FRENCH HORSES 299 



us that a cavalry horse can hardl}' be too good an animal. 

 It is true that he has not to jump fences, but he has to carry 

 a weight which from a hunting point of view would be 

 restrictive ; and he must possess all the qualities of a fourteen- 

 stone grass-country hunter, blood, bone, stoutness, action, 

 and no lumber. To manage his job at all he must be able, 

 as dealers say, 'to move himself.' Breechloaders have done 

 away with the shock action of cavalry and the corresponding 

 advantages of heavy impetus. Job's war-horse, his neck 

 clothed with thunder, is as much a thing of the past as 

 the shouting captains he either carried or unhorsed. Lord 

 Cardigan led the Light Brigade up the Valley of Death on a 

 chestnut horse which had often cut out the work amongst 

 the strongly-fenced enclosures of Northamptonshire, and a 

 hunting man could pick a stud of horses out of, say, any two 

 squadrons of any Dragoon or Hussar regiment now stationed 

 at Aldershot, which he might take down to Tarporley or 

 Market Harborough without any hesitation as regards looks, 

 quality, or action. I am not sure that he could quite do this 

 from the troop stables at Chalons, but I should consider the 

 horses I saw quite up to the average animal. With one or 

 two favourable exceptions, like the shifty, long-tailed chest- 

 nut I mentioned before, they were all of the same type and 

 class, and there appears to be a reliable supply of well-bred, 

 native-born horses, with plenty of scope and quality, good 

 legs and feet, and particularly good backs and middle pieces. 

 Shoulders throughout perhaps left a little to be desired. 

 They often do. Indeed, they were so much of one model 

 that Gericault and Eosa Bonheur, Fromentin and Meissonier 

 might perhaps complain of individual character being too 

 much merged in a general type : but I imagine the French 

 cavalry horse is a better animal now than he has ever been, 

 and that he would go faster, carry more weight, and stand 

 the strain of a campaign very much better than the under- 



