40i 
A French Haras and Horse Faii'. 
thinking much of the prejudice in France in regard to " blood" 
arises from the false impression entertained by many of his 
countrymen as to the English thoroughbred : the Anglophobist 
usually figures to himself a narrow, greyhound-like slip of a 
beast— a broken down, fifth-rate, light-weight racehorse. The 
views of the Anglophobist would probably be altogether changed 
if he could realise to himself, as I do, the robust proportions 
and the masculine beauty of such a grand old horse as " Vol- 
tigeur." The type of the intermediate horse is certainly the 
shapely Percheron. A Percheron-Breton cross was tried and 
failed ; on the other hand, as we know, the English blood in 
the Norfolk-Breton union is an admitted success. M. Gayot is 
justly very proud of the admirable native breed, dii Perchc. 
It would be cruel to raise any question when he says, with a 
smack of unconcealed satisfaction, " The English envy the 
Percheron, and so happily gratify our French national pride " — 
" un sentiment d^envie que savoure avec honheur notre patriotisme." 
The French experience in Algeria — a comparatively recent 
experience — is most instructive ; there, within the memory of 
many, the laws of extinction of race, and survival of the fittest, 
and so on, may in action be clearly traced. The old, old story : 
the European never came to Algeria to continue Arab civilisa- 
tion — but to colonise — that is, to reduce the general conditions 
to a common European level. The French found the Barb 
horse so good and useful, a race pure and undefiled, the very 
horse that made the French cavalerie indigene famous ; and now 
that famous race has been, or is being, rapidly improved off the 
face of the earth. All sorts of horses of all kinds have been 
imported — mai'es of at least seven French races, and the army 
aided in the general fusion by cast mares of the artillery ; 
omnibuses, for example, followed the hotels and railways ; vine 
cultivation requires a single strong horse to cultivate between 
the vine rows. Those Easterns were without doubt consummate 
horse-masters ; M. Lemichel quotes the beautifully humane Arab 
proverb : " When thou canst — walk me along — so that my 
gallop may save thy head in the hour of need." 
The military horse at any given moment might be the 
safeguard of the nation. M. Lemichel likes a medium-sized 
horse for the cavalry. M. Gayot says we cannot doubt many 
cart-mares are well adapted to produce the cJieval d'armes if 
put to a blood-horse ; again, the cart-mare put to a half-bred 
horse produces a good horse for the army. The Hungarian 
horses purchased in 1867-68 were said to be inferior and deli- 
cate. It is well known the late war with Germany alarmingly 
reduced the stock of French horses adapted for military 
purposes. 
