But the desire to make us feel at home has another--I may almost say a pathetic--side. Thus the _Comité des fêtes_ spares no effort to meet our supposed necessities, and has not only provided tennis-grounds and other conveniences for _le sport_, but for the last ten days has been preparing for a grand _chasse au renard_, as a special compliment, I am told, to the English visitors. The grand feature of the hunt is a _recherché_ luncheon in an attractive spot in the forest, at the end of the run, at which the Mayor presides, and to which the other civic dignitaries go in full costume, accompanied by a chief huntsman and two _chasseurs_ with _tridents_--of all strange equipments for a fox-hunt! For this luncheon the charge is 5 fr.; but, so far as I can learn, you may join the chase without partaking. The question naturally occurs: “How if Renard will not run that way, or consent to die within easy distance of the luncheon?” and the answer of the Mayor would, I suppose, be Dogberry’s: “Let him go, and thank God you are rid of a knave.” But, in any case, the _Comité des fêtes_ are prepared for such a mishap, for they have had four foxes ready for some days, _in a large oven_--of all places in the world! and one of these will surely be induced to take the proper course, which is carefully marked out. As two of them have come from Switzerland, and there cannot be much to occupy or amuse Swiss foxes in an oven, except quarrelling with their French cousins, I should doubt as to the condition of the lot on the day of the hunt, even if all survive to that date. This, I am sorry to say, cannot be fixed as yet, for it seems that no English visitor has been found who will take a ticket; so I fear my “course” may be over before the _chasse_ comes off. In that case I shall always bear a grudge against your lively contemporary, the _Daily Graphic_, who, it seems, printed an illustrated account of the _chasse_ of last summer, to which the present abstinence of the British sportsman to-day is generally attributed. Can we wonder at the want of understanding between the two peoples when one comes across such strange pieces of farce as this, meant, I believe, for a genuine compliment and advance towards good-fellowship?