Les mille et un fantômes

A seasoned hunter narrates a September day in 1831, when an old friend summons him to open the annual chase at Fontenay‑aux‑Roses. He reflects on years spent tracking hares and deer across the forests of Compiègne and Villers‑Cotterets, and now looks forward to a new landscape beyond the familiar farms of his brother‑in‑law. The invitation carries a promise of fresh game and the ritual of counting the day's trophies, a pastime that has become as much a science as a sport for him.

The plains of Brassoire unfold in vivid detail: rolling meadows dotted with rabbit burrows, shy hares, and the distant smoke of half‑hidden cottages. Amid this natural tableau, strange white stone blocks rise on mechanised wheels that crawl like tireless squirrels, pulling ancient stones from hidden quarries to the surface. The narrator watches these endless cycles with a mixture of curiosity and awe, sensing that the land holds more mysteries than the hunt alone can reveal.