On the 7th of the following month Swift writes to Stella: “I dined to-day with the gentlemen Ushers, among scurvy company; but the Queen was hunting the stag till four this afternoon, and she drove in her chaise above forty miles, and it was five before we went to dinner.”
Her Majesty must have had some skill in driving, or she would probably have met with a series of disasters similar to one which befell her friend the Duchess of Somerset, who was overturned.
Prior to ascending the throne she purchased a cottage lodge in the neighbourhood of Windsor, and every summer she hunted the stag in Windsor Forest. A noble oak with a glass plate affixed to it, intimating that it was called “Queen Anne’s oak,” as beneath its branches she was accustomed to mount her horse for the chase, was long a place of interest.
George II. was often to be found in the hunting-field, and was on such an occasion usually attended by the Queen, one or more of the princesses, the maids of honour, and a number of the courtiers of both sexes. The sport was not unfrequently attended by accident, and one day the Princess Amelia had a narrow escape with her life. This princess was devoted to the pleasures of the field, and in the pursuit of her favourite amusement adopted a costume which more nearly resembled that of the male than the female sex. In the gallery at Hardwicke there is a curious portrait of her—in a round hunting cap and laced coat—which, says Mr. Jesse, “those who are unacquainted with her peculiarities would hardly persuade themselves could be intended for a woman.”
It is recorded of Charlemagne that he was passionately devoted to the chase, and arranged his hunting appointments with every show of luxury, it having been his special delight to show the splendour of his hunting establishment to foreign princes. When hunting, it is said, the organisation was like that “of a military expedition, and resembled the immense battues which the sovereigns of Germany delighted in during the last century. Armies of men beat the woods, and many packs of dogs drove all the animals of a large district into enclosures of nets and snares, when the hunters of the highest rank attacked them on horseback with the lance and the javelin.”
Many of the French monarchs made hunting their favourite pastime. The coronation of Philip Augustus was postponed by the illness of the young prince. He was benighted whilst hunting in the forest of Compiègne, brought home by a peasant, but was so terrified that a very long illness was the result. The chase was the only sport that Louis XI. cared for, and it is commonly said that he was as selfish and cruel in protecting his preserves as William Rufus himself. It is related that Louis at a later period cut off a Norman gentleman’s ear for shooting a hare on his own grounds. Basin goes so far as to say that Montauban—one of the favourites of Louis XI.—being appointed Chief of Forests and Rivers—showed himself so severe and rapacious in the granting of licences and the punishment of offences connected with the chase, that the entire gentry of the country were filled with rage![68]
The Bois de Boulogne was formed by Francis I., that he might hunt close to his capital, and the Château de Madrid was built in it for his night’s rest. Fontainebleau, with its forty acres of forest, often resounded with the fanfares of the huntsmen, as the King’s gay train galloped through the wooded glades. More than once his life was in danger whilst fighting hand to hand with the wild boars caught in the nets; and one day he was dragged from his saddle by a stag which threw him to the ground. Chambord, once the Versailles of the south, owes its castle to him, which he built, after his imprisonment in Spain, for a hunting lodge.
Louis XIII. was fond of the chase, and Versailles owed its grandeur to his love for hunting. Tired of sleeping in a windmill, or a cabaret, when wearied with his long rides through the forest of St. Leger, he built a small pavilion, which was replaced in 1627 by an elegant château, which under Louis XIV. assumed its later proportions. The latter monarch made his début in boar-hunting at the age of four, and his daily journal betrays the large portion of time given up to it in the midst of events which precipitated the French monarchy to ruin.
The only passion, it is said, ever shown by Louis XVI. was for hunting. On one occasion, writes Soulavie,[69] “he was so much occupied by it that when I went up into his private closets at Versailles, I saw upon the staircase six frames, in which were seen statements of all his hunts when dauphin and when king. In them was detailed the number, kind, and quality of the game he had killed at each hunting-party during every month, every season, and every year of his reign.”
The story goes that when Gustavus reached Paris on June 7, 1784, he went on the same evening to Versailles. But Louis had been hunting, and was at supper at Rambouillet when a courier from Vergennes brought him the news. The King at once retired to Versailles, but not being expected, could find neither valets-de-chambre nor keys. Accordingly, he was compelled to dress as best he could, and finally made his appearance before his royal guest in two odd shoes—one with a red, the other with a black heel—with odd buckles—one gold, one silver—and the rest of his dress in similar confusion.