162 



THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



year ; and In case they shall have failed to do so within 

 that time, we enjoin on Forest-Masters, their Lieutenants, 

 our Attorneys, and other Officers of our Maitrises to do it 

 instantly, and to take the coneys only with ferrets and 

 under the same penalties. 



' 12. All holders of lakes, draw-nets, drag-nets, tunnels, 

 snares of cord or of brass wire, fragments and flaps of 

 nets, gins, quail nets of wire or of silk, shall be sentenced 

 to the lash for the first time, with a fine of thirty livres, 

 and for the second, flogging and infamy, with banishment 

 for five years from the bounds of the Mattrise, whether it 

 be that they have committed depredations in our forests, 

 or in those of ecclesiastics, communities, or private persons 

 of our kingdom, without exception. 



' 13. We make it to be expressly prohibited and for- 

 bidden to all seigneurs, gentlemen, high justiciaries, and 

 other persons of whatever rank and condition soever they 

 may be, to shoot or hunt with noise in our forests, bushes, 

 warrens, and open country, if they have not license or per- 

 mission to do so, under pain against seigneurs of charge of 

 disobedience, and of two thousand five hundred livres fine, 

 and against commoners of fines and other penalties, 

 according to the edicts of 1601, with the exception of 

 death, which is hereafter abolished as a punishment for 

 this crime. 



' 14. We permit, nevertheless, to our seigneurs, gentle- 

 men, and nobles, to hunt nobly by dog or bird in their 

 forests, bushes, warrens, and open country, provided they 

 be a league distant from our preserves, and also roebucks 

 and wild boars at a distance of three leagues, 



'15. It is permitted also to them to shoot with arque- 

 buses all kinds of birds of passage, and also game, except- 

 ing the stag and the hind, at a league from our preserves, 

 both on their own lands and on our ponds, marshes, and 

 rivers. 



' 16. We interdict hunting with setters in all places, and 

 the practice of shooting flying within three leagues from 

 our preserves, under pain of two hundred livres fine for 



