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Transcriber's Note

The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully
preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.


[Illustration]




  LE MORVAN,

  [A DISTRICT OF FRANCE,]

  ITS

  WILD SPORTS, VINEYARDS AND FORESTS;

  WITH

  Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches.

  BY

  HENRI DE CRIGNELLE,

  ANCIEN OFFICIER DE DRAGONS.

  TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT IN FRENCH,

  BY

  CAPTAIN JESSE,

  AUTHOR OF "NOTES OF A HALFPAY;" "LIFE OF BRUMMELL;"
  "MURRAY'S HAND-BOOK FOR RUSSIA," ETC., ETC.

  SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT-STREET.

  1851.

  LONDON:
  PRINTED BY WILLIAM TYLER,
  BOLT-COURT.




PREFACE.


Born in one of the most beautiful provinces of France, in a country of
noble forests and extensive vineyards; brought up in the open air amidst
the blue hills, and ever wandering over the fields and mountains with a
gun on my arm--all the hours of my youth, if I may so say, were spent in
search of partridges and hares in the dewy stubbles, and in the pursuit
of the wild cat and the boar in the shady depths of the woods.

When relating the adventures of these different shooting rambles to a
friend, talking over with him our mode of sporting so different from
that of England, and when in imagination I carried him along with me
into the dells and dark ravines, and described to him the chase and
death-struggle of the ferocious wolf, or the odd characters and
antediluvian customs of the primitive people amongst whom I passed the
days of my happy boyhood, astonished, he could hardly believe that such
sports and such singular personages existed within so short a distance
of his own country.

"Why not scribble all this?" he would say, "your sketches would make
capital light reading."

"But to write is not easy; and, besides, what a poor figure I and my
dogs and wolves, woodcocks and vineyards, would cut after the terrible
Mr. Gordon Cumming. How could any description of mine interest the
public in comparison with those of that famous shot and his three
coffee- Hottentots, with his bands of panthers and giraffes, his
troops of yellow lions dancing sarabands round the fountains, and his
jungles and swamps swarming with elephants and hippopotami?"

"But we might be able to go to Le Morvan," said my friend, "whereas few
indeed, if they wished it, can go to the South of Africa to shoot
elephants through the small ribs; neither is it probable that many of us
would like to pass several years of their valuable lives shut up in a
loose, rolling, sea-bathing-machine-like wagon, with their own beloved
shadow alone for all Christian company. Let us have a narrative of your
exploits?"

"You do not consider what you ask," I replied; "my gossip may have
amused you, but the effusions of my pen would to a certainty make you
yawn like graves."

"Nonsense," whispered the flatterer, "you will open to us a new country,
you will confer a real service upon hundreds of restless Englishmen, who
when summer comes know not for the life of them where to go, or where
not to go;--write your work, and advise them to turn their steps to Le
Morvan at the time of the vintage."

But now another, a huge difficulty, sprung up. Printers do not lend
their types for nothing any more than they give gratis their time and
paper. To publish a book is always an expensive affair; misfortune,
which had touched me with its wing, which has been the sad guest of my
house, deprived me of the power of undertaking it myself: and where to
find a person so generous as to take upon himself the responsibility of
the undertaking? Happily I was in England, in the land of kind hearts
and warm sympathies. A noble lady, the mother of a distinguished English
nobleman, who passes her life in doing good, took an interest in my
forlorn history, and was pleased to honour me with her patronage. With
this mantle of protection thrown around me, and my generous friend
having undertaken to bear the responsibilities of publishing, the
difficulties were soon swept away, and Le Morvan was written.

I had hoped