XXXV1 THE MASTER OF GAME

Bodleian.” Now every one of these statements is wrong: Gaston was born in 1331, he di
marry the daughter of the King of France, but the daughter of the King of ees ae ae
only one book on hunting, and it has been printed several times ; and fae fee k oe
exist certainly forty MS. copies of it, the British Museum possessing However onl erie
Bodleian none at all, as the reader can ascertain by a glance at the ipieee hh at pees a
volume, where the whereabouts of the forty copies are given.’ It will pan on i ee
these criticisms of the masterful old veneur can hardly claim to be the outer ooae ee
existing works or of original research, and they evince nescience not only concernin ce e ‘ 5
the time when he lived, but also of historical facts easily ascertainable. eee
No man who loved hunting so ardently as Gaston incontestably did could possibly have b
of voluptuous tastes. His book, which is a pattern of modesty, is the best eee oot fa
strong, manly nature, of physical strength, of courage, and of his abhorrence of taking on 4
advantages of his prey or of curtailing the hunted animal’s chances of escape. deed ie -
to the chase such as his brought with it greater risks than those encountered by peeled —
on the battlefield. When kings were so “quick and deliver of limb” that they could ahi :
the fleetest deer without horse, dog, or bow, as did, according to Chaucer, the English pri no
whom our “ Master of Game” was dedicated ; when emperors followed huge en pee -
terror of the surrounding country, into their dens, slaying them cfiaeile, bewdledl at s eae
hunting-knife, as did Maximilian of Germany ; when men thought aioe of followin io =
horseback, then on foot, a stag for two days following, sleeping out eereyeeninie Reel a
as more than one French King did, to speak of that robust age and of those badly veneurs eae
superior sneer makes one impatient of criticism of this sort by an age that has ceased t 4
most of its sport as a test of endurance or of woodmanscraft. aan
poe enough the quoted passage in italics bears a strong resemblance to one I wrote so i

previously in scounay Life” (Dec. 7, 1g0r) when speaking of another work, t.e., the ‘“ Master of cos ae
words were: Nineteen MS. copies (of the work) are known to exist, of which thirteen are in the eee
Museum, and three in the Bodleian.” Though he does not acknowledge the source from which he obtained

ee which he has mistakenly attributed to the wrong author and wrong book, the similarit
of the two sentences is remarkable, if I be mistaken in my assumption as to the paternity of the ere in mera

 

 

THE MS. 616 OF “GASTON PHOEBUS”

DETAILED description of the various existing copies of ‘‘ Gaston Phoebus ”__forty Cs
forty-one in number—will be found in the Bibliography at the end cs this volume, ‘but it
may interest the reader to hear the story of the particular manuscript, preserved in the
National Library of France at Paris, which contains the beautiful illuminations repro-

duced in our pages. It +s without question the most sumptuous hunting book that exists, and few
volumes have had such a strikingly romantic career.

Who the first owner of this Codex was is unfortunately unknown; we only know that it was
not the copy which the author in his dedication says that he presented to his lifelong friend and
ally Philip the Bold, the erstwhile English prisoner. This lost MS. was probably written under
by one or the other of his four secretaries, which Froissart tells us were con-

Gaston’s own eye wie
These he did not call John, or Gautier, or William, but

stantly employed by Gaston de Foix. Oa
nicknamed them “ Bad me Serve,” or “ Good for Nothing.” This priceless bibliophile treasure

must have been adorned with magnificent illuminations, for already in the sixteenth century they
were the subject of an enthusiastic account. This was by Argote de Molina in his Lzro de la
Monteria, published in Seville in 1582. Molina says: “ It is embellished with illuminations exe~
cuted with the very greatest skill, and is now in the San Lorencgo Library in the Escurial, having
been inherited by his Catholic Majesty the King our Master (Philip m.)” Once enshrined in what
was one of, if not the greatest library of the time, it was not heard of again till Lavallée, in the
middle of the last century, began his investigations concerning this Codex. At that time it was
believed that it had perished in the great fire which consumed a portion of the Escurial Library in
June 1671, but this turned out to be incorrect, for it was found that it had escaped that fate, and
that it had disappeared only in the turbulent year of 1809 from the Escurial. What became of it
no man knows.

But to return after this slight digression to our MS. 616. As one removes from its stout pro-

tective case the ponderous vellum-leaved Codex, now unfortunately, in consequence of the last fiery
ordeal through which it passed at the sack of Neuilly, enveloped ina gaudy modern binding, one
comes first upon a finely emblazoned coat of arms that takes up the whole page of smooth vellum.
It contains a great number of quarterings, and round the shield is painted the many-linked chain
of the Order of the Golden Fleece. According to Joseph Lavalleée, than whom no one expended
more pains on researches relating to ‘Gaston Phoebus,” both man and book, it is the coat of the
Saint Vallier family, French nobles of very ancient descent. This leaf with the Saint Vallier arms
is not quite as old as the rest of the book, for while the text and the illuminations date from the
middle of the fifteenth century, the arms are the creation of the second half. How this leaf came
there the following account will attempt to show.

The exquisite workmanship of text and illuminations convince one that it must have been made
for some very high personage—probably one of the royal princes, or possibly Charles VII. himself.
What we know is that about 1470 Aymar de Poitiers, Seigneur of Saint Vallier, married Marie,
natural daughter of Louis xt. and of Marguerite de Sassenage ; and their son Jean de Poitiers,
Seigneur of Saint Vallier, was the father of the famous Diane de Poitiers, the all-powerful mistress
of Francis 1. and of his son Henry u. It is very probable that our Codex formed part of Louis