Royal Palaces and Parks of France Part 4

Another hunt was given in 1811, in honour of Napoleon, when such items as three thousand francs for an orchestra, a like sum for bouquets for the ladies, a thousand or two for bonbons and fans, and twelve thousand for hired furniture, etc., to say nothing of the expenses of the hunt itself, made the bag somewhat costly. It was not always easy for the master of the hunt to get justice when it came to paying for his supplies, and in these same records a mention of a dozen leather breeches at a hundred and forty francs each was crossed off and a marginal note, _Non_, added in the hand of Marechal Berthier, Prince de Wagram, himself.

The chief figure in the French hunting world of to-day is another descendant of the Napoleonic portrait gallery, Prince Murat. At the age of twelve the young Prince Joachim had already followed the hounds at Fontainebleau and Compiegne. In his double quality of relative and companion of the Prince Imperial he was one of the chiefs of the equipment of the Imperial Hunt. To-day, though well past the span of life, he is as active and as enduring in his partic.i.p.ation in the strenuous sport as many a younger man and his knowledge of the grand art of _venerie_, and his ardour for being always ahead with the hounds, is noted by all who may happen to see him while jaunting through the Foret de Compiegne, keeping well up with the traditions of his worthy elder, the "Premier Cavalier" of the First Empire, the King of Naples.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _An Imperial Hunt at Fontainebleau_]

He won his first stripes in the hunting field at Compiegne in 1868, at a hunt given in honour of the Prince de Hohenzollern and the Princesse, who was the sister of the King of Portugal. It was a most moving event, so much so that it just escaped being turned into a drama, for one of the ladies of the court had a leg broken, and the minister, Fould, was almost mortally injured. A "_dix cors_," a stag with antlers of ten branches, had been run down at the Rond Royal where it had taken refuge in a near-by copse, and after an hour's hard chase was finally cornered in the courtyard of some farm buildings of the Hameau d'Orillets. A troop of cows was entering the courtyard at the same moment, and a most confused melee ensued. The Inspector of Forests saved the situation and the cows of the farmer, and the stag fell to the carabine of Prince de la Moskowa, with the young Prince Murat on his pony in the very front rank.

Thus early initiated in the chivalrous sport of the hunt the young man followed every hunt, big or little, which was held in the environs of Paris for many years, and by the time that he came to possess the epaulettes of an Officier de Cuira.s.siers he was known to all the hunts from the Ardennes to Anjou.

For the past generation he has been retired to civil life by a Republican decree, and since that time has lived in his suburban Paris property, devoting himself to the raising of hunters. Here he lives almost on the borders of that great extent of forest which occupies the northern section of the Ile de France, occasionally organizing a hunt, which takes on not a little of the n.o.ble aspect of a former time, the prince following always within sound of the hunting horn and the baying of the hounds, if not actually always within sight of the quarry.

It is here, in his Villa Normande, near which Saint Ouen gave Dagobert that famous counsel which has gone down in history, that the Prince and Princesse Murat come to pa.s.s two or three months each year with their children, their allied parents and the "great guns" of the old regime who still gather about the master of the hunt as courtiers gather around their king.

At Chamblay there have been held magnificent gun shoots under the organization of the prince and his equipage. His kennels contain forty-eight of the finest bred hounds in France, and are guarded by three caretakers, the goader, Carl, whose fame has reached every hunting court of Europe and a couple of _valets des chiens_. The prince's colours are distributed as follows: a huzzar jacket of blue, with collar, plaquettes, and vest of grenadine and breeches of a darker blue.

Formerly Prince Murat hunted the roe-deer in the valley of the Oise, but many enclosures of private property having made this exceedingly difficult in later years he is to-day obliged to go farther afield. In the spring the equipage goes to Rosny, near Mantes, and perhaps during the same season occasionally to Rambouillet.

The hunts at Chamblay are the perfection of the practice of the art.

Seldom is the quarry wanting. The refrain of the Ode to Saint Hubert lauds the prowess of this great "Maitre d'Equipage."

"Par Saint Hubert mon patron C'est quelque due de haut renom * * *

Sonnez: ecuyers et piqueux Un Murat vien en ces lieux."

Chamblay fortunately being neither populous nor near a great town there is no throng of curious spectators hovering about to get in the way and scare the game and the hounds and their followers out of their wits. The Cha.s.se de Chamblay is the devotion of the _vrais veneurs_; the Prince Murat and his son, the Prince Joachim, (to-day at the military school at Saint Cyr), the Prince Eugene Murat, the Comte de Vallon, the Baron de Neuflize and a few famous _veneurs_ in gay uniforms come from afar to give eclat to the hunt of the master. And the ladies: the following names are of those devoted to the prowess of the Prince Murat--Madame la Princesse, la Princesse Marguerite Murat, Mademoiselle d'Elchingen, the d.u.c.h.esse and the Marquise d'Albufera, the d.u.c.h.esse de Camestra, and Madame Kraft.

From this one sees that romance is not all smouldering. If other proof were wanting a perusal of that most complete and interesting account of the hunt in France in modern times, "_Les Cha.s.ses de Rambouillet_"

(_Ouvrage offert par Monsieur Felix Faure_) would soon establish it.

This was not a work destined for the public at large. The hunt was ever a sport of kings in France, and though France has become Republican its _Cha.s.se Nationale_ at Rambouillet partakes not a little of the aspect of those courtly days when there was less up-to-dateness and more sentiment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Rendezvous de Cha.s.se, Rambouillet_]

There were but one hundred copies of this work printed for the friends of the late president of the Republic--"Other Sovereigns," as the dedication reads, "Princes, Grand Dukes, Amba.s.sadors."

Rambouillet was the theatre of the most splendid hunts of the sixteenth century, and down through the ages it has ever held a preeminent place; holds it to-day even. Louis XVI in the Revolutionary torment even regretted the cutting off of his prerogative of the royal hunt, but he had no choice in the matter. In his journal of 1789 one reads: "the cerf runs alone in the Parc en Bas" (Rambouillet), and again in 1790: "Seance of the National a.s.sembly at noon; Audience of a deputation in the afternoon. The deer plentiful at Gambayseuil."

The Revolution felled many French inst.i.tutions; low, great, ecclesiastical and monarchial monuments, the trees of the forest, and the royal game, by a system of poaching, had become greatly diminished in quant.i.ty.

The nineteenth century, so frankly democratic in its latter years, was less favourable to the hunt than the monarchial days which had gone before. It had a considerable prominence under Charles X, more perhaps than it ever had under Napoleon, who in his infancy and laborious adolescence had few opportunities of following it; and in the later years of his life he was too busy.

Napoleon III was not really a "good hunter," though he was something of a marksman and took a considerable pride in his skill in that accomplishment.

Entering the democratic era, Jules Grevy seems to have been only a pot-hunter of the _bourgeoisie_, who practiced the art only because he wanted a jugged hare for his dinner, or again simply to kill time.

Sadi-Carnot was still less a hunter of the romantic school, but a.s.sisted frequently at the ceremonial shootings which were arranged for visiting monarchs. On one occasion he was put down on the record-sheet of a hunt at Rambouillet as responsible only for the death of eighteen heads, whilst a visiting Grand Duke pulled down a hundred and fifty.

It was notably during the presidency of Felix Faure that Rambouillet again took on its animation of former times. The chateau had been furbished up once more after a long sleep, and, to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants of the town, there were more comings and goings than there had been for a quarter of a century.

In the summer and autumn the president made Rambouillet his preferred residence, and there received many visiting sovereigns and notables of all ranks. In one year a score of "Official Hunts" were held, to which all the members of the diplomatic corps were invited, while there were two or three affairs of an "International" character in honour of visiting sovereigns.

All was under the control of the Grand Veneur of the Third Republic, the Comte de Girardin, and while a truly royal flavour may have been lacking the general aspect was much the same as it might have been in the days of the monarchy. The Captain of the Hunt under Felix Faure was the Inspector of Forests, Leddet, and the Premier Veneur was the Commandant Lagarenne.

The president himself was a marksman of the first rank, and never was there a reckoning up of the _tableau_ but that he was near the head of the list. So accomplished was he with the rifle that on more than one occasion he was obliged to practically efface himself in favour of some visiting monarch, as it was said he did in the case of the King of Portugal in 1895, the Grand Ducs Vladimir and Nicolas in 1896.

Huntsmen not royal by virtue of t.i.tle, or alliance, the Republican president beat to a stand-still. He had no pity nor favour for a mere amba.s.sador, whether he hailed from England or Germany, nor for members of the Inst.i.tute, Senators nor Deputies. With Prince Albert of Monaco he held himself equal, and for every bird shot on the wing by the head of the house of Grimaldi the "longsh.o.r.eman" of Havre brought down another.

_La cha.s.se a courre_ before the law in France to-day may be practiced only under strictly laid down conditions. The huntsman must legally have his dogs under such control, and keep sufficiently close to them, as to be able to recover the quarry immediately after it has been closed in upon by the hounds.

Like shooting, since the Decree of 1844, hunting with hounds may only be undertaken under authority of a _permis de cha.s.se_, and in open season, during the daytime, and with the consent of the owners over whose properties the hunt is to be held.

The ceremony of the hunt in France now follows the traditions of the cla.s.sic hunt of the monarchy. The _veneur_ decides on the rendezvous, whether the quarry be stag or chevreuil, fox or hare. The _piqueur_ follows close up with the dogs, sets them on or calls them off, and recalls them if they go off on a false scent.

CHAPTER IV

THE PALAIS DE LA CITe AND TOURNELLES

Not every one a.s.sumes the Paris Palais de Justice to ever have been the home of kings and queens. It has not, however, always been a tilting ground for lawyers and criminals, though, no doubt, when one comes to think of it, it is in that role that it has acted its most thrilling episodes.

The Saint Chapelle, the Conciergerie and the great clock of the Tour de l'Horloge mark the Palais de Justice down in the books of most folk as one of the chief Paris "sights," but it was as a royal residence that it first came into prominence.

This palace, not the conglomerate half-secular, half-religious pile of to-day, but an edifice of some considerable importance, existed from the earliest days of the Frankish invasion, and when occupied by Clotilde, the wife of Clovis, was known as the Palais de la Cite.

Under the last of the kings of the First Race this palace took on really splendid proportions. When Hugues Capet arrived on the throne he abandoned the kingly residence formerly occupied by the Frankish rulers, the Palais des Thermes, and installed his goods and chattels in this Palais de la Cite, which his son Robert had rebuilt under the direction of Enguerrand de Marigny.

Up to the time of Francis I it remained the preferred residence of the French monarchs, regardless of the grander, more luxuriously disposed Louvre, which had come into being.

Philippe Auguste, by a contrary caprice, would transact no kingly business elsewhere, and it was within the walls of this palace that he married Denmark's daughter. His successors, Saint Louis, Philippe-le-Hardi, and Philippe-le-Bel did their part in enlarging and beautifying the structure, and Saint Louis laid the foundations of that peerless Gothic gem--La Saint Chapelle.

From the windows of the Palais de la Cite another Charles a.s.sisted at an official ma.s.sacre, differing little from that of Saint Bartholemew's, which was conducted from the Louvre.

On the first floor of the Palais de Justice of to-day is the apartment paved in a mosaic of black and white marble, with a painted and gilded wooden vaulting, where Charles V received the Emperor Charles IV and the "Roi des Romains." The three monarchs, accompanied by their families, here supped together around a great round marble table, a secret supper prolific of an _entente cordiale_ which must have been the forerunner of recent ceremonies of a similar nature in France.

Known as the Salle de Marbre, this great chamber came later to be the Tribunal where the courts sat. It was only after the death of Charles VI, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, that the Palais de la Cite was given over wholly to the disciples of Saint Yves, the judges, advocates and notaries. It became also the definite seat of the Parliament and took the nomenclature of Palais de Justice, though still inhabited at intermittent intervals by French royalties. One such notable occasion was that when Henry V of England was here married to Catherine de France, and when Henry VI of England took up his temporary residence here as king to the French.

In the fourteenth century the precincts of the Palais de la Cite--the open courtyard one a.s.sumes is meant--were invaded by the stalls of small shopkeepers, some of which actually took root in wood and stone and became fixtures to such an extent that the courtyard was known as the Galerie des Merciers.

The great marble chamber after becoming the meeting place of the Tribunal played a part at times dignified and at others ba.n.a.l. An incident is recorded where the clerks and minor court officials danced on the famous marble table and "played farces" with the judicial bench serving as a stage. It was said that, on account of the immoralities which they represented, the authorities were obliged to suppress the performances by law, as they have in recent years the flagrant freedom of the "Quat'z Arts."

Up to the times of Francis I but few events of importance unrolled themselves within the Palais de la Cite, but in 1618 a violent conflagration broke out leaving only the round towers of the Conciergerie, the tower and the church, and that part of the main structure which housed the great Salle de Marbre, unharmed. Apropos of this, a joyous rhymester of the time made the following quatrain:

"Certes ce fut un triste jeu Quand a Paris Dame Justice Pour avoir mange trop d'epice Se mit le Palais tout en feu."

Jacques Debrosse was charged with rebuilding the edifice after the fire and refitted first the Grand Salle, to-day the famous Salle des Pas Perdus, crowded with the shuffling coming and going crowd of men and women whose business, or no business at all, brings them to this central point for the dissemination of legal gossip. It is a magnificent apartment, and, to no great extent, differs from what it was before the conflagration.

This Salle consists of two parallel naves separated by a range of arcades and lighted by two great circular openings with four round-headed windows at either end. Its attributes are practically the same as they were in 1622. The structure, take it as a whole, may be said to date only from the seventeenth century, but certain it is that the old Palais de la Cite is incorporated therein, every stone of it, and if its career was humdrum that was the fault of circ.u.mstances rather than from any inherent faults of its own.