To-day, as in the days of the royal hunt, when Chambord was but a shooting-box of the Counts of Blois, the Sologne is rife with small game, and even deer and an occasional _sanglier_. "_La chasse_" in France is no mean thing to-day, and the Sologne, La Beauce, and the great national forests of Lyons and Rambouillet draw--on the opening of the season, somewhere between the 28th of August and the 2d of September of each year--their hundreds of thousands of Nimrods and disciples of St. Hubert. The bearer of the gun in France is indeed a most ardent sportsman, and in no European country can one buy in the open market a greater variety of small game,--all the product of those who pay their twenty francs for the privilege of bagging rabbits, hares, partridges, and the like. The hunters of France enjoy one superstition, however, and that is that to accidentally bag a crow on the first shot means a certain and sudden death before the day is over. La Motte-Beuvron is celebrated in the annals of the Sologne; it is, in fact, the metropolis of the region, and the centre from which radiated the influences which conquered the soil and made of it a prosperous land, where formerly it was but a sandy, arid desert. La Motte-Beuvron is a long-drawn-out _bourgade_, like some of the populous centres of the great plain of Hungary, and there is no great prosperity or "up-to-dateness" to be observed, in spite of its constantly increasing importance, for La Motte-Beuvron and the country round about is one of the localities of France which is apparently not falling off in its population. La Motte has a most imposing Hôtel de Ville, a heavy edifice of brick built by Napoleon III.--who has never been accused of having had the artistic appreciation of his greater ancestor--after the model of the Arsenal at Venice. This is all La Motte has to warrant remark unless one is led to investigate the successful agricultural experiment which is still being carried out hereabouts. La Motte's hôtels and cafés are but ordinary, and there is no counter attraction of boulevard or park to place the town among those lovable places which travellers occasionally come upon unawares. To realize the Sologne at its best and in its most changed aspect, one should follow the roadway from La Motte to Blois. He may either go by tramway _à vapeur_, or by his own means of communication. In either case he will then know why the prosperity of the Sologne and the contentment of the Solognat is assured. Romorantin, still characteristic of the Sologne and its historic capital, is famous for its asparagus and its paternal château of François Premier, where that prince received the scar upon his face, at a tourney, which compelled him ever after to wear a beard. To-day the Sous-Préfecture, the Courts and their prisoners, the Gendarmerie, and the Theatre are housed under the walls that once formed the château royal of Jean d'Angoulême; within whose apartments the gallant François was brought up.