18 THE PEECHEEON HOESE. 



The Abbe Fact, in a letter addressed to the Congress 

 of Mortagne, July 16, 1843, and in his great work upon 

 La Perche, cites in this connection a lord of Montdou- 

 bleau, Geifroy IV., and Rotrou, Count of La Perche, as 

 having brought back from Palestine several stallions, 

 which were put to mares, and the progeny most carefully 

 preserved. The small number of the sires, their incom- 

 parable beauty, and manifest superiority, must have led to 

 the in-and-in breeding so much deprecated by most 

 breeders ; but the qualities of the sires became indelibly 

 fixed upon their progeny. 



The lord of Montdoubleau was, it is said, the most 

 zealous of the advocates and breeders of the new blood, 

 and, being the most zealous, was the most successful ; hence 

 it is that the Montdoubleau stock is to this day the best in 

 Perche. The Count Roger, of Bellesmer, imported both 

 Arabian and Spanish horses, as did Goroze, the lord of 

 Saint Cerney, Courville, and Course roult ; these are histor- 

 ical facts which have their importance. Like chronicles, 

 it is true, exist for other provinces for Limousin, for Na- 

 varre, for Auvergne (the land of noble horses), also for 

 Brittany and Maine ; but in the latter not the least sign of 

 Eastern blood is perceptible. The fact is, the crusaders 

 from all the French provinces naturally brought back with 

 them more or less of the Eastern blood, which they had 

 learned to appreciate on the plains of Palestine but the 

 truth is, it has not been preserved elsewhere ; and that we 

 in La Perche, after so many centuries, should be so for- 

 tunate as to be able to show the traces of it, should stimu- 

 late us to its careful preservation. 



From the time of the Roman domination, the horse 

 in his oriental forms was not only valued by the Gauls, 

 but was particularly prized in Perche. In 1861 a subter- 

 ranean vault was discovered in the middle of a field, near 

 Jargeau (Loiret), upon the borders of Perche. It contain- 

 ed a statue of Bacchus, surrounded by bacchanals, with 



