u de Chasse, or
royal shooting-box, which Louis XV was fond of making a place of
rendezvous.

On the banks of the Etang de Pourras stood this Chateau de Saint Hubert,
named for the patron saint of huntsmen, and within its walls was passed
many a happy evening by king and courtiers after a busy day with stag
and hound.

The hunt in France was perhaps at the most picturesque phase of its
existence at this time. The hunt of to-day is but a pale, though bloody,
imitation of the real sport of the days when monarchs and their
seigneurs in slashed doublet and hose and velvet cloaks pursued the deer
of the forest to his death, and knew not the _maitre d'equipage_ of
to-day.

CHAPTER XX

CHANTILLY

Chantilly, because of its royal associations, properly finds its place
in every traveller's French itinerary. Not only did Chantilly come to
its great glory through royal favour, but in later years the French
government has taken it under its wing, the chateau, the stables and the
vast park and forest, until the ensemble is to-day as much of a national
show place as Versailles or Saint Germain. It is here in the marble
halls, where once dwelt the Condes and the Montmorencys, that are held
each year the examinations of the French Academie des Beaux Arts. And
besides this it is a place of pilgrimage for thousands of tourists who,
as a class, for a couple of generations previously, never got farther
away from the capital than Saint Cloud.

Many charters of the tenth century make mention of the estates of
Chantilly, which at that time belonged to the Seigneurs of Senlis. The
chateau was an evolution from a block-house, or fortress, erected by
Catulus in Gallo-Roman times and four centuries later it remained
practically of the same rank. In the fourteenth century the chateau was
chiefly a vast fortress surrounded by a water defence in the form of an
enlarged moat by means of which it was able to resist the Bourguignons
and never actually fell until after the taking of Meaux by the English
king, Henry V.

[Illustration: CHANTILLY]

Jean II de Montmorency, by his marriage with Marguerite d'Orgemont, came
to be the possessor of the domain, their son, in turn, becoming the
heir. It was this son, Guillaume, who became one of the most brilliant
servitors of the monarchs Louis XI, Louis XII, and Francis I, and it was
through these friends at court that Chantilly first took on its regal
aspect.

In turn the celebrated Anne de