G36 
CHARLATANISM IN PRANCE. 
not to give him five francs for every bottle of his mysterious 
beverage, while they would reluctantly part with fifteen or twenty 
sous for the visit and opinion of a competent veterinarian. 
Jacques Bonnet worthily closes the list of the celebrated 
empirics of our village. He is a new-comer, and has not yet 
won his spurs : but if we may judge from his boasting, and the 
marvels that he recounts, he will not be far behind his brethren. 
He was an old under-farrier at the imperial school at Saumur, and 
he has since served, but I know not in what capacity, in the 
4th Huzzars. He has already a terrible shop-board, and ‘^ma- 
rechal expert and smith, pupil of the Royal School at Saumur,’’ 
glitters in letters of gold on the wall of his shop. 
He says that he was veterinary surgeon to his regiment; but 
because he could not prove that he was even a marechal expert, 
an unwelcome visit was paid to him by the pitiless police, who 
proceeded to lay profane hands on his golden tablet. A lucky 
thought, however, occurred to him. He went to M. Havoux, 
a veterinary surgeon at the school of Saumur*, and besought 
him to pity his forlorn condition. Havoux gave him the follow¬ 
ing certificate:— 
** I, the undersigned. Professor of the Royal School of Saumur, 
declare and certify to whomsoever it may concern, that 
Jacques Bonnet has followed with assiduity and success 
a course of farriery, theoretical and practical, and that he 
merited the esteem of his superior officers. 
(^Signed) '^Havoux.” 
This would not have satisfied the sub-prefect, and who indeed 
was disposed to pay little attention to such a document, had it not 
been accompanied by a letter of the wary Havoux to the said 
Jacques Bonnet, in which he says that he may practise vete¬ 
rinary medicine without danger, and that no one has a right to 
interfere with him. A few days afterwards I had the satisfaction 
of seeing the said Jacques Bonnet’s name transcribed in the 
register labelled Diplomas of Medical Practitioners and Vete¬ 
rinary Surgeons.” I went to remonstrate against this; but it 
was whispered to me that the secretary of the sub-prefect was 
the uncle of Havoux, and I was silent. To reason against men 
in office is everywhere the pot of earth against that of iron. 
Shall I rapidly enumerate a few other practitioners of high 
renown of which our country may be proud ? 
* Saumur is the chief riding school in France. A veterinary surgeon is a 
mere medical officer, not an instructor, there. 
