FRANCE 



By PAUL CAILLARD 



ALTHOUGH the French have with surprising aptitude given 

 ^ themselves up to hard training for sport, it would indeed be 

 difficult to institute any satisfactory comparison between the French 

 and English modes of practising it. In the case of any other 

 European nation such comparison would be frankly impossible. 

 Since the end of the reign of Charles X. English customs, and, along 

 with them, almost all the forms of sport in vogue in England, have 

 little by little established themselves in France. This is particularly 

 noticeable under the Second Empire, and it was then that the 

 manners of our neighbours became in great measure acclimatised. 

 It was a strange sight for the two neighbouring nations, this mutual 

 adoption of the other's customs. 



It was at that period that the physical education, which had up 

 till then been sadly neglected in France, was adopted by some of 

 our most influential families on the English model. England is, in 

 fact, the natural home of those bodily recreations that have made 

 for her a race of powerful young men of exceptional endurance, 

 men who devote their leisure to that incessant striving in compe- 

 titions which is bound to save them from degenerating, as they 

 would otherwise do in a life devoid of such physical exercises, 



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