106 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



STAG-HUNTING NEAR PARIS. 



long after my return to England, and having ex- 

 perienced a renovation of both mind and body, both which 

 had been partially relaxed and unstrung from the effects of 

 a three years' residence in the East, I visited Paris for the 

 first time in my life, which delightful capital, owing to 

 circumstances, became my permanent abode for several 

 years, and it was here that I formed some of those ac- 

 quaintances, and was initiated into some of those peculiar 

 phases of French society, which possess such charms and 

 attractions for the cosmopolite and man of the world ; and, 

 although many a snake lurked beneath the roses that 

 attracted the unwary traveller through that enchanted 

 ground and I myself did not escape without feeling the 

 lasting effects of their venom still my mind reverts to these 

 times as the happiest of my life. 



The period I allude to was during the latter part of the 

 reign of Charles X., whose taste for field-sports and first-rate 

 qualities as a sportsman are too well known to need com- 

 ment. He was equally celebrated as a first-rate shot, during 

 his exile in Great Britain as when he presided over the 

 superb establishments of "Versailles and St. Germain ; and, 

 whatever were his political faults, or rather those of his 

 advisers and ministers, a more honourable or kind-hearted 

 man never breathed, or one who more commanded the esteem 

 and affection of all those who possessed the honour of his 

 intimacy; and amongst these friends, or rather courtiers, 

 none stood forward more prominently for inflexible honesty. 



