The château of Bonnelles is an imposing pile set in a beautiful park of about two hundred acres, and furnishes room for many guests. Life goes to the same tune there as in the other châteaux during the autumn season, though there is a hint of old-world dignity mingled with the modern gaiety, and among the guests are often included interesting figures not familiar in the very modern salons of Paris. And, too, the hunting is taken rather more seriously at Bonnelles than at many of the châteaux, though even there the late season crowd gives itself over to frivolity rather than to sport.
The kennels of Bonnelles are located at the farm of La Celle les Bordes, about five miles from the château, and the old seigneurial farmhouse is used as a hunting-lodge and a museum for relics and trophies of the chase.
There are packs in France larger than that of Bonnelles. The Menier family, for instance, has sixty couples in its kennels which are perhaps the best in France, while the d'Uzes pack numbers only eighty hounds all told, and of these only sixty run with the pack,—but they are aristocrats, these hounds of d'Uzes, with pedigrees that might put nine tenths of the mushroom nobles of France to shame.
The hounds of St. Hubert are the oldest hunting-dogs of history. Before the time of Charlemagne they were the hunting comrades of kings, and though the pure St. Hubert strain has lost caste and the best dogs of the modern French kennels have been crossed with other blood, it is the old French aristocrat among hounds that gives to the famous French packs their long melancholy faces, their marvellous scent, and their melodious voices.
The dogs of Vendee, lineal descendants of the dogs of St. Hubert, were first favourites in the days of Louis XI, and the d'Uzes hounds trace their lineage back to two royal dogs of that early time,—Greffier, one of the king's most valuable hounds, a white St. Hubert crossed with mastiff, and Baude, the pet hound of Anne of France, daughter to the king. Since that far-away day, the Vendean strain has been crossed with royal English buckhound to the great advantage of the French hound, say those who should know, but, despite this alien blood, it is the descendant of Greffier and Baude that yelps in the kennels at La Celle les Bordes when the dog valets put the pack in leash on the morning of St. Hubert's Day.
The Blessing of the Hounds at Bonnelles
This third of November is a great day at Bonnelles, for the Duchess is ardent churchwoman and ardent patron of the chase, and on St. Hubert's Day the two objects of her devotion fraternize in all pomp and ceremony. Out from the lodge gates issues the pack, and with the dogs go the governor of the pack, the two mounted piqueurs, the two chief foresters, the two chief dog valets, and the lesser officials—all of whom make up the equipage d'Uzes. The huntsmen are in hunting costume of the d'Uzes colours, with hunting-horns slung round their necks and hunting-knives in their belts, the dog valets wear the red and blue without the gold lace, and the chief dog sports the colours of his owners.
On they go to the little church of Bonnelles where a crowd is awaiting them. Outside the church there is a group of onlookers drawn here by curiosity to see the famous ceremony, but within the doors one finds a gathering of folk whom one remembers seeing at Longchamps, on the Avenue des Acacias, in the Casino at Trouville. The little Duchesse d'Uzes is there, charming in her habit and in her three-cornered hunting-hat with its blue and red and gold, but she is very solemn now, this gay little duchess, very solemn indeed; for, as we have said elsewhere, she is devôte, and even at the blessing of the hounds she does not relax her pose.