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"And at the fountain of Saint-Innocent, that huntsman, who was chasing a hind with great clamor of dogs and hunting-horns." "And, at the Paris slaughter-houses, stages, representing the fortress of Dieppe!" "And when the legate passed, you remember, Gisquette? they made the assault, and the English all had their throats cut."

There were collected and piled up all Albert's successive caprices, hunting-horns, bass-viols, flutes a whole orchestra, for Albert had had not a taste but a fancy for music; easels, palettes, brushes, pencils for music had been succeeded by painting; foils, boxing-gloves, broadswords, and single-sticks for, following the example of the fashionable young men of the time, Albert de Morcerf cultivated, with far more perseverance than music and drawing, the three arts that complete a dandy's education, i.e., fencing, boxing, and single-stick; and it was here that he received Grisier, Cook, and Charles Leboucher.

They say that he himself led the charge, covered in a wonderful silken surcoat, colour of a bullfinch's breast, and wrought upon in black and white heraldry. They say that at the sight of the pensils a-flutter, at the sound of the hunting-horns, the Grifons let fly a shaft a-piece; then threw down their bows and scattered. But the knights caught them. Isaac was on a hill to watch the battle.

Early on the morning of the 20th, the gay music of hunting-horns woke the mountain echoes, and a hunting-party suddenly appeared at the gates of the old Benedictine abbey. First came a hundred soldiers on foot, bearing long lances, then fifty German lords in hunting-garb, with falcons on their wrists.

The scene had been exhilarating, full of color and motion laughter and repartee mingling with the adieux of the knights and seigneurs to their ladies, the notes of the hunting-horns, the snorts of impatient steeds, the short expectant bark of the dogs, as the Master of the hounds, the young Count of Jaffa, with his great army of hunters and attendants, moved before the cavalcade into the heart of the forest.

The light of the lamp shed over the whole scene its amber-coloured hue and left in the shade the old grey and time-stained walls, where hung in ample numbers the brazen convolutions of the hunting-horns and bugles. What an original picture! The vaulted roof was ringing with the joyous shouts of laughter.

The flourish of the hunting-horns resounded beyond the woods on that still night and was repeated by the echoes of the distant valleys, awaking the timid stags, rousing the yelping foxes, and disturbing the little rabbits in their gambols at the edge of the rides.

The king has gone a-hunting, and the tones of the hunting-horns, dying away in the distance, blend entrancingly with an instrumental song from the orchestra which seems a musical sublimation of night and nature in their tenderest moods. Isolde appears with Brangane and pleads with her to extinguish the torch and thus give the appointed signal to Tristan, who is waiting in concealment.

With tears Tannhäuser bows his head and sinks into prayer. Cheerful hunting-horns breaking upon the air do not rouse him, nor the approach of the hunters. They are the Landgrave and a group of his favorite minstrel-knights. Catching sight of the kneeling figure, they stop to observe it.

Presently I heard bells and strains of music, as though all the military bands in the city were coming together on the walls; and the sounds rose and fell with the wind, one moment entirely lost, another full and triumphant. Then I heard the sound of hunting-horns and the baying of a pack of hounds, deep-mouthed, as if a hunting-party were coming down the mountain-side.