THE FRENCH JOCKEY CLUB 35 



performed afterwards when the grant for the Grand 

 Prix de Paris was discussed by the municipal autho- 

 rities. M. Charles Laffitte, yielding to the epidemic 

 which was so prevalent in his country at the time, 

 married an Englishwoman, Miss Fairlie Cunningham, 

 who seems to have had a near relative of her own name 

 (perhaps her father or brother) among the early mem- 

 bers of the French Jockey Club, and who held an 

 acknowledged position among ' tlie beauties of Chan- 

 tilly.' Not as Charles Laffitte, however, the man of 

 business, the worthy banker, but as dashing 'Major 

 Fridolin,' or ' Colonel Fridolin ' (as he was sometimes 

 called), the fashionable military gentleman, was ' the 

 treasurer' known, at first on the French Turf and 

 then on our own. It was not, nevertlieless, in the 

 springtide of his sporting career, when his colours 

 appear to have been sky blue and black cap, but long 

 afterwards, wlien his white jacket and sky blue cap 

 were almost as well known and formidable in England 

 as in France, that he can be said to have exercised a 

 perceptible — though always a truly paternal — influence 

 upon the breed of French horses and the progress of 

 the French Turf. It was not, indeed, until the year 

 1864 or thereabouts, wlien, the Lagrange-Mviere part- 

 nership, known as ' la Grande Ecurie,' having been 

 dissolved, ' Major Fridolin ' became joint owner with 

 Baron Niviere of the La Morlaye stable and the Ville- 

 bon stud, that he began to be conspicuous. After that 

 Gontran, Bigarreau, Sornette, Franc-Tireur, and otliers, 

 some of them as well known and almost as much 

 thought of in England as in France, were horses that 

 did him extraordinary credit. Tlie best hits made by 

 the first treasurer of the French Jockey Club, whether 

 we call him M. Charles Laffitte or Major Fridolin, or 



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