There is an element of farce in certain phases of French hunting, for the Frenchman is born to theatrical effects as the sparks fly upward, and the good shopkeeper of Paris goes a-hunting in a fashion that has been the delight of Punch artists for many years. He is so round and rosy and valiant and important this French sportsman of Punch, his hunting costume is so elaborate, he is so lavishly equipped with hunting paraphernalia. The railway stations of Paris are crowded with hunters of this class when the falling leaves are aswirl in the forests of France; but Monsieur is only one of many French hunting types, and the English go far astray when they make the caricature inclusive, just as they strain the truth when they picture the French follower of hounds as a dapper and rotund little fop clinging frantically round his horse's neck and shouting—"Stop ze hunt! Stop zat fox! I tomble! I faloff! Stop ze fox!"
If the London cockney should arise en masse each October and go forth to hunt as does the bourgeois of Paris, there would doubtless be amusing sights in the railway stations of London; and though the fox hunting of France does not compare favourably with that of England, there's many a fox-hunting English squire who would fall by the way if he attempted to ride with a wiry French marquis on an all day and night wolf hunt through the woods and plains of Poitou.
The chase is a passion with the French, and all classes save those to which a day's holiday, a gun, and a dog are unattainable joys hail the advent of the shooting season with enthusiasm. One sees the solitary hunter in the marshes near the city, or searching patiently for birds on ground where no placards warn trespassers away. The toy estates that fringe the woods near Paris are carefully enclosed in high fences of wire net, and there, on clear autumn mornings, there is a mighty fusillade among the thickets while Monsieur in his English tweeds, and Madame in her newest and most impractical shooting costume, and their equally decorative friends, play at la chasse.
Since the greater part of the French land is subdivided to a remarkable degree, and the average proprietor cannot shoot over his own place without danger of killing the owner or the game on adjoining property, many shooting alliances are made between groups of men owning adjacent lands, and the privilege of hunting over the whole territory is accorded to each of the group, while the game killed is apportioned according to fixed rules. There are other hunting syndicates more ambitious, renting or owning expensive preserves in country far from Paris, and, of course, there are the fortunate owners of large estates who have on their own preserves enough good shooting to satisfy even the most exacting of English sportsmen.
Millionaire bourgeois own a majority of the important preserves of Seine et Marne, Seine et Oise, and Oise, and the Rothschilds have the finest shooting estate in France, at Vaux-de-Cernay. Kings and princes from all quarters of Europe have shot the birds of the famous banker, who is a power behind many thrones, and some of the fêtes that have followed great hunts in the Rothschild coverts have been memorable ones. Four thousand pheasants were slaughtered to make a holiday for the last royal guest, and after the hunt came an evening of dazzling fête and spectacular illumination of all the country round.
There are other estates where the chasses à tir are famous and where sumptuous entertaining is done during shooting season; but it is in the chasse à cour that France lives up to its old traditions and can show the disdainful Englishman sport not known on the English country side.
The area of the French hunting districts is comparatively small, for over half of the hounds of France are found in Vendee, Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou, but the packs are many and admirable and the sport is good. In the remote regions there is boar hunting, that for an exciting run and a dangerous finish beats anything England has to offer. The Frenchman will go far for a boar hunt, but he will not take many of his favourite hounds with him. English foxhounds are cheaper and the boar is sure to make short work of any dog that runs in on him when he stands at bay, bristles erect, little eyes red with rage, foam flying from his champing tusks; so, as a rule, the French dog is used only to locate the boar, and English dogs are offered up, if sacrifice there must be.
Baronne Henri de Rothschild at the Meet