Osier
Net-Work Apparatus"--Fac-simile of a Miniature in "Livre du Roy Modus."]

The taste for hunting having become very general, and the art being
considered as the most noble occupation to which persons could devote
themselves, it is not surprising to find sporting works composed by
writers of the greatest renown and of the highest rank. The learned
William Bude, whom Erasmus called the _wonder of France_, dedicated to the
children of Francis I. the second book of his "Philologie," which contains
a treatise on stag-hunting. This treatise, originally written in Latin,
was afterwards translated into French by order of Charles IX., who was
acknowledged to be one of the boldest and most scientific hunters of his
time. An extraordinary feat, which has never been imitated by any one, is
recorded of him, and that was, that alone, on horseback and without dogs,
he hunted down a stag. The "Chasse Royale," the authorship of which is
attributed to him, is replete with scientific information.
"Wolf-hunting," a work by the celebrated Clamorgan, and "Yenery," by Du
Fouilloux, were dedicated to Charles IX., and a great number of special
treatises on such subjects appeared in his reign.

[Illustration: Fig. 141.--"Kennel in which Dogs should live, and how they
should be kept."--Fac-simile of a Miniature in Manuscript of Phoebus
(Fifteenth Century).]

His brother, the effeminate Henry III., disliked hunting, as he considered
it too fatiguing and too dangerous.

On the other hand, according to Sully, Henry IV., _le Bearnais_, who
learned hunting in early youth in the Pyrenees, "loved all kinds of sport,
and, above all, the most fatiguing and adventurous pursuits, such as those
after wolves, bears, and boars." He never missed a chance of hunting,
"even when in face of an enemy. If he knew a stag to be near, he found
time to hunt it," and we find in the "Memoirs of Sully " that the King
hunted the day after the famous battle of Ivry.

One day, when he was only King of Navarre, he invited the ladies of Pau to
come and see a bear-hunt. Happily they refused, for on that occasion their
nerves would have been put to a serious test. Two bears killed two of the
horses, and several bowmen were hugged to death by the ferocious animals.
Another bear, although pierced in several places, and having six or seven
pike-heads in his body, charged eight men who were stationed on the top of
a rock, and the whole of them with the bear were all dashed t