There now remained a thing of the highest importance to attend to, namely, supper. I thought of providing the main foundation of this with game killed by my own hand; this would be both a pleasure and an economy. I went in search of M. Deviolaine, who gave me leave to shoot over the forest of la Ferté-Vidame. This was the more delightful as my old friend Gondon was inspector of it, and I was very sure he would not grudge a roebuck more or less. Furthermore, the permission included some friends as well as myself. I invited Clerjon de Champagny, Tony Johannot, Géniole and Louis Boulanger. My brother-in-law and nephew were to set out from Chartres and to turn up at the appointed hour at la Ferté-Vidame. I gave Gondon two days' notice in advance, so that he could procure the necessary beaters, and it was arranged that we should stop the night at an inn, the address of which he gave me; that we should sleep there; that we should shoot the whole of the following day, and that, according as we were too tired or not, we should either leave that evening or the next morning. We were to make the journey in a huge berline which, somehow or other, I happened to possess. Everything decided upon was carried out punctiliously. We started between nine and ten in the morning. We reckoned upon arriving about six or seven in the evening, but snow overtook us when a third of our journey was done, and, instead of arriving at seven, it was midnight before we got there, and we had not had anything to warm us the whole of that long journey except the never-failing wit and charming spirits of Champagny, to which, as an accompaniment, was joined the noise of a tin trumpet which he had bought somewhere or other, I know not for what purpose, its droll sound affording the boon of making us shout with laughter.
When we arrived, we naturally found everybody asleep; at la Ferté-Vidame they go to bed at ten in summer and eight in winter. We set foot on a magnificent carpet of snow, which reminded me of the wolf-hunts of my youth, with my old friends M. Deviolaine and the gamekeepers. How many things had happened between the snows of 1817 and those of 1832 and had melted away even as they! We looked like those who knocked at the outbuildings of the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty; nobody answered us, and, as we were getting more and more benumbed, I was already beginning to talk of breaking in the door of the inn, as I had at M. Dupont-Delporte's country-house, when, from the other side of the door, I heard my nephew's voice. He was exactly the age that I was when going shooting kept me from sleeping—poor boy, he has since died! Half awake from the pleasure to which he was looking forward in the next day's sport he woke up completely at the racket we made, at our desperate cries and, especially, at the sound of Champagny's trumpet. He exerted himself inside as we did outside, to rouse the hotel people from their beds. Finally, swearing, scolding, crotchety, a man got up, calling upon heaven to know if this was the hour to wake honest people. The door opened and the host's bad temper calmed down a little when he saw we had come by post-chaise! That made it justifiable for him to be disturbed at night, and, thenceforward, we were well received. My brother-in-law had not been able to come. Émile, my nephew, was alone, and he had naturally taken the best room in the house, by virtue of his right as first arrival. It was immediately pointed out to him that, being at the age when one can eat anything, he was also, naturally, at the age when one gets the worst beds and cold rooms. His room had a splendid fireplace, in which burned the remains of a fire which I tended with the conscientiousness of a vestal, until they brought a load of wood. It was a large room; we held council, and it was unanimously decided to carry the mattresses from the small rooms into the large one; that they should be arranged symmetrically against the wall, and that we should all sleep together. Émile demanded two things: the honour of being one of the company and the right of putting his ready-made bed on the floor. He had left a store of warmth in his sheets which he did not want to lose. These preliminary arrangements made, we proceeded to supper. Every one was literally dying of hunger, literally, also, there was equally nothing to eat in the inn. We visited the henhouse: the fowls had obligingly laid a score of eggs. That made four eggs apiece; we each had one egg boiled, two in an omelette and one in the salad. There was bread and wine as might be required. I think we never had a merrier supper-party or slept better. At dawn we were awakened by Gondon. He arrived thoroughly equipped for shooting, with his two dogs. Fifteen beaters, engaged the previous day, waited for us at the door. The toilet of a sportsman is quickly made. A huge fire was lit: there was no possibility of eating the remains of the previous night's supper: we had to be contented with a crust of bread dipped in white wine. Besides, Gondon spoke of a cold leg of mutton which would be picked up in passing his house, and which we should eat in the forest round a great fire between two battues; this welcome intelligence brought back a smile to the most morose lips. We were shooting a quarter of an hour later. One has one's days of skill as also one's days of courage. Champagny, an excellent shot usually, this day shot like a cab-driver, and attributed his awkwardness to the narrowness of the barrel of his gun. Indeed, I do not know why he shot with a kind of double-barrelled pistol. Tony Johannot was, I believe, a complete novice in matters of shooting. Géniole was a beginner. As for Louis Boulanger, he was accustomed to go shooting pencil in one hand and sketch-book in the other. There were, then, only Gondon and myself, both old sportsmen, and, having long rifles, we found ourselves the kings of the shoot. The shoot does not deserve any special description; nevertheless, an incident happened at it which has since caused bets in the forest of la Ferté-Vidame, between the forest gamekeepers and the Parisian sportsmen who were my successors. We were placed in a line, as is the custom in a battue, and I had chosen for my position the angle made by a little narrow footpath and the main road. I had the path horizontally in front of me, and, behind me, the highroad ran at right angles. On my right was Tony Johannot; on my left, Géniole. The beaters drove the game towards us. Every hunted animal, when it encounters a road, and particularly a footpath, has a propensity to follow the path, which enables it to see and to run more easily. Three roebucks, urged on by the beaters, followed the footpath and came straight for me. Tony Johannot, for whom they were out of range, made violent signs to me, in the belief that I did not see them. I saw them perfectly well, but I had the very ambitious idea fixed in my head of killing all three with two shots. Tony, who did not understand my inaction, increased his signals. Still I let the three roebucks come on. Finally, when nearly thirty paces from me, they stopped short, listening, admirably placed: two crossed their fine, graceful necks over one another, one looking to the right, the other to the left; the third kept a little behind, hidden by the two others. I fired at the first two and brought them down. The third took a leap, but not so quickly as to avoid my second shot. Then I stood in position to reload my rifle, not wishing the whole hunt to be put out for me. In fact, an instant later, a roebuck passed Gondon, and he killed it. Seeing my inaction after my two shots, toy companions thought I had missed. However, Géniole, who was on my left, and Tony, who was on my right, asked what had become of the roebucks. The enigma was explained to them by the beaters, who found the three dead bucks thirty paces from me: two in the path,—they had not stirred!—the other, four yards away, in the underwood.
That night, returning at nightfall, a final roebuck was so ill-advised as to start up before us in a sort of clearing. The sun, a little out of the clouds, was setting literally in a bed of purple; in spite of this amelioration in the weather on the horizon, the snow continued falling round us in thick flakes. Suddenly, a buck bounded off fifteen yards from us. The guns were unloaded, so it was a question for the quickest loader. Ten or a dozen shots went off almost at the same time. The buck disappeared in the midst of the fire and smoke. Dogs and hunters set off in pursuit. I have never seen a more fitting composition for a picture than that which chance had made—Boulanger was in ecstasies! He, not having a gun, could see everything without being distracted. All the night he was haunted by the idea of making a sketch of that scene: he could not forget it. We brought back nine roebucks and three hares; I had, for my share, killed five roebucks and two hares. We dined at Gondon's that night, and we had a very different supper from that of the night before.
We started next day at dawn and, as night fell, we reentered Paris with our nine bucks hanging from the imperial of our carriage, like a butcher's shop. I summoned Chevet. It was a question of trading by exchange. I wanted an enormous fish: for three bucks, Chevet undertook to provide me with a salmon weighing thirty pounds, or a sturgeon weighing fifty. I wanted a colossal galantine; a fourth buck paid for that. I wished to have two bucks roasted whole; Chevet undertook to get them roasted. The last buck was cut up and distributed among the families of my travelling companions. The three hares provided a pâté. So it will be seen that the shoot, besides the pleasure derived from it, gave us the principal constituents of the supper. The rest was only a matter of attending to detail; this was the business of the staff belonging to the house. In our absence, old Ciceri—do obeisance, all of you, to the old man, just as gay to-day, well-preserved and willing, in spite of his seventy years; do obeisance to him Séchan, Diéterle, Despléchin, Thierry, Cambon, Devoir, Moinet, you kings, viceroys and princes of modern decorative art: old Ciceri it was who did the cloister of Robert le Diable!—in our absence, I say, old Ciceri had had the canvases placed in position and had fixed up the paper. All was ready even to the paints, pencils and brushes. All the rooms were warmed with big fires; chairs, stools, footstools of all sizes were there, and a folding ladder had been bought. Granville, our good excellent Granville, delightful painter of man, purely as an animal, and of animals with human intelligence, was the first to set to work. He it was, indeed, who had the heaviest task on his hands; it will be recollected that he was burdened with an immense panel and with the painting of all the top parts above the doors. Alas! it is sad to think that of those ten artists who put their talent at my disposition, four to-day lie in the tomb! Of those ten hearts which beat so happily in unison with my own, four are stilled! Who would have told you then, in that merry workroom which you covered with your paintings, and filled with your laughter, in those three days of talking, during which scintillated incessantly that fascinating wit the secret of which artists alone have the key; who would have said to you, beloved dead friends! that, while still young, I should survive you, and that I should pause when mentioning your names to say to myself, 'It is not enough for you, their brother, simply to mention their names; you ought to relate what they were like as men and artists, their characters and their talents!' A task both sweet and melancholy it is to speak of the dead that one loves! Moreover, it is midnight; the hour for invocation. I am alone, no profane gaze appears through the darkness to scare your sepulchral modesty. Come, brothers! Come! Tell me, in the language of the dead, that gentle whisper which is like the stream caressing its banks, the soft sound of leaves rustling in the forest, the gentle murmur of the breeze sobbing in the reeds, tell me of your life, your sorrows, your hopes and your triumphs, so that the world, nearly always indifferent when it is not ungrateful, may know what you were and, above all, your worth!
[CHAPTER II]
Alfred Johannot
The first who appears to me, because he was the first who left us, is pale and sad as he was when living. His hair is cut short, his forehead is prominent, his glance is both gloomy and gentle beneath his thick eyebrows, the moustache and beard are russet-brown, the face long and melancholy. His name is Alfred Johannot, and he has been dead now for sixteen years.