FRENCH HORSES 295 



good at that time in France often meant the same as being 

 powerful for mischief, and the Haras system was rife with 

 abuses. The Haras du Koi, which were in theory, at all 

 events, the equivalent of the present well-managed stallion 

 depots, should have done well enough. Perhaps they even 

 tried to do well : at all events, Arthur Young,^ who visited 

 Pompadour, makes no direct charge against them. So might 

 the Haras maintained by great noblemen, like the Haras de 

 Chambord and of Eocroy, which professed to be as advan- 

 tageously at the service of the public as the State establish- 

 ments. Their regulations and conditions of service seem 

 reasonable and well considered. But the ' approuve ' stallion 

 played the deuce with everything — that is, the stallion 

 owned by a private gentleman and subsidised by the State 

 on prescribed conditions of standard and service had become 

 an intolerable burden and abuse. The conditions were 

 only nominal — a mere question of filling in forms and 

 affixing a signature. The advantages to the stallion owner, 

 on the other hand, were distinctly real. The owner of an 

 ' approuve ' or, as he was styled, a ' garde-etalon,' became 

 at once entitled to considerable remissions of direct and 

 indirect taxation, and to complete exemption from local 

 rates. It will be admitted, particularly in these days of agri- 

 cultural depression, that these were temptations not likely 

 to be easily resisted. 



All the collaterals of the nobles, as well as the nobles 



' Speaking of the Pompadour Haras, A. Young says : ' There are all kinds of 

 horses, but chiefly Arabian, Turkish, and English. Three years ago four 

 Arabians were imported which had been procured at the expense of 72,000 

 louis [£3,149]. The price of serving a mare is only three louis to the groom. 

 The owners are permitted to sell their colts as they please, but if these come 

 up to the standard height, the King's officers have the preference, provided they 

 give the price offered by others.' He goes on to say that all the horses had to 

 be taken up at night on account of wolves, which were so common about Pom- 

 padour as to be a plague to everybody. On the other hand, he had a very poor 

 opinion of the Chambord Haras — he speaks of it as an extravagant and wretched 

 concern, with ' not a tendency but to mischief.' 



