Huntingincident said to be due to conspiracy

Further details are given in this morning’s Figaro of the incident between Prince Murat and M. Dauchis, the mayor of Saint-Felix, near Clermont, which was briefly reported in yesterday’s Herald.

A regular conspiracy was organized by M. Dauchis, it is alleged, in order to secure the stag Prince Murat and Comte de Valon were hunting in the forest of La Neuville-en-Hetz.  Already, at the outset of the hunt, M. Dauchis, according to Le Figaro, charged at a huntsman with a little automobile in which he was driving and threatened to fire.  Then when the stag ran into the wood, near the Trye River, one of his keepers shot it.  In great haste the animal was loaded on another automobile; and before either the prince or Comte de Valon could interfere it was driven away.

While Comte de Valon spurred his horse in pursuit Prince Murat disarmed the man who had shot the stag, for he was leveling his gun at another huntsman; but before the gun was wrenched from his hands he had struck Prince d’Essling, Prince Murat’s uncle, across the face with the butt.

Meantime Comte de Valon had overtaken the automobile and, though threatened with revolvers by its occupants, would have recaptured the stag if the men in charge of it had not taken it into the house of M. Dauchis’ father.

The only course left for Prince Murat and Comte de Valon was to lodge a complaint with the police for assault and for killing the stag, which M. Dauchis refused to give back.

From this you may see how very much more exciting stag hunting is in France than in America.  Comparing the two systems we find but one point of resemblance—­namely, the attempted shooting of a huntsman.  In the North Woods we do a good deal of that sort of thing:  however with us it is not yet customary to charge the prospective victim in a little automobile—­that may come in time.  Our best bags are made by the stalking or still-hunting method.  Our city-raised sportsman slips up on his guide and pots him from a rest.

But consider the rest of the description so graphically set forth by Le Figaro—­the intriguing of the mayor; the opposing groups rampaging round, some on horseback and some in automobile runabouts; the intense disappointment of the highborn Prince Murat and his uncle, the Prince d’Essling, and his friend, the Comte de Valon; the implied grief of the stag at being stricken down by other than noble hands; the action of the base-born commoner, who shot the stag, in striking the Prince d’Essling across his pained and aristocratic face with the butt—­exact type of butt and name of owner not being given.  Only in its failure to clear up this important point, and in omitting to give descriptions of the costumes worn by the two princes and the comte, is Le Figaro’s story lacking.  They must have been wearing the very latest creations too.