126 NEW METHOD OF HORSEMANSHIP. 



popular among the masses ; they will put within reach of 

 moderate fortunes, so nui^ ^rous in our land of equality, 

 the practice of an art that has hitherto been confined to 

 the rich. Such has been the aim of the labors of my 

 whole life. It is in the hope of attaining this end that I 

 give to the public the fruit of my long researches. 



But I should say, however, that if I was upheld by 

 the hope of being one day useful to my country, it was 

 the army above all that occupied my thoughts. Though 

 counting many skillful horsemen in its ranks, the system 

 they are made to follow, impotent in my eyes, is the true 

 cause of the equestrian inferiority of so many, as well as 

 of their horses being so awkward and badly broken. I 

 might add that to the same motive is to be attributed 

 the little taste for horsemanship felt by the officers and 

 soldiers. How can it be otherwise ? The low price 

 allowed by government for horses of remount, causes 

 few horses of good shape to be met with in the army, 

 and it is only of these that the education is easy. The offi- 

 cers themselves, mounted upon a very common sort of 

 horses, strive in vain to render them docile and agree* 

 able. After two or three years of fatiguing exercise, 

 they end by gaining a mechanical obedience, but the 

 same resistances and the same faults of construction are 

 perpetually recurring. Disgusted by difficulties that 

 appear insurmountable, they trouble themselves no more 

 about horses and horsemanship than the demands of the 

 service actually require. 



Yet it is indispensable that a cavalry officer be 

 always master of his horse, so much so as to be able, so 

 to say, to communicate his own thoughts to him ; the uni- 

 formity of manoeuvres, the necessities of command, the 

 perils of the battle-field, all demand it imperatively. The 

 life of the rider, every one knows^ often depends upon 



