of the principal apartments of the Tuilleries by Louis XVIII. To prevent any jealousy from the French nation, an inscription was placed on each pedestal, stating that they fought bravely for their respective countries but not as enemies to France. Early in December, Soult was appointed head of the war-department (minister of war). He had the entire confidence of the troops. A mischievous report was spread that an attack was to be made on the King, either on his way to the Odeon Théâtre, or during the performance. Every precaution was taken by the civil and military authorities; but it soon turned out a false alarm. When his Majesty was warned against going to the theatre, he replied with calmness: "Que la volonté de Dieu soit faite; j'ai dit que j'irai au spectacle, et je m'y rendrai.” The Duke of Wellington occupied the box opposite the royal one, and was the only officer of rank out of uniform; he wore, as was his custom, a plain coat, with the Order of the Garter.

On the 8th, the Duke of Wellington, accompanied by his suite, went to the Palais Royal, to deliver to M. the Duke of Orleans a letter of congratulation from the Prince Regent on the birth of his fourth son. The Duke afterwards dined with his Royal Highness. In the evening the Duchess of Orleans had a party.

On the 15th of December, the King visited the Théâtre François, and was received with acclamations by a very brilliant audience.

At

On the 26th December, the Duke of Wellington received the important news of the signing of peace between Great Britain and America. Sir Henry Wellesley arrived on the 31st from Madrid, and on the following day was presented to the King. The year 1815 began with an august ceremony; for, in pursuance of the orders of the King, on the 18th of January, the disinterment of Louis XVI., and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, took place in the churchyard of the Magdalen, in presence of Monsieur Dambray, the Chancellor, and several other persons of distinction. On the 20th, the remains which had been discovered were placed in leaden coffins, and on the following day conveyed to St. Denis. Upon the day of interment all the theatres were closed by order of the government. At six o'clock in the morning the whole of the garrison of Paris were under arms. eight o'clock, Monsieur, the Princes his sons, arrived at the cemetery of the Magdalen, and were immediately followed by the Prince de Condé and the Duc de Bourbon. Everything being ready for the melancholy ceremony, the two leaden coffins were placed on the funeral car, and the procession commenced in the following order: A detachment of light horse, of which I formed one, led the way, followed by some companies of the King and Queen's regiments of the line, with arms reversed, and muffled drums and trumpets; several companies of the national guards followed the infantry of the line; next came the national guards on horseback, having at their head General Dessolles and a numerous staff; the royal grenadiers, and two detachments of the mousquetaires immediately preceded the three first carriages of the procession; a detachment of light cavalry, and several generals on horseback, followed these carriages, and preceded the ten carriages hung with black, in which were the ministers, the grand dignitaries of the kingdom, some bishops and other ecclesiastics, and the chief officers of the palace; next came five mourning

coaches drawn by eight horses, with walking footmen in deep mourning on each side; these were the carriages of the royal family five heralds on horseback, in grand costume, with crape scarfs, followed. Last came the funeral car, which was fourteen feet in length, and six in height in the middle was the sarcophagus, which was raised more than three feet; four tiars, wrought in silver, were at the four corners of the car, which was hung with rich black velvet; in the centre were the arms of the King and Queen, surmounted by a crown; around the sarcophagus, containing the two coffins, was a fringe of black velvet, blazoned with silver crosses, terminated by funeral crape, and surmounted by the crown of France; the eight horses which drew this car were richly caparisoned with housings of black velvet, bedecked with escutcheons, and surmounted with crowns; the car was surrounded by a detachment of the Cent-Suisses, and escorted by the body-guard; the gens-d'armes closed the procession. The Bishop of Troyes (who thirty years before had pronounced the funeral oration in the same sacred place of the dauphin-father of Louis XVI.) was selected to deliver the funeral oration. Soult and Oudinot held the pall over the coffin of the King; the presidents, Barthelemy and Laine, the pall over the coffin of the Queen. The great gate of St. Denis was hung with black, and exhibited the following inscription:

Dormiam cum patribus meis:

Condasque in sepulchro majorum meorum.

On the 23rd of January, the Duke of Wellington took leave of the King in a secret audience, which lasted a long time; and, on the following morning, left for Vienna, accompanied by his two attachés, the late Colonel Freemantle, and the present Lord William Lennox, who, I perceive, is one of the contributors to two of your most popular sporting works, and in which periodicals (agreeable to your hint) I shortly expect to see my letters in print. The absence of the Duke was felt very much at Paris, especially among those who, like myself, were constant guests at his Grace's most hospitable board. I had become quite an Englishman, and now devoted the best part of my time to the study of your language. The remaining portion of the winter passed off dully; and it was about the period that we were expecting the return of the Duke of Wellington from that congress where, according to the witty saying, little was being done"Le Congrès danse, mais il ne marche pas"-that the news reached Paris that Buonaparte had escaped from the Isle of Elba. The effect that this intelligence created in the capital may easily be conceived. To some, it was a fatal blow; to others, most welcome tidings. Talleyrand, despite of his ordinary imperturbability, had exclaimed, "Tout est perdu!"-and so felt many who had espoused the royal cause. For myself I was in despair when I thought of the renewal of the war with a nation that I had now linked myself so much with by all the ties of friendship and affection. To return to Paris during Les Cents Jours, the Chevalier Barrington, in his personal sketches, has given a most graphic account of the effect produced at Havre de Grace upon the Emperor's return, and it is equally applicable to that created at Paris: "The dismal faces of the Bourbonites, the grinning ones of

402 SPORTING REMINISCENCES IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

the Bonapartists, and the puzzled countenances of the neutrals, were mingled together in the oddest combinations. Throughout the town everybody seemed to be talking at once; and the scene was undoubtedly of the strangest character, in all its varieties. Joy, grief, fear, courage, self-interest, love of peace, and love of battle-each had its votaries. Merchants, priests, douaniers, military officers, were strolling about, each apparently influenced by some distinctive feeling: one sensation alone seemed common to all-that of astonishment. In the meantime, the inauguration of the Emperor had taken place, and perfect order had quickly succeeded the temporary agitation.' The tri-coloured flag again waved from the Tuilleries, the royal signs had been transformed into imperial ones, and fleur-de-lis were metamorphosed into eagles. Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the military, and the quiescence of other ranks; in truth, the army alone was sincerely attached to the reinstated Emperor, the soldiers adored the chief who had so often led them to victory. I pass over the Battle of Waterloo, in which the regiment I had the honour to belong to took no inconsiderable a part; and although I was fortunate enough to go through that day without being wounded, I suffered much from the death of my favourite English charger, "Gem," who was shot in the first charge. Towards the end of the day, a troop-horse belonging to one of your crack hussar regiments galloped towards my squadron, whom I immediately seized, and made a prize of. I was equally unfortunate with him; for a cannon-shot struck him within a few seconds of his capture, and obliged me to remount one of my own trooper's steeds. The last days of the imperial government, the capitulation of Paris, the retirement of the French army beyond the Loire, and the occupation of Paris by the allies, are too fresh in the recollection of all to require further comment; and I will not dwell upon scenes which recall such painful remembrances: suffice it to say, that in the month of August, 1815, my regiment was ordered to Paris, and I there renewed my friendly intercourse with my former friends. Who can describe my feelings when I again presented myself at the hôtel of the Duke of Wellington, and was met in the court-yard by two or three of his Grace's staff, including the young nobleman to whom I have already referred as having accompanied his Grace to Vienna as an attaché, and who was then only in his sixteenth year, extra aide-de-camp to the commander of the British forces. We shook hands most warmly. Seven months had elapsed since we had all parted the best of friends: during that period we had met as foes on the ensanguined plains of Waterloo; and, if not personal ones, still bound by duty to shed one's heart's best blood in the cause for which we fought. Happily, we never came in contact upon that fatal day.

As this letter has rather exceeded the limits you have assigned me, I shall conclude for the present; but shall again take up my "goosequill," and in my next give you a full, true, and particular account of the sports got up in the neighbourhood of Paris during the occupation of the English army. Until then, addio; and believe Saron, your most attached friend,

me, dear

(To be continued.)

ALFRED

A FEW OBSERVATIONS ON THE ARGUMENTS OF THE GAME-LAW REPEALERS.

BY R. B. S.

The main charges usually brought by the enemies of the game laws as arguments in favour of their repeal, as far as I am able to gather, are the following:-That the preservation of game is injurious, in a peculiar point of view, to the farmers; that the existence of game is a temptation to idleness and vice to the poor; and, that the game laws are made the instrument of much injustice and oppression.

Now, although these charges look very serious on paper, and if they were all fairly substantiated, would doubtless be cogent reasons for the abolition of all laws for the protection of game, yet I think that, if we test them by facts and experience, it will be found either that the game laws have no such operations as those so assigned to them, or that their repeal would give birth to inconveniences at least equal to, and often much greater than those, which exist under the present system.

As to the first charge. That game is destructive to the crops, where it is preserved in large quantities, it would be difficult to find any one, conversant with the subject, hardy enough to deny; yet we must take into consideration, that on estates where game is protected, it has probably been so for many years, and that the farmers on such estates have taken their farms, well knowing that they would be subject to this burden, and that in most instances allowance has been made, in fixing the amount of their rents, for the destruction of part of their crops by the game; so that the tenants of such estates have no more reason to complain than any other party who may have bought property subject to an incumbrance, for which allowance has been made in the purchase money. And such farmers must consider that, were game preservation prohibited, their landlords would probably raise their rents; so that they would be in the unpleasant predicament of having "jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire."

I admit that cases of hardship do occasionally occur, when a landlord begins to preserve game in large quantities where there has been none before, without making any reduction in the rent of the farms proportionate to the damage occasioned thereby. But these cases are few and far between, and we shall generally find that the gentlemen of this country are too equitable in their dealings with their tenantry to require a poor farmer to pay for pleasures they are unwilling to afford themselves.

And again, we must consider that as long as England is in its present state, there will, in spite of all the enactments in the world, be some game; and that this, unprotected, would indirectly cause almost

as much injury, and certainly more annoyance, especially in populous districts, to the farmer than the large quantities bred under the protection of the existing game laws; for, legal restrictions being removed, this stray game would become the object of pursuit to all the idle fellows in the neighbourhood: whether their visits would conduce to the improvement of standing corn, or to the preservation of gates and fences, I leave farmers to be the judges. It is well known to many who, like myself, have lived in unpreserved and populous countries, how great damage is done to farmers by the unlicensed pursuers of any unfortunate covey of partridges or eye of pheasants, which may have taken up their quarters in such debateable ground; indeed, an instance is within my own knowledge of the tenants on a large estate, near a manufacturing town, soliciting their landlord's agent to preserve game, in order to prevent the constant injury done to their property by trespassers.

It is true that if the game laws were abolished, there would still be legal means of punishing trespassers; but setting aside the fact that such proceedings are expensive, we find that persons are generally averse to putting the law in force against their neighbours, for injuries done to their property; probably from the conviction that men by whom such depredations are committed are not likely to be very scrupulous in their means of revenge. Under the present state of things, the odium of game prosecutions falls on the squire's gamekeeper, whose shoulders are well able to bear it. I also cannot help thinking that the consumption of the crops by hares and rabbits is overrated by the anti-game-law party. They tell us that eight hares eat as much as one sheep. This may be very true, if the calculation be made with a hare fed altogether on clover and turnips; but these worthy gentlemen do not appear to have remembered how many nights in the year poor puss may be found feeding in cover on weeds which it would puzzle the stomach of even a Highland stot to digest, and which but for her would be entirely wasted.

The second charge-that the existence of game affords too strong a temptation to idleness and vice for the poor to resist-I answer by asking whether it is generally the case that the professed poacher is a man driven to crime by the pressure of want, or even by his sporting propensity? I am sure that any one, who knows the characteristics of the race, will say that he is not. No; the fact is, that, nine times out of ten, he will be found to be an idle rascal, the ne'er-dowell of the parish, who prefers the dissolute pleasures of the beershop, to earning bread for himself and his family by the sweat of his brow, and who, were his occupation as a poacher gone, would, rather than work, turn his attention to the henroosts, orchards, and sheepfolds of his neighbours.

And I submit that, even allowing, for the sake of argument, this charge to be correct, crime is not to be met by removing all allurement to it, but by teaching men that they must and ought to resist its enticements. The great temptation to smuggling was not allowed as a plea for the abrogation of the revenue laws, but the crime was put down by making the means of its prevention more effectual. A sportsman of moderate means might claim immunity from the penal