Note 210 — XXXV. RITSON. 1761–1830.

General Advertiser, March 4th, 1784. Since Ritson quoted this from the newspaper of his day, 80 years ago, the same scenes of equal and possibly of still greater barbarity have been recorded in our newspapers, season after season, of the royal and other hunts, with disgusting monotony of detail. Voltaire’s remarks upon this head are worthy of quotation: “It has been asserted that Charles IX. was the author of a book upon hunting. It is very likely that if this prince had cultivated less the art of torturing and killing other animals, and had not acquired in the forests the habit of seeing blood run, there would have been more difficulty in getting from him the order of St. Bartholomew. The chase is one of the most sure means for blunting in men the sentiment of pity for their own species; an effect so much the more fatal, as those who are addicted to it, placed in a more elevated rank, have more need of this bridle.”—Œuvres LXXII., 213. In Flaubert’s remarkable story of La Légende de St. Julien the hero “developes by degrees a propensity to bloodshed. He kills the mice in the chapel, the pigeons in the garden, and soon his advancing years gave him opportunity of indulging this taste in hunting. He spends whole days in the chase, caring less for the ‘sport’ than for the slaughter.” One day he shoots a Fawn, and while the despairing mother, “looking up to heaven, cried with a loud voice, agonising and human,” St. Julien remorselessly kills her also. Then the male parent, a noble-looking Stag, is shot last of all; but, advancing, nevertheless, he comes up to the terrified murderer, and “stopped suddenly, and with flaming eyes and solemn tone, as of a just judge, he spoke three times, while a bell tolled in the distance, ‘Accursed one! ruthless of heart! thou shalt slay thy father and mother also,’ and tottering and closing his eyes he expired.” The blood-stained man on one occasion is followed closely by all the victims of his wanton cruelty, who press around him with avenging looks and cries. He fulfils the prophecy of the Stag, and murders his parents.—See Fortnightly Review, April, 1878.