her
anonymous writer composed the "Livre du Roy Modus," which contains the
rules for hunting all furred animals, from the stag to the hare. Then
followed other poets and writers of French prose, such as Gace de la Vigne
(1359), Gaston Phoebus (1387), and Hardouin, lord of Fontaine-Guerin
(1394). None of these, however, wrote exclusively on venery, but described
the different sports known in their day. Towards 1340, Alphonse XI., king
of Castile, caused a book on hunting to be compiled for his use; but it
was not so popular as the instruction of Gaston Phoebus (Fig. 132). If
hunting with hounds is known everywhere by the French name of the chase,
it is because the honour of having organized it into a system, if not of
having originated it, is due to the early French sporting authors, who
were able to form a code of rules for it. This also accounts for so many
of the technical terms now in use in venery being of French origin, as
they are no others than those adopted by these ancient authors, whose
works, so to speak, have perpetuated them.

[Illustration: Fig. 132.--Gaston Phoebus teaching the Art of
Venery.--Fac-simile of a Miniature of "Phoebus and his Staff for Hunting
Wild Animals and Birds of Prey" (Manuscript, Fifteenth Century, National
Library of Paris)]

[Illustration: Fig. 133.--"How to carry a Cloth to approach
Beasts."--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of Phoebus
(Fifteenth Century).]

The curious miniatures which accompany the text in the original manuscript
of Gaston Phoebus, and which have been reproduced in nearly all the
ancient copies of this celebrated manuscript, give most distinct and
graphic ideas of the various modes of hunting. We find, for instance, that
the use of an artificial cow for approaching wild-fowl was understood at
that time, the only difference being that a model was used more like a
horse than a cow (Fig. 133); we also see sportsmen shooting at bears, wild
boars, stags, and such live animals with arrows having sharp iron points,
intended to enter deep into the flesh, notwithstanding the thickness of
the fur and the creature's hard skin. In the case of the hare, however,
the missile had a heavy, massive end, probably made of lead, which stunned
him without piercing his body (Fig. 134). In other cases the sportsman is
represented with a crossbow seated in a cart, all covered up with boughs,
by which plan he was supposed to approach the prey without alarming it
any more th