FrEXCH GuVERXMESfT StUDS. II5 



The Government attempted to revive the breed by sending good coaching stallions into the 

 circumscription (district), with the view of breeding artillery horses ; but the peasant proprietors 

 would have nothing to do with these sires, even at nominal fees. They found it more profitr.ble to 

 put their mares -to Flemish wagon-horses. "Les rouleurs flamand ont ete prefere a nos bons 

 etalons carrossier." 



It is, then, to fill the place occupied in this country by a resident country gentry and a 

 horse-loving race of farmers, to encourage and assist a race of peasant cultivators, and to 

 secure as far as possiible for the use of the French army a class of horses for which the riding 

 and hunting tastes of England afford an unlimited demand, that the French Government has 

 been compelled for more than forty years to maintain a system of artificial encouragement on a 

 very extensive scale. 



The production of the class of horses required for the French cavalr}', that is, carriage-horses 

 and well-bred riding-horses — " dcs cluvanx a deux fins " (" horses with two good ends," as London 

 dealers say) — has never in France been equal to the demand even in time of peace. The deficiency 

 between importation and exportation has been estimated at fifteen per cent. The deficiency has 

 existed from the seventeenth century, that is, as soon as standing armies were established. 



The first measures for Improving the horse-supply of France were taken in the reign of Louis 

 XIV. As a matter of course, in the spirit of the age, these attempts mainly consisted of a number 

 of vexatious regulations, suggested by naturalist philosophers of the desk. 



Under Louis XIV., his subjects in Lorraine and Alsace, amongst the few Frenchmen (they are 

 in blood Germans), says M. Gayot, "who are really fond of a horse, and who took special pride 

 in their teams, were so harassed and discouraged by the plunder of foreign and the requisitions 

 of their own armies, that they, on system, took to breeding miserable brutes just able to draw 

 a plough or cart, and not worth stealing. 



At this time the household cavalry of the king were mounted entirely on black Danish or bay 

 Mecklenburg horses. 



The nobility of the Court imported well-bred English horses — that is, in the intervals of wars. 

 Under Louis XV., Marshal Saxe came to England to buy chargers. Under Louis XVI. races 

 were run in the English style on the plain of Sartory, and Philippe Egalite rode as a jockey. 

 In 1798, under the Republic, the Council of Five Hundred decreed that stallions of pure races 

 should be provided at the expense of the State, for the benefit of the breeders. Races and other 

 modes of encouraging breeding were established. 



The same system, with slight modifications, was adopted under the first Empire, when the 

 series of wars made a severe run on the horse production of France, although all Continental 

 Europe was requisitioned for mounting the Imperial cavalry. Stallions and mares were imported 

 from the East ; but, except for the short period of the Peace of Amiens, the English market was 

 closed to French purchasers, official and private. 



In 18 1 3-14 requisitions for the cavalry had reduced the horse stock of France to its lowest 

 condition, and very little was done to stimulate horse-breeding under the Governments of Louis 

 XVIII. and Charles X. — the latter monarch having a prejudice against everything foreign and 

 everything new worthy of English country squires in Pitt's time. 



After the Revolution of July, 1830, a serious inquiry into the condition of horse-breeding 

 led to the establishment of the very elaborate system, " de l' encouragement," which was adopted, 

 enlarged, and improved by the late Emperor of the French, who employed a German gentleman 

 to organise a system of stallion studs on the plan adopted in the kingdom of Prussia. 



The main object of this system was to provide a sufficient number of stallions (fit 



