[258] It is painful to add that a similar outrage was perpetrated a very few years ago, in one of the European states, by a prince of a family now dethroned. In this case, however, the prince killed the trespasser with his own hand, his sergeants refusing to execute his mandate.
[259] Guillaume de Nangis, as quoted in the notes to Joinville, Nouvelle Collection des Mémoires, etc., par Michaud et Poujoulat, première série, i, p. 335.
Persons acquainted with the character and influence of the mediæval clergy will hardly need to be informed that the ten thousand livres never found their way to the royal exchequer. It was easy to prove to the simple-minded king that, as the profits of sin were a monopoly of the church, he ought not to derive advantage from the commission of a crime by one of his subjects; and the priests were cunning enough both to secure to themselves the amount of the fine, and to extort from Louis large additional grants to carry out the purposes to which they devoted the money. "And though the king did take the moneys," says the chronicler, "he put them not into his treasury, but turned them into good works; for he builded therewith the maison-Dieu of Pontoise, and endowed the same with rents and lands; also the schools and the dormitory of the friars preachers of Paris, and the monastery of the Minorite friars."
[260] Histoire des Paysans, ii, p. 200.
[261] The following details from Bonnemère will serve to give a more complete idea of the vexatious and irritating nature of the game laws of France. The officers of the chase went so far as to forbid the pulling up of thistles and weeds, or the mowing of any unenclosed ground before St. John's day [24th June], in order that the nests of game birds might not be disturbed. It was unlawful to fence-in any grounds in the plains where royal residences were situated; thorns were ordered to be planted in all fields of wheat, barley, or oats, to prevent the use of ground nets for catching the birds which consumed, or were believed to consume, the grain, and it was forbidden to cut or pull stubble before the first of October, lest the partridge and the quail might be deprived of their cover. For destroying the eggs of the quail, a fine of one hundred livres was imposed for the first offence, double that amount for the second, and for the third the culprit was flogged and banished for five years to a distance of six leagues from the forest.—Histoire des Paysans, ii, p. 202, text and notes.
Neither these severe penalties, nor any provisions devised by the ingenuity of modern legislation, have been able effectually to repress poaching. "The game laws," says Clavé, "have not delivered us from the poachers, who kill twenty times as much game as the sportsmen. In the forest of Fontainebleau, as in all those belonging to the state, poaching is a very common and a very profitable offence. It is in vain that the gamekeepers are on the alert night and day, they cannot prevent it. Those who follow the trade begin by carefully studying the habits of the game. They will lie motionless on the ground, by the roadside or in thickets, for whole days, watching the paths most frequented by the animals," &c.—Revue des Deux Mondes, Mai, 1863, p. 160.
The writer adds many details on this subject, and it appears that, as there are "beggars on horseback" in South America, there are poachers in carriages in France.
[262] "Whole trees were sacrificed for the most insignificant purposes; the peasants would cut down two firs to make a single pair of wooden shoes."—Michelet, as quoted by Clavé, Études, p. 24.
A similar wastefulness formerly prevailed in Russia, though not from the same cause. In St. Pierre's time, the planks brought to St. Petersburg were not sawn, but hewn with the axe, and a tree furnished but a single plank.
[263] "A hundred and fifty paces from my house is a hill of drift sand, on which stood a few scattered pines. Pinus sylvestris, and Sempervivum tectorum in abundance, Statice armeria, Ammone vernalis, Dianthus carthusianorum, with other sand plants, were growing there. I planted the hill with a few birches, and all the plants I have mentioned completely disappeared, though there were many naked spots of sand between the trees. It should be added, however, that the hillock is more thickly wooded than before. * * * It seems then that Sempervivum tectorum, &c., will not bear the neighborhood of the birch, though growing well near the Pinus sylvestris. I have found the large red variety of Agaricus deliciosus only among the roots of the pine; the greenish-blue Agaricus deliciosus among alder roots, but not near any other tree. Birds have their partialities among trees and shrubs. The Silviæ prefer the Pinus Larix to other trees. In my garden this Pinus is never without them, but I never saw a bird perch on Thuja occidenialis or Juniperus sabina, although the thick foliage of these latter trees affords birds a better shelter than the loose leafage of other trees. Not even a wren ever finds its way to one of them. Perhaps the scent of the Thuja and the Juniperus is offensive to them. I have spoiled one of my meadows by cutting away the bushes. It formerly bore grass four feet high, because many umbelliferous plants, such as Heracleum spondylium, Spiræa ulmaria, Laserpitium latifolia, &c., grew in it. Under the shelter of the bushes these plants ripened and bore seed, but they gradually disappeared as the shrubs were extirpated, and the grass now does not grow to the height of more than two feet, because it is no longer obliged to keep pace with the umbellifera which flourished among it." See a paper by J. G. Büttner, of Kurland, in Berghaus' Geographisches Jahrbuch, 1852, No. 4, pp. 14, 15.