ement around him, the baying
of the hounds and the tramping and neighing of impatient horses. He had
forced himself from his bed and on horseback and started off with the
rest, defying the better counsel of his retainers.

His strength proved to be born of a fictitious enthusiasm, and, speedily
losing interest, he was brought back to the manor where he had his
apartments, and put speechless and half dead to bed, actually dying the
next day from this last over-exertion, scarce half a century of the span
of his life accomplished.

Henri de Navarre also was a true lover of the open. Born in a mountain
town in the Pyrenees he would rather camp on a bed of pine needles in
the forest than lie on a tuft of down. He preferred his beloved Bayonne
ham, spiced with garlic, to a sumptuous dinner in _Jarnet_ house, a
famous Paris tavern of the day; and had rather quench his thirst with a
quaff of the wine of Jurancon than the finest _cru_ in Paris cellars.

He hated the parade of courts, was dirty, unkempt and careless, a
genuine son of the soil, heedless of fate, and an excellent huntsman.

Up to the seventeenth century the ladies of the French court showed a
keener interest for falconry than for the hunt by horse and hounds.

The heroines of the Fronde, and the generation which followed, seemed to
lose interest in this form of sport, and gave their favour to packs of
hounds, and followed with equal interest the hunt for deer, wolves,
boars, foxes and hares as they were tracked through forests and over
arid wastes.

The old hunting horn, the winding horn of romance, still exists at the
hunts of France, a relic of the days of Louis XIV. It sounds the
conventional comings and goings of the huntsmen in the same classic
phraseology as of old--the _lancer_, the _bien allee_, the _vue_, the
_changement de foret_, the _accompagne_, the _bat l'eau_, the _hallali
par terre_, and the _curee_.

The "_Curee aux Flambeaux_" was one of the most picturesque ceremonies
connected with the royal hunt in France. It began in the gallant days,
and lived even until the time of the Second Empire.

[Illustration: _A "Curee aux Flambeaux"_]

The _curee_, that is the giving up to the hounds the remains of an
animal slain in chase, does not always take place at night, but when
it does the torches play the part of impressive and picturesque
accessories. When a _curee_ takes place at the spot where the animal is
actually killed the French sporting te