The pack of hounds, white with brown spots, big, powerful animals, gave the valets de chiens plenty to do.  Apparently they knew all their names, as we heard frequent admonitions to Comtesse, Diane (a very favourite name for hunting dogs in France), La Grise, etc., to keep quiet, and not make little excursions into the woods.  As the words were usually accompanied by a cut of the whip, the dogs understood quite well, and remained a compact mass on the side of the road.  There was the usual following of boys, tramps, and stray bucherons (woodmen), and when the day was fine, and the meet not too far, a few people would come from the neighbouring villages, or one or two carriages from the livery stables of Villers-Cotterets, filled with strangers who had been attracted by the show and the prospect of spending an afternoon in the forest.  A favourite meet was at the pretty little village of Ivors, standing just on the edge of the forest not far from us.  It consisted of one long street, a church, and a chateau at one end.  The chateau had been a fine one, but was fast going to ruin, uninhabited, paint and plaster falling off, roof and walls remaining, and showing splendid proportions, but had an air of decay and neglect that was sad to see in such a fine place.  The owner never lived there; had several other places.  An agent came down occasionally, and looked after the farm and woods.  There was a fine double court-yard and enormous “communs,” a large field only separating the kitchen garden from the forest.  A high wall in fairly good condition surrounded the garden and small park.  On a hunting morning the little place quite waked up, and it was pretty to see the dogs and horses grouped under the walls of the old chateau, and the hunting men in their bright coats moving about among the peasants and carters in their dark-blue smocks.

The start was very pretty—­one rode straight into the forest, the riders spreading in all directions.  The field was never very large—­about thirty—­I the only lady.  The cor de chasse was a delightful novelty to me, and I soon learned all the calls—­the debouche, the vue and the hallali, when the poor beast is at the last gasp.  The first time I saw the stag taken I was quite miserable.  We had had a splendid gallop.  I was piloted by one of the old stagers, who knew every inch of the forest, and who promised I should be in at the death, if I would follow him, “mais il faut me suivre partout, avez-vous peur?” As he was very stout, and not particularly well mounted, and I had a capital English mare, I was quite sure I could pass wherever he could.  He took me through all sorts of queer little paths, the branches sometimes so low that it didn’t seem possible to get through, but we managed it.  Sometimes we lost sight of the hunt entirely, but he always guided himself by the sound of the horns, which one hears at a great distance.  Once a stag bounded across the road just in front of us, making our horses shy violently, but he said that was not