Just Before Dark
The evening before the hunt we dined with Pierre Firmin-Didot, who is the maître d'équipage d'honneur of the local hunt syndicate, the Normand-Piqu'Hardi, the costs being shared by the twelve full members. For many years Pierre Firmin-Didot had owned a private hunt which was called Rallie Normandie. He proved a splendid source of information and had hundreds of years of the history of la vénerie française at memory's tip. Unfortunately for me he lapsed immediately into intricate French after explaining that such a splendid tradition couldn't be described in my own humble language, a point over which I expressed some quarrelsome doubt. But Lorraine de la Valdène, Guy's very beautiful sister, and her friend Christian, a Paris film-maker, translated all the germane information, while I mostly daydreamed about the after-dinner champagne we were drinking. Earlier in the day we had retrieved it along with the dinner wines from the cellar where there were dozens of cases of musty, soiled bottles. All of the wine back home comes in squeaky clean bottles and doesn't taste nearly as good. Guy was off talking horse business to his mother and stepfather who were on the verge of a trip to Argentina. I kept thinking of how we were to get up at five A.M. for the hunt, an hour of horror I reserve for only the most promising trout fishing, and even then I usually only manage it by staying up all night after fishing an evening hatch.
Very early on Saturday morning, when the sky lacked even a trace of light, we drove the half-dozen miles through the forest to the circle around the pavilion which looked splendid in the headlights. I thought of Diane de Poitiers waking on the morning of a hunt hundreds of years before in her nearby château, then riding with the others on their mounts to this same pavilion. I momentarily wanted some share of a glorious history, a history with what is called “class” rather than the casual 30-30 bushwhacking of deer moving along their feeding runways back home. We always called it “meat hunting” and there was not even a vague pretention toward a search for a trophy. We pulled up in Serge's yard and the lights were on. The hounds, all forty-seven of them including the aged Kroutchev and a timid dog named Oxford, set up a bellowing that deafened. Serge stepped out of the kitchen door and yelled and they became silent and stood at attention. Even the small pet terrier that trotted along the outside of the kennel fence as if these huge hounds were part of his fiefdom paused for a moment—fortunately terriers aren't the size of Great Danes or they would rule us all.
The kitchen was warm and yellow with light and we accepted a half cup of coffee which Serge with promptness topped off with a big lashing of calvados. Calvados at dawn? Oh well. I finished mine in two gulps which proved a mistake as the cup was immediately refilled with another half-and-half. Even my lungs felt the heat and I thought of my dad's term for the homemade whiskey he used to drink, “pop-skull.” There were five of us around the table including Guy and myself. Serge and the other two trackers spoke in a rapid patois of where best to locate a stag. We all stared at the calvados bottle which had just been refilled in the back room by Serge's wife. It was a party bottle, evidently a prized possession. Serge's shy little daughter Jeanette picked up the bottle and wound a key in the inverted bottom. A small porcelain ballerina twirled in a circle in the center of the amber liquid and the miniature music box that surrounded played “Lara's Theme” from Dr. Zhivago. I was overwhelmed, though my emotions might have been a victim of the instant fire of the calvados. I began to daydream, unable to pick up a word of the rapid colloquial French. Two weeks before in the Sadko nightclub in Leningrad the band had closed the evening with the very same song and several hundred people stood and cheered. Bad champagne flowed. And the movie and the book and the music were banned there and the song was anyway written by a Frenchman, Maurice Jarré. But the Russians somehow knew and loved it and lacked my stiff and priggish cynicism.
We stood and went outside. Serge sorted out the tracking dogs, three hounds that were especially trained to bay at a stag scent. We wanted to locate a likely animal for the hunt which would begin in three or four hours. The information we gathered would be presented to Jean Ferjoux, the maître d'équipage, who would select from the three searchers the most likely stag for the chase.
Guy and I accompanied Serge and his daughter down a small lane on the other side of the pavilion. Our hound, Ouragan, was anxious and we walked at an alarmingly fast pace. This speed was to continue for the next three hours, during which we would crisscross dozens of lanes for well over ten miles. It all seemed excessively swift to me, having overeaten again the night before on some fresh pâté de foie gras with a big chunk of truffle in the middle (with a ‘28 Anjou), a poached trout, a serving of the small forest deer known as the chevreuil and a quantity of cheeses, the last being a rank goat cheese I would retaste for the next several days. But then one doesn't travel to France to be temperate when one can be temperate in Michigan without even trying.
It was still the first pale morning light and Serge was pleased with the slight ground fog—the moisture in the air and the heavy dew would make it easier for the hounds to follow a stag. An unsuccessful hunt often hinges on extremely dry weather which provides poor scenting conditions. We found frequent tracks among the stunted oaks but the hounds are trained to the peculiar scent of the male and Ouragan dismissed the tracks as female. Then at the edge of the forest in a tilled field we found our first stag tracks. Serge and Jeanette and the hound became very excited but Serge knelt and judged that by the splay and size of the tracks that the stag was too small to bother with. The incident reminded me of a hunting friend in Michigan who could likewise accurately judge the size and sex of a deer by the tracks.
We continued on at what I thought of as an even brisker rate and out of pride I tried to conceal my wheezing. I had imagined myself to be in good shape from summer backpacking in Montana and the early grouse season back home but I was clearly outclassed by Serge and the ten-year-old Jeanette. I was very pleased when Guy dawdled with his cameras, and I desperately wanted a forbidden cigarette but the smoke would be scented easily by the stag and make him a bit edgy, perhaps moving him out of our section of the forest. After another two miles or so the hound picked up a good-sized stag and we spent an hour on a stratagem that would locate the hundred-acre plot of forest where the stag was hiding. We walked a square of four lanes and saw where the stag had crossed one path but had failed to emerge onto the other three that made up the rectangle. Serge and Jeanette were happy, and so was I as it meant we could return to the pavilion where I would smoke several cigarettes consecutively and rest my tired body. But on the way back we met the other two trackers and were mildly disappointed to discover that the one with Oxford had located a very large stag indeed, his proof being a chunk of fecal matter which indicated a stag with ample bowels. After seven hundred years of hunting in essentially the same manner no tricks arc missed.
Back at Serge's we had another drink and spoke with Michel Pradel who was to drive us during the hunt in his small, sturdy Pibolle Citroën. Then we went back to the château and ate an enormous breakfast. Someone in the kitchen had packed our picnic basket for the afternoon and I snooped through its contents: some fruit, mineral water, two bottles of Margaux, Dutch beer, a variety of ham, cheese, and pâté sandwiches on miniature loaves of bread. Oh boy, I thought in my capacity of Mr. Piggy. How unlike the tawdry junk I carried along while grouse hunting, or what had been my father's favorite, incomprehensible deer-hunting snack—a baked-bean sandwich with a half-inch slice of onion. I reflected on how horribly my feet ached in my cowboy boots which have, of course, no sensible relationship to the act of walking but were the only boots I'd brought along to Europe. A thuggish type in Moscow had offered me seventy-five roubles ($80) for them and I wished that I had taken his kind offer.
When we returned to Serge's at eleven the hunt was nearly assembled and Michel was waiting for us with his friend Lorette. Michel had a small silver hunting horn called a corne over his shoulder. Though a university student Michel is an addict of the hunt and knows the forest intimately. Guy might have driven but
he confessed that we would probably have become lost and he needed a free hand for his cameras which some of the mounted hunters were busy staring at. They shun publicity as it is mostly bad, the hunt being generally scorned by the fourth estate and the intelligentsia, the situation bearing some similarity to the United States. As an instance, whenever most fellow writers of assistant professor mentalities learn that I hunt and fish they usually say something on the order of “Oh gawd, the Hemingway bit!” The grand one from Oak Park has made it difficult for others in his craft. In any event my usual response to the quip is non-quotable.
Half of the hounds were loaded into a truck to act as replacements later on and in the cramped quarters some fighting broke out which was quickly stopped by a shout from Serge. Ferjoux, the master of the hunt, was standing in the courtyard with everyone assembled in a closely packed circle. The three trackers with hats in hand made lengthy and elegantly descriptive speeches on the possible virtues of the stags they had located. Ferjoux was preoccupied with the minutest details and asked many questions. We were still disappointed when our stag, as expected, wasn't chosen. The timid little Oxford had won out.
Michel knew precisely where the hunt was to begin and we drove around the forest through the small villages of Saussay and Montagnette and then on a lane deep into the woods. I was frightened at the speed at which Michel drove the lanes but Guy assured me that it was nothing compared to what would come later. But the rather solid-looking trees were whizzing by only inches from my window in the front seat and with each bump my head narrowly missed crashing into the roof of the little car. We parked and stood around for a few minutes, then saw with excitement the approach of the mounts, usually a mixture of Arab and thoroughbred, followed by the hounds. Serge located the tracks with no difficulty and gave a blast of his horn which was answered by the horn of Ferjoux. In Serge's capacity as master of the hounds he follows the hunt on foot, something I couldn't comprehend after the morning's jaunt. We were idly talking and smoking when not fifty yards away the stag and three females suddenly broke from cover. The females raced across the lane but the stag paused, then circled back within his own block of woods. Michel signaled with his horn that he thought that he had seen a stag but wasn't absolutely positive. One must be sure. A day chasing the wrong stag is the worst of form. The fifteen or so hunters with Ferjoux well in the lead descended on us and I dove for the brush to avoid a trampling. A quarter mile off we could hear Serge bellowing at his hounds, then a signal from his horn that it was indeed the correct stag. The hunters were deployed by Ferjoux to visually cover any escape as the hounds drew nearer; the first few hounds to reach the stag would drive him from the cover, unless he chose a quick standoff in which case a few hounds might die.
While we waited I thought again of how a whitetail buck will send a doe or a number of them through a clearing first to test for any conceivable danger. Not very noble to use your mates as decoys but then you don't get to be a great big buck or noble-sized stag by acting stupidly. I was told that an experienced stag will often follow a smaller one, butting him on by force for several miles, then veer off in an attempt to fool the hounds by this intelligent ruse. But then the beast broke full tilt across the lane not far from us and Michel gave a definite horn signal to Ferjoux, who answered and gathered his group with some beautiful blasts from his hunting horn, the golden trompe de chasse, and they were off within seconds. As we walked back to the car I reflected on the natural authority Ferjoux seemed to possess, a sort of unassuming “macho” and uprightness that demands immediate respect and obedience: the master of the hunt has the dictatorial powers of an eighteenth-century sea captain and there is simply no breaking of the etiquette of la chasse. The horns over each hunter's shoulder reminded me of the walkie-talkies often used by those who hunt bear in Michigan's Upper Peninsula with hounds, the only local place back home where it is permissible. They always reminded me of huge teeny boppers with transistor radios pressed to their ears: picture the wiley Chub “Dink” Farley with his 10-4 10-4 10-4, then shrieking into the machine that “Big Bruin” just crossed the road. This unsavory bit can be contrasted to the one-armed Roy Close from Emigrant, Montana, who will alone enter the mountains for weeks at a time to destroy a rogue grizzly with an excessive appetite for domestic beef. But then the stag hunt is as ritualized as the bullfight, the only apt comparison, though the hunt is incredibly less cruel.
We stuffed ourselves back into the car and Michel and Guy began guessing the stag's next move. We drove even faster this time toward an area where Michel expected the stag and hounds to emerge. I thought of how any respectable wine steward would express disgust at the way we were drinking the Margaux straight from the bottle as the car jounced along. We loitered around a recently timbered area of the forest for a half hour until the baying of the hounds far in the distance told us our guess had been wrong by several miles. We perfected a manner of jumping into the small car within seconds, a performance we were to enact a dozen times in the next few hours. We began to enter hilly country, plunging down narrow aisles into what could be fairly called gorges. Occasionally we spotted a stray hound that had apparently lost its way; the hound would look at us, then immediately act very intense and interested, much like a bird dog that is either too lazy or tired to enter a briar patch but still wants to present a good appearance. Along a ridge we saw a dozen or so hounds pass in front of us. We jumped out of the car and ran over the top of the ridge to find that it overlooked an entire valley and the village of Montreuil with the river Havre running through the village. It was evident that the hounds had chased the stag straight through town and across a wide field of hay stubble, at which point the stag plunged in and crossed the river. In the distance from our hilltop we could see the riders regrouping to Ferjoux's horn, the sound echoing melodiously throughout the valley. We plunged down the roadless hill, fairly flying in the car through thickets and over rocks, and passed through Montreuil to the point of reconnoitering. Guy was worried as we were drawing near his mother's estate as it would be impossible to allow the hunt to enter the château grounds. Stag hounds and hunting horns don't make a wise mix with a breeding farm—one could imagine an errant hound nipping the heels of a colt destined eventually for Longchamps. Fortunately the stag had headed off through a cornfield toward Dreux, the largest village in the area, actually a small city of some 25,000 people. But this was a bad break for the hunt as the area surrounding Dreux is a semi-urban sprawl and a major four-lane highway, “National 12,” is in the area.
While the hunters paused to discuss tactics with Ferjoux, Guy and Michel told me how lucky I was to see a débucher (the stag leaving the forest for open country) as it makes for a more varied though certainly less classic hunt. Some consternation could be sensed on Ferjoux's face as the hunters headed at a gallop toward Dreux. At another small village we paused for a moment, and a gas station attendant told us that the stag had passed through town and had headed across a large field and through a woodlot toward a sanitarium we could see in the distance. I had a rather dark, surrealistic image of the stag jumping the sanitarium fence and bursting through a group of strolling loonies with the hounds in pursuit, scarcely an aid to therapy. But it turned out to be a tuberculosis sanitarium surrounded by a fair stretch of forest. We continued down through another valley where we spotted several hounds swimming across the river. Down the road a group of cars had gathered, full of people semi-attached to the hunt, and all were discussing stratagems. Serge and the riders looked fatigued and everyone had a worried appearance. One of the women present had spotted the stag recrossing the river and heading back toward the sanitarium. She said she had seen the stag pause in a field for a rest, having temporarily outwitted the hounds.
An hour of utter tenseness had begun. The stag had hidden himself in a small patch of forest, perhaps a hundred acres, and Ferjoux entered with the best of the hounds in attempt to flush the beast. But if the stag ran the wrong way he would be headed toward the freeway not to speak o
f a smarmy Americanized housing development and after that, the possibility of a flight through downtown Dreux, which would make for very bad publicity indeed. Luckily while we were waiting near the housing development drinking wine the stag reversed himself again toward clear country. Michel ordered us back into the car. I sort of wanted to stay, having spotted a very pretty spectator to whom 1 asked nasally, "Où est le stag?” She giggled and shrugged but then Guy told me discouragingly that she didn't have the foggiest idea what I was talking about.
Michel and Lorette and Guy seemed to think the hunt was nearing the end. We retraced our lane to the river and while crossing the bridge saw on a not-too-distant hill the stag and the hounds close behind, with the riders straggling a hundred yards back. By the time we got to the hill, a matter of minutes, the stag was standing at bay while Ferjoux and his riders watched from a few yards back. With great ceremony Serge drew the dagger from the scabbard and walked past the wary hounds, many of whom had been gored in the past. The stag appeared in shock and Serge quickly plunged the dagger into its heart. The stag dropped at his feet.
There was perhaps a minute of full silence except for the shuffling of the lathered horses in the dry grass and the guttural mutterings of the hounds, which Serge kept away from the fallen stag. However stunned and confused I otherwise felt it was good to see that old Kroutchev was one of the few hounds to complete the hunt. This would be his last year. Then a strange pandemonium broke loose: all the hunters unshouldered their horns and began playing a particular melody in a modal chord that resounded and returned from the far hills on the other side of the valley. The hunters played with a glazed intensity, truly the moment they had been waiting for. A young man in a long army surplus overcoat and very long blonde hair began playing with more capability than the others. He owned no mount so I assumed he was playing for the joy of it. One of the trackers stooped over the stag and cut out its testicles and threw them in the grass. I wasn't sure if this was a ritual gesture or an act to protect the venison from the strong scent. Many cars began to arrive and a large group of farmers, local workers and those who had followed the hunt stood looking rather blankly at the fallen beast. With the mid-afternoon sun glittering off their horns the hunters profusely congratulated Ferjoux, whose face had lost its apprehension and was now glowing. The stag was loaded with effort into the back of a station wagon but not before the largest of the hounds had grabbed a leg and pulled the three hundred pounds of dead weight several feet, a show of strength for which he was punished only lightly. We got back into the car for the ride to the pavilion, some fifteen miles distant, where we would meet the hunters for the ceremonies that would end the day.