Evening creeps on, and the shadows extend. Soon the joyous clatter of hoofs is re-echoing along the Sacred Way; these are the masters of Rome, whom the shades of Tiberius and Constantine salute in the darkness. While at Rome the chase was thus allying itself with poetry, in France, as may be surmised, it followed no such bent. The good Louis XII., ruling with circumspection, would not have been hard put to it to give his exploits a character of seriousness and tranquillity, for his health obliged him to hunt in a litter, and more often with hawks than with hounds; indeed, even at the kennels of Blois the spirit of poetry modestly crept in; the court poets, not having at their disposal the Roman mythology, or the shades of Tiberius and Constantine, extolled the royal hawks and hounds. They honoured with a charming epitaph the venerable Chailly, doyen of the pack, and a model of probity and honour, who, after having followed the king even to war, had peacefully finished his course at the feet of Queen Anne. They sang also of the famous falcon Muguet, the terror of herons, “little of body but wondrous full of courage”: Trois passetemps parfaits a eu Louis douzième: Triboulet et Chailly, et je fus le troisième.[216] But all this fine poetry only celebrated the mettlesomeness of the animals; it did not protect the game from slaughter; it left hunting with its primitive characteristics, which continued to wound the finer feelings, and snuffed out the faintest glimmer of the spiritual life. One man was found, with the heroic determination to reform the French style of hunting in the Roman direction. This man was Guillaume Budé, generally known as the founder of the College of France, but as good a hunter as a Hellenist, and in this regard as worthy of renown.