I02 HORSE-BACK RIDING. 



VI. 



HYGIENIC EFFECTS "OF HORSE-BACK RIDING. 



In an authentic description of the life of Diane de Poitiers, one of 

 the most remarkable of the royal favorites, we are told that the 

 " extraordinary and almost fabulous duration of her beauty was in a 

 great degree due to the precautions which she adopted." 



When she entered her fiftieth year, her charms were those of a 

 woman of twenty-five. To account for a fact so extraordinary, her 

 enemies invented a story to the effect that she dealt in the black art, 

 and that she was indebted for her perennial beauty to potions com- 

 pounded by unholy hands. 



But Diane's magic was one which any lady may practice without 

 endangering her soul : the magic of amiability, regular habits, and, 

 above all, vigorous exercise. 



" She suffered no cosmetic to approach her, denouncing every com- 

 pound of the kind She arose every morning at six 



o'clock, plunged into a cold bath, and had no sooner left her cham- 

 ber than she sprang into the saddle, and having galloped a league 

 or two, returned to bed, where she remained until mid-day engaged 

 in reading." 



This system appears a singular one, but in her case undoubtedly 

 proved most successful. 



" Six months before her death," says Brantome, " I saw her so 

 handsome that no heart of adamant could have been insensible to 



her charms She had just been riding on horse-back, 



and kept her seat as dexterously and well as she had ever done in 

 her youth." Brantome, Sketch of Diane de Poitiers, 



So far we have examined only the physiological 

 and therapeutical effects of horse-back riding ; now 

 we are to consider its hygienic uses — that is, we are to 

 study it not as regards its power to cure or relieve 



