SPOBT AND SPORTSMEN ON THE FEENCH COAST. 283 



to keep out the storm. M. Delamarre's Keine 

 Claude, the favourite, galloped or swam in first 

 for the next race, a handicap, and as the odd- 

 looking little hurdles, made of a sort of broom 

 apparently, were being put up the exodus began. 

 Of the second day's racing I cannot speak from 

 experience, never having been able to overcome 

 a prejudice against racing on Sunday, but I 

 hear that the course, which lies low, was a 

 regular quagmire in parts, and that an animal 

 on which such of the English division as were 

 there had wildly plunged, slipped up, and fell as 

 he was winriing in good style ; also that a 

 French mare, though she seemed over-weighted 

 in the heavy going, won the steeplechase with 

 considerable ease from her three opponents, 

 thereby diverting sundry napoleons into the 

 pockets of the bookmakers and, I hope, of the 

 plucky old woman who laid the odds. I saw 

 Petitsinge coming back in a clattering caUche 

 with two big white horses, and from the little 

 man's appearance I judged that he had been 

 making an ass of himself. Perhaps the 

 splendours of the fireworks revived him some- 

 what, for a very gorgeous display was given in the 

 evening, and was applauded, the local Gazette 

 relates, by " tout ce que le high life qui se trouve 

 ici a de plus distingue' et de jylus elegaiit.'' 



