294 HORSE-KACING IN FRANCE 



Frederic, married twice, without issue. But tlie Count Frederic 

 was a considerable man of business and of fashion from his 

 earliest days, taking great interest in mines, canals, railroads, 

 and glass factories, and occupying a brilliant social position in 

 Paris. He became noted for his dress and his equipages in the 

 Bois, and as a patron of art and literature, music, and the drama. 

 He (as well as his father) had been a member of the French 

 Jockey Club almost from its origin in 1833, when he was but 

 a boy ; but it was not until 1857 that he took seriously to horse- 

 racing. He had long before, however, in 1836, started his stag 

 hounds at his Chateau of Dangu, which he inherited in right of 

 his mother, a De Talhouet, and he had for huntsman the cele- 

 brated Latrace, whose services were borrowed by the Emperor 

 Napoleon III. ; for between the Emperor and the Count there 

 was a close bond of friendship — so close, indeed, that rumours 

 were current, and currently believed, concerning a confederacy 

 formed between the two for the purposes of horse-racing. How- 

 ever that may be, the intimacy probably began or was cemented 

 at a later date than 1848, when the Count is stated to have 

 headed a battalion of the National Guards for the sake of pre- 

 serving order. 



When he had once fairly entered upon the business as well 

 as pleasure of horse-racing, he soon became as well known both 

 by sight and by name on the English turf as on the French, at 

 Newmarket as at Chantilly ; there is some tradition of his 

 having acted as steward at one or more of our race meetings ; 

 and certainly in 1865 or 1866 he was elected an honorary 

 member of our Jockey Club. From that date he was, as an 

 owner and runner of race horses, almost more English than 

 French. On the other hand, with him may be said to have 

 originated the vast improvement which reached such rapid 

 development among the French thoroughbreds that we in the 

 course of a dozen years became alarmed for the supremacy 

 we had so long enjoyed as the breeders and runners of the 

 best horses in the world. The first foal ever dropped at the 

 Count's own stud farm at Dangu is said to have been Marignan, 

 by Womersley, foaled in 1859, who won races at two years 

 of age in England, and was purchased for 1,000Z. by the 

 French Government at the break-up of the Lagrange-Niviere 



