the wild boar, and other beasts as we hunt the hare,—­and elsewhere.  The plains even are so dry, so hard, so full of deep crevices (that are not perceived until their brink is reached), that the best hounds or harriers would soon be knocked up, and would have their feet blistered, nay lamed, for a long time.  Besides, the ground is so thickly covered with sturdy vegetation that the hounds could not derive much help from their noses.  Mere shooting on the wing the King had long since quitted, and he had ceased to mount his horse; thus the chase simply resolved itself into a battue.

The Duc del Orco, who, by his post of grand ecuyer, had the superintendence of all the hunting arrangements, chose the place where the King and Queen were to go.  Two large arbours were erected there, the one against the other, entirely shut in, except where two large openings, like windows, were made, of breast-height.  The King, the Queen, the captain of the guards, and the grand ecuyer were in the first arbour with about twenty guns and the wherewithal to load them.  In the other arbour, the day I was present, were the Prince of the Asturias, who came in his coach with the Duc de Ponoli and the Marquis del Surco, the Marquis de Santa Cruz, the Duc Giovenazzo, majordomo, major and grand ecuyer to the Queen, Valouse, two or three officers of the body-guard, and I myself.  We had a number of guns, and some men to load them.  A single lady of the palace followed the Queen all alone, in another coach, which she did not quit; she carried with her, for her consolation, a book or some work, for no one approached her.  Their Majesties and their suite went to the chase in hot haste with relays of guards and of coach horses, for the distance was at least three or four leagues; at the least double that from Paris to Versailles.  The party alighted at the arbours, and immediately the carriages, the poor lady of the palace, and all the horses were led away far out of sight, lest they should frighten the beasts.

Two, three, four hundred peasants had early in the morning beaten the country round, with hue and cry, after having enclosed it and driven all the animals together as near these arbours as possible.  When in the arbour you were not allowed to stir, or to make the slightest remarks, or to wear attractive colours; and everybody stood up in silence.

This period of expectation lasted an hour and a half, and did not appear to me very amusing.  At last we heard loud cries from afar, and soon after we saw troops of animals pass and repass within shot and within half-shot of us; and then the King and the Queen banged away in good earnest.  This diversion, or rather species of butchery, lasted more than half an hour, during which stags, hinds, roebucks, boars, hares, wolves, badgers, foxes, and numberless pole-cats passed; and were killed or lamed.