244 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



CHAPTER XIV 



YEXERIE AND THE VALOIS 



Pour le plaisir des rois je suis donne, 



De jour en jour les veneurs me pourchassent ; 



Par les forests je suis abandonne 



A tous les chiens qui sans cesse me chassent. 



(Bouchet's Cojiijilainte du Cerf, IGth century.) 



The sixteenth century in France is the Velasquez period of 

 stag-hunting. It formed the grand style. Woodcraft hugger- 

 muggered along with poverty and privilege in the provinces, 

 but Venerie, at once an art and a science, came to Court. 

 Like some daughter of the gods visiting the sons of men, she 

 disputed precedence with everybody and everything. Even 

 the king's mistresses had to reckon with her. Diane de 

 Poitiers, conscious of the attractions of an enchanting rival, 

 spent large sums of money in building hunting stables and 

 mews, and laid out her demesne at Anet to suit hunting. 

 Meeting gallantry and intrigue on equal terms, hunting 

 became the instrument of political ambition. It conducted 

 and controlled the great affairs of state.' It challenged 

 diplomacy and plenipotentiaries. The main current of 

 politics, or what we should call politics in these days, 

 streamed along the alleys of Fontainebleau and Compiegne 

 and flooded the level plains of the Loiret and Seine-et-Marne. 

 Francois I., according to that eminent and polite Hellenist 



' Documents Infdits : N('goc.iations avcc la Tosca7ic, t. iii, p. 421. 



