THE EIGHTH DUKE OF BEAUFORT 



race having been destroyed, but there are many 

 in Poitou. The Duke of Beaufort, an EngHsh 

 sportsman, has just passed through Paris with 200 

 dogs intended to destroy these wild animals, which 

 are the terror of the shepherd and of the inhabi- 

 tants of lonely dwellings. It may be said of the 

 peer that he is a sportsman by profession. He has 

 inherited a rental of 1,000,000 frs., on condition 

 that he shall always maintain three packs of hounds, 

 and shall hunt six days in the week. Another 

 clause in the will binds him to expend 250,000 frs. 

 a year on his hunting establishment. There are 

 collaterals always on the watch who would cause 

 the bequest to be revoked in case the conditions 

 were not carried out. These noble eccentricities 

 are to be found only in England." 



The Badminton Hunt had always appealed to 

 French sportsmen, and up to the present time a 

 small, though, alas ! rapidly decreasing number of 

 Frenchmen have been masters of the science of 

 venerie. Foreign sportsmen admired the splendour 

 of the Duke's hunt, and many of them came to 

 Badminton for hound blood. To them the Duke 

 of Beaufort and his hounds were representative and 

 typical of the best English hunting science. 



It was not, therefore, as a stranger, either per- 

 sonally or by reputation, that the Duke went over 

 to France. The origin of the scheme to take fox- 

 hounds to hunt the wolf was as follows : — 



M. Auguy, Officier de Lotiveterie in Poitou, 



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