some sort on
wheels, but the most intrepid still clung to the traditionally classic
methods. Marie Antoinette had her _equipage de chasse_, and Madame
Durfort was constantly abroad in the forests of Montmorency and Boissy,
directing the operation of eight or ten professional huntsmen. Among her
guests were frequently the ambassadors of Prussia, Russia and Austria.

In the time of Louis XIV the Comtesse de Lude devoted herself to the
hunt with a frenzy born of an inordinate enthusiasm. At the head of a
pack of hounds she knew no obstacle, and, on one occasion, penetrated on
horseback, followed by her dogs, into the oratory of the nuns of the
Convent of Estival.

By the end of the seventeenth century the hunt in France had become no
more a sport for ladies. Hunting was still a noble sport, but it was
more for men than for women. The court hunted not only in royal company,
but accepted invitations from any seigneur who possessed an ample
preserve and who could put up a good kill; magistrates, financiers and
bishops, indeed all classes, became followers of the hunt.

Montgaillard tells of a hunt in which he took part on the feast day of
Saint Bernard, with the monks of the Bernardin Convent in Languedoc. In
the episcopal domain of Saverne six hundred beaters were employed on one
occasion to provide sport for an assembled company of lords and ladies.
These were the days when the bishops were in truth _Grand Seigneurs_.

The women of the court, while they played the game, ceded nothing to the
men in bravery. Neither rain, hail nor snow frightened them. On the 28th
of June, 1713, Louis XIV was hunting the deer at Rambouillet when a
terrific, cyclonic storm fell upon the equipage, but not a man nor woman
in the monarch's party quit. The Duchesse de Berry was "wet to the
skin," but her ardour for the hunt was not in the least cooled.

To-day at Fontainebleau or Rambouillet the echo is sounded from the
hunting horn of Labaudy, the sugar-king, who pulls off at least two
"hunts," with his spectacular equipage, each year, and it is a sight
too; a French hunting party was ever picturesque, and if to-day not as
practical as the more blood-loving Englishman's hunt, is at least
traditionally sentimental, even artificial to the extent, at any rate,
that it seems stagy, even to the inclusion of the automobiles which
bring and carry away the participants. "Other days, other ways" never
had a more strict application than to _la chasse a