Bruno’s dog is a basset hound called Gigi, which raises the question why should a male dog be called a girl’s name? The dog, a gift from the Mayor when Bruno first moved into his house, was originally called Gitan, the masculine form of the French word for gypsy. (The classic French Gitane cigarette is the female form, and the cigarettes long boasted a female flamenco dancer on the packet.) But the French love nick-names and Bruno quickly shortened the name to Gigi in a form of tribute to his friend the baron, who used to own a giant Bordeaux mastiff called Gitan, who was also universally known as Gigi

Basset hounds were developed in France, and legend has it that they were first bred by St Hubert himself, the patron saint of hunting. The characteristic long ears are useful, helping to stir up the faintest of scents still concealed in the grass and undergrowth. St Hubert trained them to hunt wild boar, as they still do in packs to this day. They are not fast, but they are very strong and have enormous stamina so they can trot from dawn to dusk and exhaust their quarry. When the boar is too tired to run any further, two bassets dart in from either side and each grabs a foreleg and pulls. The boar falls to the ground, often with his tusks digging into the earth to immobilise him further, and then the hunter approaches to give the coup de grace. These days, it usually comes in the form of a bullet. Traditionally, a boar spear was used, a long spear that has a cross-piece. This was designed to stop the boar from charging up the spear to attack the hunter even if the beast was already transfixed through the chest or throat. So the boar spear was a testimony to the animal’s strength and determination, even when dying.

These days, the basset is more commonly used as a digger, driving into badgers’ sets and rabbit warrens and foxes’ lairs with its powerful forelegs. A pack of bassets can clear a rabbit warren in a morning. They are not aggressive and seldom pick fights with other dogs and are wonderfully patient with children. But if attacked, even by a much larger dog, the basset can be a ferocious fighter. As the Americans say, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

Bassets are not the easiest of dogs to train. While devoted to their masters, they are governed by their noses and it takes a great deal of training for a basset on the trail of an alluring scent to obey a human summons. Gigi, bred by the Mayor’s own renowned hunting dog, must have obedient genes for Bruno has trained him not only to respond but also to retrieve the game birds Bruno has shot.

Gigi has also been trained to use his incomparable nose to sniff out truffles, the black diamonds that are one of the glories of Perigord cuisine. It adds a uniquely rich and earthy smell to dishes, from omelettes to pasta to meats and is highly prized by gourmets.

A form of fungus that grows amid the roots of certain trees, usually a truffle oak, the truffle is usually a small dark-brown or almost black growth about the size of lumpy ping-pong ball. Larger ones command astronomical prices, over 2000 euros a kilo, in the famous truffle market of Sainte Alvère not far from St Denis.

Bruno has planted a row of truffle oaks on his property, which he considers to be his private retirement fund. But he also knows the woods for miles around his town, and Gigi is a splendid sniffer-out of truffles. Some hunters use pigs to sniff and root out the truffles, but many prefer well-trained dogs and a successful truffle hound is worth a fortune, and so is its progeny. It was a very valuable gift that the Mayor gave to Bruno.

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One of the most remarkable features of the basset hound is its bay, an enormous sound from what seems a relatively small dog, and one that is strangely tuneful. It is tempting, although probably historically incorrect, to suggest that Shakespeare had bassets in mind when he wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream. From Act IV, Scene 1:

Hippolyta: “They bayed the bear

With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear

Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,

The skies, the fountains, every region near

Seem’d all one mutual cry: I never heard

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.”

Theseus: “My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,

So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung

With ears that sweep away the morning due;

Crook-kneed and dew-lapp’d like Thessalian bulls;

Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,

Each under each. A cry more tuneable

Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn.”

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