472 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



du Roi). This veterinarian, a man of great observation, 

 and an enlightened practitioner, may be said to have been 

 the most advanced of that school which, for two cen- 

 turies, had been endeavouring to improve the vicious 

 courses adopted by the farriers in their treatment of 

 horses' feet. The principal of these practices were in- 

 judicious removal of the horn, and the great weight and 

 length of the shoes. We have seen that the Italian writer, 

 Fiaschi, had already protested against the use of calkins, 

 which were becoming of greater size as time advanced. An 

 example of this, from the church-door of Saint-Saturnin, 

 has been already given. During the reign of Louis 

 XIV., this absurd fashion appears to have been at its 

 height. No thought seems to have been bestowed on the 

 injurious influence such shoeing might have on the form 

 or quality of the hoofs, on the true or false disposition of the 

 limbs, nor yet on the horse's natural movements. Chargers 

 and ordinary riding-horses wore strangely-shaped masses 

 of iron, which, for weight and clumsiness, could scarcely, 

 one would think, be carried by a strong waggon-horse 

 of our own times. This unreasonable and most pernicious 

 custom, which makes us wonder how it was possible that 

 anything like quick progression could be accomplished 

 without serious damage to the limbs of horses and riders, 

 is shown in the paintings of Lebrun, court-painter to the 

 Grand Monarque, which may be seen in the galleries of 

 the Louvre, and in which Alexander and other heroes of 

 antiquity are represented on horses whose feet are cum- 



had performed a like service for Lafosse's earlier work, ' Traite des Ob- 

 servations et des Decouvertes sur les Chevaux '). It has been repub- 

 lished in the Bibliotheque Velerinaire, Paris, 1849. 



