Pagina 447 van 788

It is well known to you gentlemen that almost all the

Czartoryskis within the memory of man, though they spring from

the blood of the Jagiellos, are nevertheless not over keen on

hunting, though certainly not from laziness, but from their

foreign tastes; and the Prince General looked oftener into books

than into kennels, and oftener into ladies' alcoves than into the

forests.

"In the Prince's suite was a German, Prince de Nassau,155 of whom

they related that, when a guest in the Libyan country, he had

once gone hunting with the Moorish kings, and there with a spear

had overcome a tiger in hand to hand combat, of which feat that

Prince de Nassau boasted greatly. In our country, at that time,

they were hunting wild boars; Rejtan had killed with his musket

an immense sow, at great risk to himself, for he shot from close

by. Each of us admired and praised the sureness of the aim; only

the German, de Nassau, listened with indifference to such

compliments, and, walking off, muttered in his beard that a sure

aim proved only a bold eye, but that cold steel proved a bold

hand; and once more he began to talk big about his Libya and his

spear, his Moorish kings and his tiger.