174 
SOME CONSIDERATIONS IN FAVOUR OF THE LEGAL 
PROJECT PRESENTED TO THE CHAMBER OF PEERS, 
WITH REFERENCE TO A CHANGE IN THE POSITION 
OF THE FRENCH ARMY VETERINARY SURGEONS. 
By M. Renault, Director of the Royal Veterinary School 
at Alfort . 
[It is with unfeigned pleasure that we solicit the attention of 
our readers to this memorial. They will pardon its length, and 
join with us in the heartfelt wish that the French veterinary 
surgeon may at length occupy that rank in society to which 
he has an undoubted claim. — Edit.] 
The project of a law, relative to the amount of the pay to 
be received by the veterinary surgeon on his retirement from 
actual service, and the rank which he shall be permitted to claim, 
has been adopted by the Chamber of Deputies, and will shortly 
be discussed in the Chamber of Peers. 
Enabled by my situation in our schools to comprehend all 
the reasons and the bearing of this project ; having long la- 
mented the serious inconveniences which result to the army from 
the actual position of the veterinary surgeons ; being deeply con- 
vinced of the utility and the necessity, with reference to our 
cavalry, of the measures proposed by the government ; I have 
thought it my duty and connected with the interest of my coun- 
try and of the useful men that issue from our schools, to submit 
briefly to the Chamber some considerations which may induce it 
to modify the opinion that it seems to have formed respecting 
the measures that have been brought before it. I am the more 
incited to this, if I am rightly informed that the principal object 
of the project, already so seriously modified by the commission, 
will probably be farther attacked by some honourable peers, to 
whose opinion their high military position and incontestable merit 
will give great weight in this question. 
Nevertheless, to the legitimate and powerful authority of the 
eminent men whose opinion l am about to combat, I shall 
oppose another still more powerful and more legitimate, 
namely, that of reason, of justice, and the common interest of 
our country. The Chamber to whose understanding and unim- 
peached impartiality I address myself will determine whether I 
am wrong. 
If there is a fact incontestable and unfortunate, it is the fre- 
