a present of eighty harriers at a time. And more than one Lorrain grandee came over to hunt and shoot here. Ligniville himself, the Duke's _Grand Veneur_ (under Charles IV.), had frequently hunted in England, and expressed himself especially delighted with the sport in which he had joined in Yorkshire. On the whole, he appears to have considered English hounds superior to French--less eager at first, but with more stay in them--and he was proud of having received presents of some from the Prince of Wales of his time (Charles I.), "Milord de Hée," and from "Milord Howard." But a cross between English and French hounds he seems to have regarded as the _ne plus ultra_ of excellence. "Puss" was very much persecuted in the valley of the Meuse, furnishing by its exceptional swiftness and skill in swimming almost too good sport, "_contre montant l'eaüe tellement viste que les chiens ne les pouuoint pas aborder_." James's hunting sometimes led him into adventures, and on one occasion nearly saddled his host with a diplomatic difficulty. Riding hard, he once got to the little town of Ligny at nightfall, some eight miles from Bar, in a vassal territory belonging, under the Duke of Lorraine, to Montmorency, Duke of Luxemburg. The Duke of Luxemburg, being rather a big vassal, was in consequence also a very troublesome one, and the Lorrain Court and his officers frequently found themselves at loggerheads. To James, coming from Bar, with fifty Lorrain _gens d'armes_, besides his own suite, the _maire_ resolutely refused to open the gates and furnish lodgings for the night, grounding his refusal upon a decision of the Parliament of Paris passed in the year 1661. The Lorrains were quite prepared for a siege and an assault. However, James deemed it wiser to leave things alone, and so the company rode half a mile further, to a little village called Velaine, where they spent a most uncomfortable night. Soon we have Montmorency complaining to King Louis of the assumed "_nouuelles entreprises de M. le Duc de Lorrain sur mon comté de Ligny_." Leopold revenged himself by imprisoning about a dozen _maires_ of the Ligny county, on the plea of their having failed to furnish the requisite waggons, and in the end bought Montmorency out with the sum of 2,600,000 francs.