CHAPTER IV. 



THE FRENXH BULLDOG (BOULEDOGUE FRAXCAIS). 



BY FREDERICK W. COUSENS, M.R.C.V.S., F.Z.S. 



" Sir. lie's a good dog. and a fair dog. Can more be said? "—Shakespeare. 



AUTHORITIES across the Channel are 

 /-A of opinion that the French Bulldog is 

 strictly a breed of French origin, yet 

 they are willing to admit that of compara- 

 tively recent years there ha\-e been from time 

 to time importations from England which 

 ha\-e been used as a cross -ttith the native 

 dog, and that this cross has, perhaps, led 

 to a nearer approximation to the British 

 type than was the case prior to the admixture 

 of British blood. M. J. Bontroue, the 

 Secretary of the French Bulldog Club of 

 Paris, and Secretary of the French Kennel 

 Club, holds this opinion very strongly, as 

 do Mr. Gordon Bennet, President of the 

 Paris Club, and Prince de \\'agram, its 

 President d'Honneur. Mr. Max Hartenstein, 

 of Berlin, who was fust interested in the 

 French Bulldog in 1870, and has owoied and 

 bred great numbers of them, declares that 

 " there can be no two opinions as to the fact 

 of the French Bulldog being a distinct 

 French breed, with a longer history and 

 more remote origin than is general!}^ under- 

 stood." He is aware of the introduction 

 of small British specimens into France ; 

 not, however, necessarily for the purpose 

 of interbreeding, but principally because 

 French fanciers desired to have a bright, 

 \-ivacious, bantam specimen. He is of 

 opinion that in Paris, in 1870, the breed, 

 as a whole, was smaller than it is to-day. 



The late Mr. George R. Krehl, of London, 

 one of the greatest authorities, \\dth whom 

 the subject of the French BuUdog was very 

 thoroughly discussed by the present vmter, 

 went still further back into the past (nearly 

 three hundred years), and from his re- 

 searches built up a plausible and very pro- 

 bable theory as to the origin of this breed 

 in France. In a letter \\Titten by him to 

 the Slockkeeper Christmas Supplement, 1900, 



he showed grounds for belie\-ing that the 

 variet}' came originally from Spain. There 

 was pubhshed with ^Ir. Krehl's letter a 

 copy of an antique bronze placque dated 

 1625, bearing in bas-relief the head of a 

 Bulldog with either cropped, or bat, ears. 



LADY LEWIS'S CH. HARPDON CRIB 



BY CH. POLO DE BAGATELLE LA GITANA. 



and the inscription, " Dcgue de Burgos, 

 Espana, anno MDCXXV.," the artist's 

 name being CazaUa. This placque has been 

 examined by a connoisseur and pronounced 

 authentic. The historic value of this bronze 

 will be at once appreciated, when it is re- 

 membered that Burgos is the principal tov\Ti 

 of old Castile in Spain, noted for the breeding 

 of dogs used in the arena for bull-baiting. 



" We ha^•e no generic name for this 

 famil}'," Mr. Krehl wrote, " but in France 

 the\^ are called dogiies, whence we get our 

 own word dog, but we have corrupted the 

 meaning of it. The heads of the group are 

 the Spanish Bulldog, the dogue de Bordeaux. 



