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Whereupon he buys a couple of pairs of ancient weather-bleached horns from some colonist, and, nailing them up at impossible angles on the wall of his city-den, humbugs brother-Cockneys with tales of venerie, and has for life his special legend, "How I shot my first deer in the Adirondacks."
A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie, An outrider that loved venerie; A manly man, to be an Abbot able, Full many a daintie horse had he in stable: And whan he rode, men might his bridle hear Gingeling in a whistling wind as clear, And eke as loud, as doth the chapell bell, There as this lord was keeper of the cell. Chaucer.
When the curée takes place by torchlight the body of the animal is carried beneath the windows of the chateau, a circle is formed by the "piqueurs," or head hunters, and all who have participated in the pursuit; and, to the sound of a trumpet, loaned by the sportsmen, one of the valets de venérie cuts up the stag.
"Nay, your Majesty will pardon me to remind you that I have by mine office right to grant liberty to men of gentle blood to keep them a hound or two within camp, just to cherish the noble art of venerie ; and besides, it were a sin to have maimed or harmed a thing so noble as this gentleman's dog." "Has he, then, a dog so handsome?" said the King.
The Duchess of Savoy gave the very next day an entertainment at La Venerie, where all the ladies were invited. The Chevalier was so agreeable and diverting, that he made his mistress almost die with laughing. Matta, in leading his lady to the coach, squeezed her hand, and at their return from the promenade he begged of her to pity his sufferings.
To-day, though well past the span of life, he is as active and as enduring in his participation in the strenuous sport as many a younger man and his knowledge of the grand art of vénerie, and his ardour for being always ahead with the hounds, is noted by all who may happen to see him while jaunting through the Fôret de Compiègne, keeping well up with the traditions of his worthy elder, the "Premier Cavalier" of the First Empire, the King of Naples.
The Duchess of Savoy gave the very next day an entertainment at La Venerie, where all the ladies were invited. The Chevalier was so agreeable and diverting, that he made his mistress almost die with laughing. Matta, in leading his lady to the coach, squeezed her hand, and at their return from the promenade he begged of her to pity his sufferings.
While I stood meditating and moralizing over the wreck I had so wantonly produced, with my horse grazing near me, I was rejoined by my fellow-sportsman the Virtuoso; who, being a man of universal adroitness, and withal, more experienced and hardened in the gentle art of "venerie," soon managed to carve out the tongue of the buffalo, and delivered it to me to bear back to the camp as a trophy.
Furthermore, in examining the condition of our red deer, I find that the young male is called in the first year a calf, in the second a broket, the third a spay, the fourth a staggon or stag, the fifth a great stag, the sixth a hart, and so forth unto his death. And with him in degree of venerie are accounted the hare, boar, and wolf.
Prior, that last flourish on the recheat hath added fifty crowns to thy ransom, for corrupting the true old manly blasts of venerie." "Well, friend," said the Abbot, peevishly, "thou art ill to please with thy woodcraft. I pray thee be more conformable in this matter of my ransom.
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