ffairs are the most compromised,
pack up their effects and make ready for a start. But on the other hand,
if the sky is serene and the wind warm, husbands are actually seen
embracing their wives, and promising them any toilette they may fancy.
Should the heat become Bengalic and insupportable oh! then all Burgundy
is dancing and running to the vineyards,--all the Morvinians fly to the
hills to enjoy the cool breezes and admire the luxuriant panorama
beneath and around them.

But for some months previous to the _vendange_, no one but a proprietor
has the right to enter a vineyard; at this period a perfect calm and
silence reigns, and they become an asylum, a veritable land of Goshen,
an oasis for all the partridges, hares, and rabbits of the
neighbourhood. In order to prevent gentlemen and professional poachers
from cruising in these delightful latitudes, killing the game and
injuring the vines, a number of _gardes champetres_, generally old
soldiers, are chosen, who armed with an old sabre, post themselves on
some height which commands the vineyard, ready to lay violent hands on
any delinquent that may make his appearance. But in spite of the _garde
champetre_, his long sabre, their interminable cut and thrust, and his
eternal _de par la loi, arretez!_ there is a sport in the early morning,
called _a la traulee_, which is not without its charms.

The vineyards of Burgundy are for the most part divided into sections,
that is to say, at from two to three hundred paces the contiguity of the
vines is interrupted, and a small road, which serves during the
_vendange_ to facilitate the communication and transport of the grapes,
is cut in the vineyard. At daylight, therefore, before the sun is above
the horizon, or the white fog hanging in the valleys has been dispersed
by his rays, and the fashionable gentleman of the town is on the point
of going to bed, the sportsman, always keen and on the alert, arrives,
walks slowly and carefully along the roads I have just mentioned,
looking cautiously right and left, and between the intervals of the
vines on either side of him.

The rabbits hopping under the leaves, the covey of partridges bathing
amidst the dew, the hares gravely discussing among themselves the
respective merits of the heath and wild thyme, are thus surprised in
their matutinal occupations, and become the prey of the delighted
sportsman. But the moment approaches when the comparative calm and
protection which the po