_chasse_, is most delightful; everything conspires to make it lively and exciting. The party, ten or twelve jolly dogs, have generally dined together, and the onslaught over, they all return by the pale moonlight, shoulder to shoulder, singing snatches of some old hunting-song, the stars overhead and the woodcocks on their backs. A young Parisian and college friend of mine, Adolphe Gustave de----, very rich and very witty, whom, after many unsuccessful attempts, I induced to leave the capital, and pass six months with me in the deserts, as he called them, of Le Morvan, loved this species of sport intensely, though he never shot anything. His bag, however, was always better filled than that of any of his comrades, for though a wretched shot, he had the wit to stand near a good one, and as he was wonderfully quick with his legs, eyes, and fingers, he was constantly picking up his neighbour's birds, vowing all the time they were his own shooting. CHAPTER XI. Fine names--Gustavus Adolphus and the cabbages--Gustavus Adolphus! no hero!--The Parisian Sportsman--Partridge-shooting despicable--Wild boar-hunting--Rousing the grisly monster--His approach--The post of honour--Good nerves--The death--The trophy and congratulations. Few persons well acquainted with France can have failed to observe how fond the lower orders, indeed all classes, are of giving high-sounding names to their children; and it is sometimes truly amusing to notice the strange upset of associations which in consequence jar the auricular nerve, and illustrate the singularly exalted notions of the godfathers and godmothers. "Gustave Adolphe!" I once heard an old cook vociferate from the kitchen of a small inn to a boy in the yard. "Gustave Adolphe!" shrieked the aged heroine of the sauce-pans, pitching her voice in A alto, "_Coupez donc les choux!_" Cutting cabbages! What an antithesis to the glorious victor of Lutzen. The remark will apply with equal force to the Gustave Adolphe of the last chapter, though on a different point, and the contrast between the great Gustavus and he of Paris, was most diverting. My accomplished friend, a charming dancer, a _beau parleur_, a first-rate singer, who made sad havoc among the fresh and fair gazelles of every ballroom, this tremendous _chasseur-de-salon_, I very soon perceived, was by no means so tremendous in the stubbles;--a covey fairly startled him, and if a hare rose between his legs he turned quite pale. "My good fellow," I said to him one day, seeing his extraordinary trepidation, "if you are so staggered by a covey of partridges, what in the world will you do when I set you face to face with a wolf or a wild boar?" "Oh! that is a very different affair. A wolf or a wild boar? Why, I should kill one and eat the other, of course." "Not so easy," I should think, "for a novice like you."