stration: Fig. 155.--Lady setting out Hawking.--Fac-simile of a
Miniature in the Manuscript of "Livre du Roy Modus" (Fourteenth.
Century).]

At a hunting party given by Louis XII. to the Archduke Maximilian, Mary of
Burgundy, the Archduke's wife, was killed by a fall from her horse. The
King presented his best falcons to the Archduke with a view to divert his
mind and to turn his attention from the sad event, and one of the
historians tells us that the bereaved husband was soon consoled: "The
partridges, herons, wild ducks, and quails which he was enabled to take on
his journey home by means of the King's present, materially lessening his
sorrow."

Falconry, after having been in much esteem for centuries, at last became
amenable to the same law which affects all great institutions, and, having
reached the height of its glory, it was destined to decay. Although the
art disappeared completely under Louis the Great, who only liked
stag-kunting, and who, by drawing all the nobility to court, disorganized
country life, no greater adept had ever been known than King Louis XIII.
His first favourite and Grand Falconer was Albert de Luynes, whom he made
prime minister and constable. Even in the Tuileries gardens, on his way to
mass at the convent of the Feuillants, this prince amused himself by
catching linnets and wrens with noisy magpies trained to pursue small
birds.

It was during this reign that some ingenious person discovered that the
words LOUIS TREIZIEME, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, exactly gave this
anagram, ROY TRES-RARE, ESTIME DIEU DE LA FAUCONNERIE. It was also at this
time that Charles d'Arcussia, the last author who wrote a technical work
on falconry, after praising his majesty for devoting himself so thoroughly
to the divine sport, compared the King's birds to domestic angels, and the
carnivorous birds which they destroyed he likened to the devil. From this
he argued that the sport was like the angel Gabriel destroying the demon
Asmodeus. He also added, in his dedication to the King, "As the nature of
angels is above that of men, so is that of these birds above all other
animals."

[Illustration: Fig. 156.--Dress of the Falconer (Thirteenth
Century).--Sculpture of the Cathedral of Rouen.]

At that time certain religious or rather superstitious ceremonies were in
use for blessing the water with which the falcons were sprinkled before
hunting, and supplications were addressed to the eagles that they might
n