Spiers: Memoranda of an autumn tour in 1836

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CONT. AUG. 18. THUR.

during the day. "Il était bon enfant". An Englishman with his wife had since visited the town & ours was the third arrival during 12 years. Truly therefore might the circumstance form an epoch in the life of a continental innkeeper. After an excellent dinner of which some jambon du sanglier des Ardennes form an estimable part a fine trout and then a bottle of Vin de bar and then we went with our host to visit the church. "It is a large & fine structure both without & within. Much marble about its altars and around the choir tablets of finely carved wood recording the principal events of the saint's life." How St Hubert who was originally a dissolute prince, among other guilty acts, committed that of hunting on Sundays. How he held not even sacred the holy festival of Good Friday and how while engaged in his favourite diversion on that day a stag suddenly presented itself to him bearing a cross growing between its horns. How he henceforward renounced his vices and pleasures & devoting himself and his large fortune to the church came to be accounted a saint of such high renown as to have the powers of working miracles not merely by his hands but by his garments. It cannot but strike one that the large fortune bore a prominent part in this formation of his repute. Be that as it may he succeeded in procuring for himself the patronage of all hunters & sportsmen. On our return to England the amulets which we have purchased & which have been blessed at his shrine may possibly be above all price to our foxhunting Oxford men.

M. Coutelier recollected every circumstance of the boar hunt, & of Inglis' visit to & conversation with the procureur du Roi, detailing everything to us with a minuteness truly amusing. The good old fellow's delight at seeing recorded in a volume, his own name & that of his town & of other persons residing in it was vastly interesting. He had the book in his hand a good part of our dinner time & a constant smile was on his countenance while looking over pages of which he recognised what was destined to make him a noted character to the world. He took us to see the lady with whom Inglis had lodged the latter part of his stay. She was then "a large good looking woman

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