484 
CHAPTER evil, 
FRENCH AND OTHER CONTINENTAL HOUNDS. 
“ Good shape to various kinds old bards confine— 
Some praise the Greek and some the Roman 
line: 
And dogs to beauty make as diff'ring claims 
French Staghounds.—If hunting generally 
is known as the sport of kings, then surely 
is stag-hunting particularly associated 
with memories of medieval courts, and, 
although some might not perhaps expect 
it, modern France preserves above all 
other lands the traditions and even the 
outward forms of the ancient chasse. In 
many of the French forests it would be as 
great a heresy to kill a deer otherwise than 
before the hounds as ever it would be on 
Exmoor, and the French hounds are especi- 
ally bred to the sport. 
The range of the stag is restricted to 
certain forests in the north, north-east, and 
west, as well as in isolated parts of Burgundy. 
Elsewhere the quarry of the hound is 
roe deer, boar, fox, or hare, the first named 
in the south-west, the last in the south. 
The remaining deer forests of France, once 
royal domains, are now the property of the 
state, leased every nine years to the highest 
bidder, whether representing a private or 
subscription pack. The late Duc d’Aumale 
owned until his death one of the finest, the 
domain of Chantilly; but it passed by his 
will to the French Academy, though the 
hunting rights are vested in his heir, the 
Duc de Chartres, Master of the Chantilly 
Staghounds. The death of the Prince de 
Joinville broke the pack of Boarhounds that 
he kept up in the forest of Arc en Barrois ; 
but this forest, as well as that of Amboise, 
remains, though leased to private individuals, 
royal property. 
The chief packs of French Staghounds 
meet in the neighbourhood of Paris, in such 
forests as those of Rambouillet (Duchesse 
@Uzés), Chantilly (Duc de Chartres), 
As Albion's nymphs and India’s jetty dames. 
Immense to name thety lands, to mark their 
bounds, 
And paint the thousand families of hounds.” 
TICKELL. 
Villers Cotterets (Comte de Cuyelles), and 
Fontainebleau (Duc de Lorge). 
The pack owned by the Duc de Lorge 
has been considered one of the finest in 
France, hunting red and roe deer alternately. 
Previous to the reign of Louis XV. the 
packs were composed of pure French hounds, 
but from the early years of the nineteenth 
century it became the custom to cross these 
with English Foxhounds, the resulting packs 
being known as Batards. The contemporary 
pack has this mixed blood, for in the ’sixties 
M. Paul Caillard turned into the then 
Duke’s kennels twenty hounds that were a 
cross between a Toulon bitch and a fine 
Foxhound out of the Pytchley kennels. 
Only in matters of detail, in the uniforms 
of the huntsmen, and in certain rules and 
forms jealously preserved from other cen- 
turies, does the sport at Fontainebleau 
differ from the more modern outings at 
Cloutsham and on the Quantocks. 
The day before a meet, a warrantable 
stag has to be harboured, and this is accom- 
plished with the help of Limiers, two chosen 
hounds of superior intelligence and wonderful 
powers of scent. The slot of the stag is the 
indication of its size, and the Limiers, 
worked on a cord, show exactly where the 
animal is lying up. A leafy bough is then 
placed so as to indicate the spot, and next 
morning hounds meet. Ordinary Foxhounds 
are used for this work in Britain, but the 
French hounds are larger and more powerful 
animals, with the same proportion of red, 
white and black markings. 
It is all done as in the vanished days of 
great pageantry. The Sologne is now, as 
then, the classic home of French venery. 
