ent,
extensive parks intersected by carriage roads. Kings had not yet had the
happy idea of becoming timber-merchants, and of dividing their woods into
_tailles_ and _futaies_. The trees, planted, not by scientific foresters
but by the hand of God, who let the seed fall where the wind chose to bear
it, were not arranged in quincunxes, but sprang up without order, and as
they now do in the virgin forests of America. Consequently a forest at
that period was a place in which boars and stags, wolves and robbers, were
to be found in abundance.

The wood of Bondy was surrounded by a circular road, like the tire of a
wheel and crossed by a dozen paths which might be called the spokes. To
complete the comparison, the axle, was represented by _carrefour_, or open
space, in the centre of the wood, whence all these paths diverged, and
whither any of the sportsmen who might be thrown out were in the habit of
repairing, till some sight or sound of the chase enabled them to rejoin
it.

At the end of a quarter of an hour, it happened, as it usually did at
these hunts, that insurmountable obstacles had opposed themselves to the
progress of the hunters, the baying of the hounds had become inaudible in
the distance, and the king himself had returned to the _carrefour_,
swearing and cursing according to his custom.

"Well, D'Alencon! Well, Henriot!" cried he--"here you are, _mordieu!_ as
calm and quiet as nuns following their abbess. That is not hunting. You,
D'Alencon--you look as if you had just come out of a band-box; and you are
so perfumed, that if you got between the boar and my dogs, you would make
them lose the scent. And you, Henriot--where is your boar-spear? Where
your arquebuss?"

"Sire," replied Henry, "an arquebuss would be useless to me. I know that
your majesty likes to shoot the boar himself when it is brought to bay. As
to the spear, I handle it very clumsily. We are not used to it in our
mountains, where we hunt the bear with nothing but a dagger."

"By the _mordieu_, Henry, when you return to your Pyrenees you shall send
me a cart-load of bears. It must be noble sport to contend with an animal
that can stifle you with a hug. But hark! I hear the dogs! No, I was
mistaken."

The king put his horn to his mouth and sounded fanfare. Several horns
replied to him. Suddenly a _piqueur_ appeared, sounding a different call.

"The view! the view!" cried the king; and he galloped off, followed by the
other sportsmen.

Th