DEER SHOOTING HUNGARY. 269 



CHAPTER XX. 



DEER-SHOOTING IN HUNGARY THE CHATEAU OF MARIENTHAL. 



VIENNA is celebrated throughout Europe as a city of plea- 

 sure. Every physical enjoyment, and all those diversions in 

 which the mind does not take an active part, are sufficiently 

 numerous to make us forget for some time the more intel- 

 lectual features peculiar to a free country ; in fact, that per- 

 fect freedom of mind, body, and speech, which is only to be 

 found in London or Paris. Amongst the variety of amuse- 

 ments to be met with in Austria, none stand forward more 

 pre-eminently than the chase. Here the smallest landed pro- 

 prietor is certain to possess a vast quantity of game around 

 his diminutive castle, which all his dependents and vassals 

 are forced to preserve with scrupulous care. Subsequently, 

 indeed, to an edict issued by the quasi-liberal Joseph II., 

 who ordained, to the great displeasure of the nobility, that 

 the destruction caused by the game should be at the expense 

 of the landlord, the seigneurs invite to their periodical mas- 

 sacres the most intelligent of their vassals, such as the bailiff, 

 the notary, the surgeon, and perhaps the cure ; but they com- 

 plain sadly of the diminution of their game. Where they 

 were accustomed to kill fifteen hundred hares in a day, they 

 say they have difficulty in shooting seven or eight hundred, 

 and that it is really pitiable to see the chasse so reduced. 



To a sportsman nothing can be more tantalizing than to 

 inhabit Vienna during the spring months, when every kind of 

 chasse is closed. He can see before him daily the Styrian 

 mountains, where the capercailzie feeds in company with the 

 chamois. He walks through the imperial parks, where the 



