356 HORSE-RACING IN FRANCE 



longer — practically held the monoply as regards the sale 

 of thoroughbred stock (though Mr. Pain, Mr. Rymill, 

 and others have had a ' cut in '). This is the more 

 extraordinary inasmuch as it is well known that Mr. 

 Eichard Tattersall (grandson of ' Old Tat,' the founder 

 of the two concerns, or the double concern), who did 

 more than any of the family to develop their betting 

 business (as well as the auctioneering), personally hated 

 betting, seldom made a bet himself (unless he was 

 pressed by a ' patron '), and warned young men against 

 belonging to his rooms : but somehow he does not ap- 

 pear to have had quite the courage of his opinions 

 (courage enough to run the risk of ruining himself for 

 principle's sake), so, instead of forbidding his premises 

 to be used at all for the purposes of betting, he built 

 his ' patrons ' a place in which they could bet more 

 commodiously than in the little room in which the 

 practice had commenced. 



It has already been seen that, if the French were 

 long before they took to horse-racing in earnest, they 

 took very soon and very kindly to betting on such 

 horse races as they had, insomuch that Louis XV. pro- 

 hibited horse-racing at one time for that reason, and 

 Louis XVI. would bet his ' petit ecu' for the sake of 

 setting his courtiers an economical example and giving 

 them a gentle hint. It is scarcely necessary to say, then, 

 that, under the auspices of Lord Henry Seymour and his 

 colleagues of 1833, there was plenty of betting, though 

 there was as yet no ' Eing ' and no ' Tattersall's.' Of 

 course ' anglomanie ' alone would have brought a French 

 ' rinsf ' and a French ' Tattersall's ' into voo^ue in due time 

 quite naturally ; but there were special incidents which 

 helped to hasten matters. We have seen that almost 

 as soon as the French Jockey Club was instituted (if 



