As soon as the lad reached his fifteenth year, Claude put a gun into his hands, and took him hunting with him.

Under the teaching of M.de Buxieres, Claudet did honor to his master, and soon became such an expert that he could give points to all the huntsmen of the canton.

None could equal him in tracing a dog; he knew all the passes, by-paths, and enclosures of the forest; swooped down upon the game with the keen scent and the velocity of a bird of prey, and never was known to miss his mark.

Thus it was that the country people surnamed him the 'grand chasserot', the term which we here apply to the sparrow-hawk.

Besides all these advantages, he was handsome, alert, straight, and well made, dark-haired and olive-skinned, like all the Buxieres; he had his mother's caressing glance, but also the overhanging eyelids and somewhat stern expression of his father, from whom he inherited also a passionate temperament, and a spirit averse to all kinds of restraint.