jack-boots, with 

 a sort of thing like a trunk at the top of them in which 

 a man might carry a day's provision. In the carriage 

 were His Majesty and one or two others, and by the 

 doors rode the equerries and all sorts of state 

 oflicials. Then came another carriage-and-eight in 

 the same style, only without anyone in it, and 

 another strong body of heavy cavalry brought up the 

 rear. 



The cavalcade halted by some houses on the road- 

 side, where the saddle horses were waiting, together 

 with the hounds, the lieutenant and sub-lieutenant 



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