These people, one feels, are the elect of nature and of solitude, who have almost forgotten the language of human beings, and speak that of the winds, the trees, the torrents, and the storms of the seas!
It was into the hands of this remarkable people that I passed when I left the care of my womenkind. They were specially noteworthy at Villers-Cotterets on account of the extent of forest which isolated them from the town, to which they only came once a week to take orders from the inspector, whilst their wives went to mass.
As a matter of fact, my appearance among these people had been long looked forward to by them; nearly all had hunted with my father, who, as we know, had leave to go where he liked in the forest, and all kept a lively remembrance of his generosity. Some of them, too, were old soldiers who had served under him, and who had got into the forest administration through his influence: in fact, all these honest people, who thought they could trace the same disposition to be openhanded as the general had been,—for so they always spoke of my father,—had been most friendly to me, and had always asked me, when they met me by chance at la pipée or at la marette:——
"Well, when is our inspector going to invite you to a more serious hunt?"
The invitation came at last, and it was for the following Thursday.
The rendezvous was at la Maison-Neuve, on the Soissons road, at the house of a head keeper called Choron.
There are four or five men, belonging to the class which I have tried to sketch in general outline, who deserve particular mention on account of their skill and their originality, and Choron was one of these men.
I have already had occasion to speak of him more than once; but I have spoken of him under another name. To-day, as I am writing memoirs, and not a romance, he must appear under his true name, since they are actual catastrophes I am about to relate.
At the period at which we have arrived, namely, the beginning of the year 1816, Choron was a fine young man of about thirty, with an open, frank countenance, fair hair, blue eyes, his jolly face well framed with big whiskers; he was finely made, about five feet four inches in height; and, added to the symmetry of his limbs, he possessed Herculean strength, which was talked of for ten leagues round.