| Saturday, February 20, 2021

Dear Friend,

We’re walking out early to take a look at the situation along the streams – aptly named the Surgoutte and the Risle, the “over-a-drop” and “the laughing one,” presumably because the first constantly overflows and the other trills along over its pebbly bed. This time of year, both streams are swollen, flowing into the pastures and drenching the trunks of overhanging trees, handsome oaks and ash whose roots help to hold the clay soil of the banks in place. 
 
In days of yore, the Chateau’s valets de ferme trenched these natural drainage systems by hand. With square-offed spades, the men cut ditches across the fields to drive water out of the soggy ground. The rampant blackberries, the wild cherries, the elders, the native willows and the multi-stemmed elderberries that spring up along the banks of the Surgoutte and the Risle were kept in check with pruning hooks and scythes. This, along with cutting and stacking firewood, was essential winter’s work.
 
Nowadays, the valet de ferme has vanished as surely as the horse-drawn plow. So as soon as the cattle enter the stabulations for the winter and the ground is frozen hard, we pass with the tractor and its long pruning blade, slashing back the hedgerows and slicing through the trunks of weedy saplings. And every other year, including this one, the élagueur arrives with his fearsome machinery, grinding down the brambles along the perimeter of the pastures, lopping off intrusive tree limbs, cutting down young trees. He leaves a trail of destruction behind him that we use for firewood…and cheerful winter bonfires.
 
We’ve come out to take stock of the work to be done and to enjoy this quiet moment just before the sun gleams above the surrounding hills. Ice has lain a fine crackled skin over the streams. Through it, we see leaves suspended in downward drift, and the still form of a frog, awaiting a spring thaw. A blue mist veils the fields. Apart from the crunch of our footsteps, tramping through the hoar frost that coats the stiff grass, all is silence.
 
But we are not alone. Across the open meadow hurtles a dark and burly form. It plunges into the tangled hedgerow along the Risle. It is a lone boar, un solitaire, startled.
 
“Tayaut!” exclaimed my companion, laughing softly. It’s a cry used in French hunts when an animal is sighted
 
“Hallali debout, sur pied!” came the response, to our great surprise. “The boar is on the run!”
 
Walking down the hill with a rapidity that belied his stout form came one of our neighbors. Monsieur Louis-Achille shook hands energetically, bowing to hover over mine in his courtly way. He is an ardent chasseur, a hunter, and we have given him and a small group of fellow veneurs, aficionados of game, permission to chase wild boar on our property. Lest you think us cruel, it is worth remembering that the boar species is responsible for substantial crop damage in France, and that landowners have a legal obligation to cull and control its numbers.
 
And wild boar, native to the forests of France, has been hunted with admiration and respect since time immemorial. The Gaulois, Celtic tribes that inhabited France in ancient times, considered the boar a sacred animal, and its hunt a vital ritual. For the conquering Romans, boar-hunting in Gaul was a nobleman’s occupation. Later, the French aristocracy, from kings to the seigneurs of Courtomer, kept careful track of boar populations in their royal and domanial forests. They spent hours in the saddle from autumn to spring, tracking and chasing le sanglier, the boar. And although eyebrows might be raised at the pursuit of such worldly pleasures, the clergy, from bishops to the local abbot, was often to be seen galloping along as well.

For the boar is a noble beast. In ferocity, courage and intelligence, he is almost man’s equal. And, at least when hunted in the traditional manner, with the “dague,” a long sharp knife, and a pack of hounds to give chase, he is a dangerous and wily opponent.

“Ah, Madame,” recalled Monsieur Louis-Achille, leaning on his stick. “The day the boar almost killed my grandfather…have I told you?” He has, but we don’t mind hearing it again.

“We started in the morning, with La Brindille giving the Maitre de Chasse his report. Quel piqueux,La Brindille! Quelle famille de piqueux! His father and his grand-father, his uncle and great-uncles – a century’s worth of excellent huntsman!” The word "piqueux" means huntsman, an employee whose job is to track game and help plan the attaque, as the day’s hunting is called. La Brindille means “the twig” and presumably his nickname implied that this particular huntsman was a worthy member of his family tree.

“We weren’t far from here that day, just back that way, up in the hills.” He gestured to the wooded highlands on the crest of the gentle slopes to the west.

“We’d been told of a great solitary boar, un vieux, a fine fellow with heavy tusks, in the forest around the Chateau de la Genevraye, over there. My grandfather had his own vautrait in those days.” Like everyone in Normandy, we know that a "vautrait" is a group of veneurs dedicated to chasing the boar. The term comes from the old French word for vautre, a sturdy hound used in medieval times for hunting wild bear as well as boar.

“La Brindille had been out tracking that morning la bête noire. Now he presented the comte with a huge footprint that he’d cut out of the mud with his knife. It was astonishing, and we were as excited as children at Christmas at the idea we formed of hunting this fine animal. We mounted our horses at 11 o’clock and uncoupled the hounds -- a brave pack of bâtard anglo-normand that my grandfather bred himself.

“Déception. Nothing! We decided to come back for another try later in the day. At four, with little enthusiasm, we started again, wondering aloud if it might be better to abandon the hunt and go for a fox, when suddenly one hound gave cry. First one, then four, then all the pack, quel ardeur! -- Les abois, the hounds giving voice from deep in their chest, vloo! And to this beautiful music was joined la sonnerie du sanglier, the melody of the horns that tells that the boar is on the run!”

French hunters carry trompes de chasse slung over their shoulders. These horns are used to play tunes called sonneries, which send information about the hunt with clarity and immediacy.

“Le sanglier ran through the entire forest of Moulins, with the hounds after him, cut across the route national 12, crossed the Paris-Granville railroad tracks, waded through the Risle, circled back into the forest and went to earth in a tangle like that,” he said, pointing to our hedgerow. At last, the hounds flushed him out. By then it was 8 o’clock at night, he went on. But the hallali, the final stand of the boar, continued.

La Brindille attempted to “servir” the fearsome beast with his knife.

“Et mon Dieu! The enragé charged our piqueux, knocked him down, tore his breeches, bit his hand, and shook his arm like a terrier with a rat. He ripped the sleeve off his coat!” The huntsman managed to haul himself into a tree, while the sanglier stood on hind legs and attacked his boots with sharp tusks.

A neighboring farmer, who had joined on foot, thought to stick the boar with a lance. Quick as a vipère, the boar whipped around and tore his pants off. The fellow barely managed to scramble away.

“And my grandfather got a taste of his fury, too – the boar gored him in the thigh. But that happened much earlier, when the boar was still on the run. My grandfather did nothing to provoke him, but that boar charged any man he saw.”

As night closed in on the combat, a member of the hunt fetched a carabine. All attempts to “serve” the animal in the traditional manner, with the long huntsman’s dagger, had failed. The wounded men and hounds limped back to kennels and a warm supper at the château. Les Honneurs – the sanglier’s foot – was given to the pretty young chatelaine, who had loyally followed the entire proceedings on horseback without yielding to fatigue or fright.

“Quelle magnifique bête!” exclaimed Louis-Achille, clearly having forgotten about the chatelaine. “That,” he added, nodding his head with admiration and perhaps unconsciously harking back to his Gaulois ancestors, “that was an epic hunt.”

With a calculating look at the covert into which the boar had vanished, he bid us good-bye and strode back in the direction of home. We decided to cut short our survey of the brambles and hedgerows. Nature, we reflected, is not always as passive as it looks. It is not as easily dominated by machines and technology as we might expect. Also, it was time for breakfast. Then we would call the élagueur.

I hope, dear Friend, you have enjoyed this bit of news, from this week at Chateau de Courtomer.

A bientôt,