Emperors and kings were as keen as others for this kind of sport. As early as the tenth century the Emperor Henry I. had acquired the soubriquet of "the Bird-catcher," from the fact of his giving much more attention to his birds than to his subjects. His example was followed by one of his successors, the Emperor Henry VI., who was reckoned the first falconer of his time. When his father, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (Red-beard), died in the Holy Land, in 1189, the Archdukes, Electors of the Empire, went out to meet the prince so as to proclaim him Emperor of Germany. They found him, surrounded by dogs, horses, and birds, ready to go hunting. "The day is fine," he said; "allow us to put off serious affairs until to-morrow." Two centuries later we find at the court of France the same ardour for hawking and the same admiration for the performances of falcons. The Constable Bertrand du Guesclin gave two hawks to King Charles VI.; and the Count de Tancarville, whilst witnessing a combat between these noble birds and a crane which had been powerful enough to keep two greyhounds at bay, exclaimed, "I would not give up the pleasure which I feel for a thousand florins!" The court-poet, William Crétin, although he was Canon of the holy chapel of Vincennes, was as passionately fond of hawking as his good master Louis XII. He thus describes the pleasure he felt in seeing a heron succumb to the vigorous attack of the falcons:-- "Qui auroit la mort aux dents, Il revivroit d'avour un tel passe-temps!" ("He who is about to die Would live again with such amusement.") [Illustration: Fig. 155.--Lady setting out Hawking.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of "Livre du Roy Modus" (Fourteenth. Century).] At a hunting party given by Louis XII. to the Archduke Maximilian, Mary of Burgundy, the Archduke's wife, was killed by a fall from her horse. The King presented his best falcons to the Archduke with a view to divert his mind and to turn his attention from the sad event, and one of the historians tells us that the bereaved husband was soon consoled: "The partridges, herons, wild ducks, and quails which he was enabled to take on his journey home by means of the King's present, materially lessening his sorrow." Falconry, after having been in much esteem for centuries, at last became amenable to the same law which affects all great institutions, and, having reached the height of its glory, it was destined to decay. Although the art disappeared completely under Louis the Great, who only liked stag-kunting, and who, by drawing all the nobility to court, disorganized country life, no greater adept had ever been known than King Louis XIII. His first favourite and Grand Falconer was Albert de Luynes, whom he made prime minister and constable. Even in the Tuileries gardens, on his way to mass at the convent of the Feuillants, this prince amused himself by catching linnets and wrens with noisy magpies trained to pursue small birds.