300 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



sized Arabs so much esteemed before the war of 1870, or 

 the plain-headed trooper M. Detaille draws so admirably. 



I really think the nicest horse I saw in France — not 

 excepting the one I rode at Chantilly, which had won in a 

 strong four-year-old class at Dublin — was a French-bred 

 horse. He was the property of a M. Kulb, with whom I rode 

 home three or four miles after my day with the Halatte hounds 

 to a village called Fleuriner, where a most excellent refection 

 was laid out for ' messieurs et mesdames les chasseurs,' hot 

 spiced claret and noble baked apples being novel and attractive 

 features of our entertainment. This was a bright chestnut 

 horse, a little on the leggy side, perhaps, but aristocratic and 

 mettled enough for the Quorn Hunt stables under their present 

 sumptuous regime, or to head the Eoyal Procession at Ascot 

 races. M. Kulb told me that ' fond ' was the prime essential of 

 a French hunter. I do not suppose this can be translated by 

 what we mean by staying power — that can only be tested 

 by having to go fast — but rather by cheerful resistance to 

 long dragging days on springless sand, which must often be 

 very dull for the horses. You do not have to go fast with 

 French woodland packs. Most of the hunt horses I saw 

 must have been as slow as tops. Hurvari, as I have said, 

 trotted about to his hounds. Unless you happen to make a 

 mistake or get into the open, a slow canter with the eye cast 

 well forward, to see if the deer crosses, keeps you comfortably 

 abreast of the leading hounds. And I was hunting with the 

 fast packs. The hounds of the Saintonge, or the Vendean, 

 or the Bleu Gascon breed walk their deer to death. M. de 

 Carayon Lacour's beautiful pack, which I should much like 

 to have seen, take five or six hours to bay their stag. A 

 good walker, says M. Le Jeune, can keep up with them. 



In France the field do not, in our sense, compete. The 

 huntsman or the master sets the pace, usually at a Rotten 

 Bow canter, and the field in Indian file or here and there in 



