c'est la soupe. 151 



Brunier, and, patting the side of a white bitch whose 

 stomach was full enough for going to bed instead of 

 going to hunt, I addressed her huntsman thus : — 



" Comment, est-elle grosse?" 



'^ Mais non, Monsieur," said the servant touching 

 his cap ; " elle vient de dejeuner ; c'est la soupe." 



To translate it for some of my readers who may 

 be still more deficient in French than I am, I asked 

 the man, ** If the hound was going to have puppies," 

 though I well knew she was only distended from that 

 morning's feed ; and he replied : " Oh, no, she had 

 been to breakfast ; 't was the soup." 



After the consultation before alluded to, the hunts- 

 man of M. Rambour selected his three hounds from 

 their struggling, jealous, and baying companions, and 

 proceeded into the forest on one side of the road with 

 them in couples. While this was doing, about seven- 

 teen poachers, in blouses arranged themselves, with 

 other sportsmen on foot, along the high road which 

 here intersected the cover, so that nothing could pass 

 in the shape of an animal without being shot at, or 

 anything else that emerged abruptly through the 

 bushes ; for some of the blouses set themselves 

 and their weapons like spring guns, aiming at weak 

 places, or likely passes in the wood, for a pull at or 

 a snap shot at any indication of life, before it could 



L 4 



