THE PERCHERON HORSE. 41 



reling with the mass of enlightened persons who seem 

 desirous of adopting the dark colored coats. I only desire 

 one thing, and that is to save the Percheron race, and to 

 preserve to Perche its prosperity and its glory. 



If I have liked the gray horse, it was from conviction, 

 and not to court those who saw no safety outside the 

 gray. But when the wisdom and the extreme intelligence 

 of masters of science, prefering a less showy color, de- 

 monstrated to me that Perche might find an era of new 

 glory and prosperity in changing the coat of its horse and 

 thus enlarging the circle of consumption, I bowed meek- 

 ly to their opinion. I liked the gray horse because I 

 thought that Providence had created it gray in order that 

 it might be able to withstand, during its work, the heat of 

 the sun, and not be prostrated under its rays. I liked it 

 gray, as the Arab likes his horse gray and his bournous 

 of a whitish color ; as the American planter likes his white 

 cotton suit and his panama ; as our soldier, in the field, 

 liked, under the African or Mexican sky, the havelock 

 which protected him against the rays of the burning 

 luminary. I liked it gray because it seemed to me to recall 

 more than any other the Arab, the primitive horse ; be- 

 cause Perche having always possessed gray horses, I 

 thought there was much more chance of finding, under 

 this coat, the type of the country ; because I had been 

 rocked to sleep to the tune of that old ballad of our 

 ancestors, celebrating Charles de Trie, the Percheron 

 Seigneur, going forth to combat the English at the battle 



of Poitiers : 



" On charger white 

 The sire of Trie 

 Against the foe 

 Has gone to war," etc. etc. ; 



because, in a word, during my infancy, I had breathed the 

 dust of the old manuscripts making mention of the white 

 Percheron mares. I liked it gray, because, for the service 

 of the post-coaches and couriers, in their long stages, in the 



