32 HORSE-rtACING IN FRANCE 



race horses, is probably better remembered as an 

 accomplished musician and composer and as a writer of 

 various works (whether about horses or upon other 

 subjects), as well as a magnificent viveicr, than as a 

 patron of horse-racing and horse-breeding. His name 

 is not conspicuous among either the winners of the 

 great French races or the importers of horses that 

 became famous as sires. His colours — yellow, blue 

 sleeves and cap — never sliowed (according to the re- 

 cords) in the first place among the runners for the 

 Frencli Oaks or the French Derby. On the other hand 

 he was the composer of the opera ' Regine ' (to mention 

 none other), and he wrote the ' Histoire du Siege de 

 Valenciennes,' to say nothing of ' horsey ' treatises. He 

 was born in May 1805 and died in July 1857 ; he 

 married the daughter and only child of the French 

 ' king-maker,' Jacques Laffitte, the banker, who in 

 mockery of his son-in-law's title called himself ' Prince 

 du Rabot ' (' Prince of the Plane,' for his father had 

 been a carpenter), and who made the celebrated reply 

 'C'est trop tard' to the reluctant overtures of Charles X. 

 It seems but the other day that we were reading the 

 distressing story of the Prince de la Moscowa's widow 

 and her behaviour towards her daughter, who had 

 married the Duke de Persigny and shared his ruined 

 fortunes at Nice, and were wondering whether, what 

 with the fate of the ' bravest of the brave,' what with 

 the sad end of the second Duke d'Elchingen, and what 

 with the public scandal concerning the Princess de la 

 Moscowa and her daughter, there was ever a family 

 whose fortunes were such a mixture of brilliancy and 

 misery as those of the Neys. 



As for M. Rieussec, the other vice-president, he was 

 a notable man in many ways, and his death is his- 



