The animal was kneeling on the ground, weak and overwhelmed. We pressed round, and eyes were thrust forward between heads and shoulders to see him. One could make out the gray thicket of his antlers, his great lolling tongue, and the enormous throb of his heart, agitating his exhausted body. A little wounded fawn clung to him, bleeding abundantly, flowing like a spring. Round about it the ceremony was arranged in several circles. The beaters, in ranks, made a glaring red patch in the moist green atmosphere. The hunters, men and women, all dismounted, in scarlet coats and black hats, crowded together. Apart, the saddle and tackle horses snorted, with creaking of leather and jingle of metal. Kept at a respectful distance by a rope extended hastily on posts, the inquisitive crowd flowed and increased every instant. The blood which issued from the little fawn made a widening pool, and one saw the ladies of the hunt, who came to look as near as possible, pluck up their habits so that they would not tread in it. The sight of the great stag crushed by weariness, gradually drooping his branching head, tormented by the howls of the hounds which the whipper-in held back with difficulty, and that of the little one, cowering beside him and dying with gaping throat, would have been touching had one given way to sentiment. I noticed that the imminent slaying of the stag excited a certain curious fever. Around me the women and young girls especially elbowed and wriggled their way to the front, and shuddered, and were glad. They cut the throats of the beasts, the big and the little, amid absolute and religious silence, the silence of a sacrament. Madame Lacaille vibrated from head to foot. Marie was calm, but there was a gleam in her eyes; and little Marthe, who was hanging on to me, dug her nails into my arm. The prince was prominent on our side, watching the last act of the run. He had remained in the saddle. He was more splendidly red than the others--empurpled, it seemed, by reflections from a throne. He spoke in a loud voice, like one who is accustomed to govern and likes to discourse; and his outline had the very form of bidding. He expressed himself admirably in our language, of which he knew the intimate graduations. I heard him saying, "These great maneuvers, after all, they're a sham. It's music-hall war, directed by scene-shifters. Hunting's better, because there's blood. We get too much unaccustomed to blood, in our prosaic, humanitarian, and bleating age. Ah, as long as the nations love hunting, I shall not despair of them!" Just then, the crash of the horns and the thunder of the pack released drowned all other sounds. The prince, erect in his stirrups, and raising his proud head and his tawny mustache above the bloody and cringing mob of the hounds, expanded his nostrils and seemed to sniff a battlefield.