asked what had become of the roebucks. The enigma was explained to them by the beaters, who found the three dead bucks thirty paces from me: two in the path,--they had not stirred!--the other, four yards away, in the underwood. That night, returning at nightfall, a final roebuck was so ill-advised as to start up before us in a sort of clearing. The sun, a little out of the clouds, was setting literally in a bed of purple; in spite of this amelioration in the weather on the horizon, the snow continued falling round us in thick flakes. Suddenly, a buck bounded off fifteen yards from us. The guns were unloaded, so it was a question for the quickest loader. Ten or a dozen shots went off almost at the same time. The buck disappeared in the midst of the fire and smoke. Dogs and hunters set off in pursuit. I have never seen a more fitting composition for a picture than that which chance had made--Boulanger was in ecstasies! He, not having a gun, could see everything without being distracted. All the night he was haunted by the idea of making a sketch of that scene: he could not forget it. We brought back nine roebucks and three hares; I had, for my share, killed five roebucks and two hares. We dined at Gondon's that night, and we had a very different supper from that of the night before. We started next day at dawn and, as night fell, we re-entered Paris with our nine bucks hanging from the imperial of our carriage, like a butcher's shop. I summoned Chevet. It was a question of trading by exchange. I wanted an enormous fish: for three bucks, Chevet undertook to provide me with a salmon weighing thirty pounds, or a sturgeon weighing fifty. I wanted a colossal galantine; a fourth buck paid for that. I wished to have two bucks roasted whole; Chevet undertook to get them roasted. The last buck was cut up and distributed among the families of my travelling companions. The three hares provided a pâté. So it will be seen that the shoot, besides the pleasure derived from it, gave us the principal constituents of the supper. The rest was only a matter of attending to detail; this was the business of the staff belonging to the house. In our absence, old Ciceri--do obeisance, all of you, to the old man, just as gay to-day, well-preserved and willing, in spite of his seventy years; do obeisance to him Séchan, Diéterle, Despléchin, Thierry, Cambon, Devoir, Moinet, you kings, viceroys and princes of modern decorative art: old Ciceri it was who did the cloister of _Robert le Diable_!--in our absence, I say, old Ciceri had had the canvases placed in position and had fixed up the paper. All was ready even to the paints, pencils and brushes. All the rooms were warmed with big fires; chairs, stools, footstools of all sizes were there, and a folding ladder had been bought. Granville, our good excellent Granville, delightful painter of man, purely as an animal, and of animals with human intelligence, was the first to set to work.