[Illustration:  Fig. 132.—­Gaston Phoebus teaching the Art of Venery.—­Fac-simile of a Miniature of “Phoebus and his Staff for Hunting Wild Animals and Birds of Prey” (Manuscript, Fifteenth Century, National Library of Paris)]

[Illustration:  Fig. 133.—­“How to carry a Cloth to approach Beasts.”—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of Phoebus (Fifteenth Century).]

The curious miniatures which accompany the text in the original manuscript of Gaston Phoebus, and which have been reproduced in nearly all the ancient copies of this celebrated manuscript, give most distinct and graphic ideas of the various modes of hunting.  We find, for instance, that the use of an artificial cow for approaching wild-fowl was understood at that time, the only difference being that a model was used more like a horse than a cow (Fig. 133); we also see sportsmen shooting at bears, wild boars, stags, and such live animals with arrows having sharp iron points, intended to enter deep into the flesh, notwithstanding the thickness of the fur and the creature’s hard skin.  In the case of the hare, however, the missile had a heavy, massive end, probably made of lead, which stunned him without piercing his body (Fig. 134).  In other cases the sportsman is represented with a crossbow seated in a cart, all covered up with boughs, by which plan he was supposed to approach the prey without alarming it any more than a swinging branch would do (Fig. 135).

Gaston Phoebus is known to have been one of the bravest knights of his time; and, after fighting, he considered hunting as his greatest delight.  Somewhat ingenuously he writes of himself as a hunter, “that he doubts having any superior.”  Like all his contemporaries, he is eloquent as to the moral effect of his favourite pastime.  “By hunting,” he says, “one avoids the sin of indolence; and, according to our faith, he who avoids the seven mortal sins will be saved; therefore the good sportsman will be saved.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 134.—­“How to allure the Hare.”—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of Phoebus (Fifteenth Century).]

From the earliest ages sportsmen placed themselves under the protection of some special deity.  Among the Greeks and Romans it was Diana and Phoebe.  The Gauls, who had adopted the greater number of the gods and goddesses of Rome, invoked the moon when they sallied forth to war or to the chase; but, as soon as they penetrated the sacred obscurity of the forests, they appealed more particularly to the goddess Ardhuina, whose name, of unknown origin, has probably since been applied to the immense well-stocked forests of Ardenne or Ardennes.  They erected in the depths of the woods monstrous stone figures in honour of this goddess, such as the heads of stags on the bodies of men or women; and, to propitiate her during the chase, they hung round these idols the feet, the skins, and the horns of the beasts they killed.  Cernunnos, who was always represented with a human head surmounted by stags’ horns, had an altar even in Lutetia, which was, no doubt, in consequence of the great woods which skirted the banks of the Seine.