WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 277 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE departure of St. Prix and his hounds from Carhaix cast a 

 gloom not only on our little circle, now reduced to a trio, but 

 also on the whole town. His yearly visits, in the execution of 

 his duty as Louvetier, being productive of so much benefit to 

 the community, both by the wolves he killed, as well as by the 

 coin which he and the followers of his hunt so liberally expended, 

 were the chief subject of interest and conversation for weeks 

 before his arrival. But not for the foregoing reasons only was 

 the Louvetier regarded as king of men in that district, nor because 

 he was a Breton, noble by birth and lineage, and the proprietor 

 of vast territorial possessions, extending from Callac, near the 

 Black Mountains, to Morlaix, on the shores of the Atlantic, but 

 rather because he was the most generous of human beings, kind 

 and courteous to all classes alike a nobleman, in every sense of 

 the word, to the backbone. It is, however, as a chasseur that we 

 have chiefly to speak of him in these pages. As such, whether 

 as horseman or houndsman, thoroughly understanding the nature 

 and habits of the wild game he hunted and the best mode of 

 hunting it with success, he was second to none, either in Brittany 

 or any other country. " In breeding my hounds," he said to me 

 as we were one day jogging together to cover, " I don't go in so 

 much for clean throats and straight legs as you do in England ; 

 but if a hound will hit and drive, and throw his tongue when he 



