The minute relation of a Royal hunt in France, anno 1642, would afford very little general interest. Enough has been said to show how different were the proceedings of that time from our method of conducting such things in the present day; and those who want farther information on the subject may find it in a very erudite treatise, "De la Chasse, &c." by Le Mercier, in the year fifty-six of the same century. We must, however, in a more general manner, follow the King over the field, though without attempting to describe all the minute occurrences of the day, or the particulars of etiquette usual on such occasions. The stag, poor silly beast, who had been dozing away his time in a thicket at about half a mile distance, was soon roused by the very unwished appearance of the huntsmen, and taking his path down the principal avenue, bounded away towards the open country, calculating, more wisely than the beast recorded by our old friend Æsop, that the boughs might encumber his head gear. The horns sounded loud, the couples were unloosed, the dogs slipped, and away went man and beast in the pursuit. For a moment or two, the forest was filled with clang, and cry, and tumult:--as the hunt swept away, it grew fainter and fainter, till the sound, almost lost in the indistinct distance, left the deep glades of the wood to resume their original silence. They did not, however, long appear solitary, for in a few minutes after the hunt had quitted the forest, the same tall figure, whose apparition had interrupted Cinq Mars in his oratory concerning the relays, emerged from one of the narrower paths, leading a strong black horse, whose trappings were thickly covered with a variety of different figures in brass, representing the signs of the zodiac, together with sundry triangles, crescents, and other shapes, such as formed part of the astrological quackery of that day. The appearance of the master was not less singular in point of dress than that of the horse. He wore a long black robe, somewhat in the shape of that borne by the order of Black Friars, but sprinkled with silver signs. This, which made him look truly gigantic, was bound round his waist by a broad girdle of white leather, traced all over with strange characters, that might have been called hieroglyphics, had they signified any thing; but which were, probably, as unmeaning as the science they were intended to dignify.