Meanwhile, in the heart of the child there remains always a weary pain that lies on his childish life as a stone may lie on a flower. "I killed them," he says often to himself, thinking of the two little white brothers frozen to death on Martinswand that cruel night; and he does the things that are told him, and is obedient, and tries to be content with the humble daily duties that are his lot, and when he says his prayers at bedtime always ends them so: "Dear God, do let the little lambs play with Findelkind that is in heaven."

Ouida.

HORSE-RACING IN FRANCE.

I cannot help feeling the most lively regret that trotting-contests should have taken no hold upon the fancy of my countrymen, who would find in their magnificent roads an opportunity for the demonstration of the practical, every-day value of a good trotter far more favorable than any possessed by America. But it seems that no considerations of utility or convenience can prevail against popular prejudices and, above all, the mode; and we find even the baron d'Étreilles, official handicapper and starter to the Jockey Club—and therefore an authority—writing this singular paragraph in Le Sport: "Trotting-races deserve but little encouragement. The so-called trotting-horse does not, in fact, trot at all. His pace is forced to such a degree of exaggeration as to lose all regularity, at the same time that it is rendered valueless for any practical purpose. The trotter can no more be put to his speed upon an ordinary road than can the racer himself. By breaking up the natural gait of a horse he is made to attain an exceptional speed, it is true, but in doing so he has contracted an abnormal sort of movement for which it is impossible to find a name. It is something between a trot and a racking pace, and with it a first-rate trotter can make four kilomètres (two miles and a half) in seven minutes and a half, and not much less, whatever may be said to the contrary. I know that certain time-keepers have marked this distance as having been done in seven minutes, but this I consider disputable, to say the least." M. d'Étreilles cites, however, as an exception to his rules, a horse called Rochester, belonging to the Prince E. de Beauvan, which trotted nineteen miles in one hour without breaking or pacing, but when a return bet was proposed, with the distance increased to twenty miles, the owner of Rochester refused.

These assertions of the French authority will appear strange enough to Americans. But we must add that the views of M. d'Étreilles on this subject are by no means universally shared in France. A writer whose practical experience and long observation entitle his opinions to much weight—M. Gayot—goes so far as to say that the American trotters really form a distinct race. "The Northern States of the Union," he writes, "have accomplished for the trotter what England has done for the thoroughbred: by selecting the best—that is to say, the swiftest and the most enduring—and by breeding from these, there has been fixed in the very nature of their progeny that wonderful aptitude for speed which," in direct contradiction to the opinion of M. d'Étreilles, he declares to be "of the greatest practical utility."

The administration of the Haras and the Society for the Encouragement of the Raising of Horses of Half-blood have established special meetings at which trotting-prizes are given. That these are by no means to be despised has been proved by M. Jouben's Norman trotter Tentateur, who last year earned for his owner twenty thousand francs without the bets. There is a special journal, La France Chevaline, which represents the interests of the "trot," and its development has been further encouraged by an appropriation of sixty thousand francs voted this year by the Chamber. A former officer of the Haras has also set up an establishment at Vire for the training of trotters. In 1878 a track was laid out at Maison Lafitte, near Paris, for the trial of trotting-horses, and the government, in the hope that animals trained to this gait would be sent to Paris from other countries during the great Exhibition if sufficient inducement were offered, awarded a sum of sixty-two thousand francs to be given in premiums. Six races took place on the principal day of the trials. These were in harness to two- and four-wheeled wagons, and two of the matches were won by Normans, two by English horses and two by horses from Russia of the Orloff breed. America was, unfortunately, not represented. As to the public, it took little interest in the event, notwithstanding its novelty: the few persons who had come to look on soon grew tired of it, and after the fourth race not a single spectator was left upon the stands.

The marquis de MacMahon, brother of the marshal, used to say that the gallop was the gait of happy people, the natural movement of women and of fools. "The three prettiest things in the world," wrote Balzac, "are a frigate under sail, a woman dancing and a horse at full run." I leave these opinions, so essentially French, to the judgment of Americans, and turn to another point of difference in the racing customs of the two countries.

In France the practice of recording the time of a race is looked upon as childish. The reason given is, that horses that have run or trotted separately against time will often show quite contrary results when matched against each other, and that the one that has made the shortest time on the separate trial will frequently be easily beaten on the same track by the one that showed less speed when tried alone. However this may be, it appears that the average speed of running races in France has increased since 1872. At that time it was one minute and two to three seconds for one thousand mètres (five furlongs); for two thousand mètres (a mile and a quarter), 2m. 8 to 10s.; for three thousand mètres (one mile seven furlongs), 3m. 34 to 35s.; for four thousand mètres (two miles and a half), 4m. 30 to 35s. The distance of the Prix Gladiateur (six thousand two hundred mètres or three and three-quarter miles one furlong)—the longest in France—is generally accomplished in 8m. 5 to 6s., though Mon Étoile has done it in 7m. 25s. But the mean speed, as we have said, has been raised since 1872, as it has been in America.

But let us come back to our Norman circuit, which this digression about time and trotting interrupted at Rouen. The sleepy old mediæval town on this occasion rouses itself from its dreams of the past and awakens to welcome the crowd of Norman farmers who come flocking in, clad for the most part in the national blue blouse, but still bearing about their persons those unmistakable though quite indescribable marks by which the turfman can recognize at a glance and under any costume the man whose business is with horses. Every trade and calling in life perhaps may be said to impart to its followers some distinguishing peculiarity by which the brethren of the craft at least will instinctively know each other; and amongst horse-fanciers these mysterious signs of recognition are as infallible as the signals of Freemasonry. As one penetrates still farther into Normandy on his way to the Caen races—which come off a few days after those at Rouen—one becomes still more alive to the fact that he is in a great horse-raising country. It is indeed to the departments of Calvados and the Orne beyond all other places that we owe those fine Norman stallions of which so many have been imported into America. In the Pin stud, at the fairs of Guibray and of Montagne, one may see the descendants of the colossal Roman-nosed horses of Merlerault and Cotentin which used to bear the weight of riders clad in iron, and which figure at a later day in the pictures of Van der Meulen. The infusion of English blood within the present century, and particularly during the Second Empire, has profoundly modified the character of the animal known to our ancestors: the Norman, with the rest of the various races once so numerous in France, is rapidly disappearing, and it will not be very long before two uniform types only will prevail—the draught-horse and the thoroughbred.

The race-course at Caen is one of the oldest in France, having been established as long ago as 1837. The most important events of its programme are the Prix de la Ville (handicap), with premium and stakes amounting to twenty or twenty-five thousand francs, on which the heaviest bets of the intermediate season are made, and the Grand St. Léger of France, which before the war took place at Moulins, and which is far from being of equal importance with the celebrated race at Doncaster whose name it bears. The site of the track at Caen is a beautiful meadow upon the banks of the Orne, very long and bordered with fine trees, but unfortunately too narrow, and consequently awkward at the turns.

By the rules of the Société colts of two years are not allowed to run before the first of August, and as the Caen races take place during the first week of this month, they have the first gathering of the season's crop of two-year-olds—an event which naturally excites the curiosity of followers of the turf. The wisdom and utility of subjecting animals of this age to such a strain upon their powers have been much discussed, and good judges have strongly condemned the precocious training involved, as tending to check the natural development of the horse, and sometimes putting a premature end to his career as a racer. In England these races have been multiplied to abuse. There are signs of a reaction, however, in France, where several owners of racing-stables, following the example set by M. Lupin, have found their advantage in refusing to take part in the pernicious practice. For, after all, these first trials really prove nothing at all. They are found to furnish no standard by which any accurate measure can be taken of the future achievements of the horse. In fact, if one will take the trouble to examine the lists of winners of these two-year-old criterions, as they are called, he will find but very few names that have afterward become illustrious in the annals of the turf.

The races of Caen over, their followers take themselves some few leagues farther upon their circuit, to attend the meeting at Cabourg, one of those pretty little towns, made up of about a hundred villas, four hotels, a church and a casino, that lie scattered along the Norman coast like beads of a broken necklace. Living is dear in these stylish little out-of-the-way places, and this naturally keeps away the more plebeian element that frequents the great centres. About the fifteenth of August begins the week of races at Déauville, the principal event of the Norman circuit, bringing together not unfrequently as many as a hundred and sixty horses, and ranking, in fact, as third in importance in all France, the meetings at Longchamps and Chantilly alone taking precedence of it. It is to the duc de Morny that Déauville owes the existence of its "hippodrome," but the choice of this bit of sandy beach, that seemed to have been thrown up and abandoned by the sea like a waif, cannot be called a happy one. It may be, however, that the duke's selection of the site was determined by its proximity to the luxuriant valley of the Auge, so famous for its excellent pasturage and for the number of its stables. The Victor stud belonging to M. Aumont, that of Fervacques, the property of M. de Montgomery, and the baron de Rothschild's establishment at Meautry, are all in the immediate neighborhood of Déauville; but even these advantages do not compensate for the unfavorable character of the track, laid out, as we have said, upon land from which the sea had receded, and which, as might have been expected, was sure to be hard and cracked in a dry season. To remedy this most serious defect, and to bring the ground to its present degree of excellence, large sums had to be expended. The aspect of the race-course to-day, however, is really charming. A rustic air has been given to the stands, the ring, even to the stables that enclose the paddock, but it is a rusticity quite compatible with elegance, like that of the pretty Norman farm in the garden of Trianon. The purse for two-year-olds used to be called, under the Empire, the Prix Morny, but this name was withdrawn at the same time that the statue of the duke, which once stood in Déauville, was pulled down.

Our Norman circuit comes to a close with the races at Dieppe, which finished last year on the 26th of August. Dieppe was celebrated during the Empire for its steeple-chases, which were run upon a somewhat hilly ground left almost in its natural state—a very unusual thing in France. The flat- and hurdle-races which have succeeded to these since the war are not of sufficient importance to detain us.

Returning from this agreeable summer jaunt, in which the pleasures of sea-bathing have added a zest to the enjoyment of the race-course, the followers of the turf will seek, on coming back to Paris in the early days of September, the autumn meetings at Fontainebleau and at Longchamps. But they will not find the paddock of the latter at this season of the year bustling with the life and fashion that gave it such brilliancy in the spring, and the "return from the races" is made up of little else than hired cabs drawn by broken-down steeds. It is just the period when Paris, crowded with economical strangers, English or German—the former on their return, perhaps, from Switzerland, the latter enjoying their vacation after their manner—mourns the absence of her own gay world. The haute gomme—the swells, the upper ten—are still in the provinces. They have left the sea-side, it is true—it was time for that—but the season in the Pyrenees is not over yet, and Luchon and Bigone will be full until the middle of September, and not before the month is ended will Biarritz give up her pleasure-seekers. The opening of the shooting season on the first Sunday of September has scattered the sportsmen throughout the twenty-five or thirty departments in which there is still left a chance of finding game. But the best shooting is in the neighborhood of Paris, in the departments of Seine-et-Marne and Seine-et-Oise—at Grosbois with the prince de Wagram; at St. Germain-les-Corbeil on the estate of M. Darblay; at Bois-Boudran with the comte de Greffuhle; or at the château of the baron de Rothschild at Ferrières; and the numerous guests of these gentlemen may, if they are inclined, take a day to see the Omnium or the Prix Royal Oak run between two battues aux faisans. The Omnium is the most important of the handicaps: it is the French Cæsarewitch, though with a difference. The distance of the latter is two miles and two furlongs, that of the Omnium but a mile and a half. The value of the stakes is generally from twenty-five to thirty thousand francs. As its name would indicate, this race, by exception to the fundamental principle of the Jockey Club, is open to horses of every kind, without regard to pedigree, above the age of three years. A horse that has gained a prize of two thousand francs after the publication of the weights is handicapped with an overweight of two kilogrammes and a half (a trifle over five pounds); if he has gained several such, with three kilos; if he is the winner of an eight-thousand-franc purse, he has to carry an overweight of four kilos, or one of five kilos if he has won more than one race of the value last mentioned. The publication of the weights takes place at the end of June, when the betting begins. Heavy and numerous are the wagers on this important race, and as the prospects of the various horses entered change from time to time according to the prizes gained and the overweights incurred, the quotation naturally undergoes the most unlooked-for variations. A lot of money is won and lost before the real favorites have revealed themselves; that is to say, before the last week preceding the race. The winner of the Omnium is hardly ever a horse of the first rank, and the baron d'Étreilles undertakes to tell us why. The object of the handicap, he says, being to equalize the chances of several horses of different degrees of merit, the handicapper is in a manner obliged to make it next to impossible for the first-rate horses to win; otherwise, the owners of the inferior animals, seeing that they had no chance, would prefer to pay forfeit, and the harmony, as it were, of the contest—the even balancing of chances, which is of the very essence of the handicap—would be lacking. On the other hand, the handicapper cannot bring the chances of the really bad horses up to the mean average, no matter how much he may favor them in the weights, and thus it nearly always turns out that the Omnium, like every other important handicap, is won by a horse of the second class, generally a three-year-old, whose real merits have been hidden from the handicapper. This concealment is not so difficult as it might seem. There are certain owners who, when they have satisfied themselves by trials made before the spring races that they have in their stables a few horses not quite good enough to stand a chance in the great contests, but still by no means without valuable qualities, prefer to reserve them for an important affair like the Omnium, on which they can bet heavily and to advantage, especially if they have a "dark horse," or one that is as yet unknown. Otherwise, to what use could these second-rate horses be put? If one should run them in the spring they might get one or two of the smaller stakes, after which everybody would have their measure. Their owners, therefore, show wisdom in keeping them out of sight, or perhaps, as some of the shrewder ones do, by running them when rather out of condition, and thus ensuring their defeat by adversaries really inferior to themselves. In this way the handicapper is deceived as to their true qualities, and is induced to weight them advantageously for the Omnium.

Many readers but little conversant with turf matters will no doubt be scandalized to hear of these tricks of the trade, and will be apt to conclude that good faith is no more the fashion at Longchamps than at the Bourse, and that cleverness in betting, as in stockjobbing, consists in knowing when to depreciate values and when to inflate them, as one happens to be a bull or a bear in the market. The truth is, that no rules can be devised, either by Jockey Clubs or by imperial parliaments, that can put a stop to these abuses: they will exist, in spite of legislation, as long as the double character of owner and better can be united in the same person. If this person should not act in perfect good faith, all restraining laws will be illusory, because the betting owner has the cards in his own hands, and can withdraw a horse or make him run at his pleasure, or even make him lose a race in case of need. If the thing is managed with skill, it is almost impossible to discover the deception. In 1877, at Déauville, the comte de Clermont-Tonnere and his jockey, Goddart, were expelled from the turf because the latter had "pulled" his horse in such a clumsy and unmistakable way that the spectators could not fail to see it. This circumstance was without precedent in France, and yet how often has the trick, which in this case was exposed, been practised without any one being the wiser for it! It ought to be added that the betters make one claim that is altogether unreasonable, and that is—at least this is the only inference from their talk—that when they have once "taken" a horse, as they call it, in a race, the owner thereby loses a part of his proprietorship in the animal, and is bound to share his rights of ownership with them. But one cannot thus limit the rights of property, and as long as the owner does not purposely lose a race, and does not deceive the handicapper as to the real value of his horse for the purpose of getting a reduction of weights, he can surely do as he pleases with his own. There will remain, of course, the question of morality and of delicacy, of which each one must be the judge for himself. M. Lupin, for example, and Lord Falmouth, when they have two horses engaged for the same purse, always let these take their chances, and do nothing to prevent the better horse from being the winner, while the comte de Lagrange, as we have had occasion to observe before, has acquired the reputation of winning, if he can, with his worst animal, or at least with the one upon whose success the public has least counted. This is what took place when he gained the Grand Prix de Paris in 1877 with an outsider, St. Christophe, whilst all the betters had calculated upon the victory of his other horse, Verneuil. So the duke of Hamilton in 1878 at Goodwood, where one of his horses was the favorite, declared just at the start that he meant to win with another, and by his orders the favorite was pulled double at the finish. The same year, in America, Mr. Lorillard caused Parole, then a two-year-old, to be beaten by one of his stable-companions and one decidedly his inferior. When this sort of thing is done the ring makes a great uproar about it, but without reason, for there can be no question of an owner's right to save his best horse, if he can, from a future overweight by winning with another not so good. Only he ought frankly to declare his intention to do so before the race.

The autumn stakes that rank next in importance to the Omnium are known as the Prix Royal Oak, open, like its counterpart, the St. Leger of Doncaster, to colts and fillies of three years only, with an unloading of three pounds for the latter. On this occasion one will have an opportunity of seeing again in the Bois de Boulogne the contestants of the great prizes of the spring. The Royal Oak is nearly always won by a horse of the first class, and in the illustrious list may be found the names of Gladiateur and of four winners of the French Derby—Patricien, Boïard, Kilt and Jongleur.

In October, Longchamps is deserted for Chantilly, where the trials of two-year-olds take place—the first criterion for horses, the second criterion for fillies—the distance in these two races being eight hundred mètres, or half a mile. The Grand Criterion, for colts and fillies, has a distance of double this, or one mile (sixteen hundred mètres). Since their débuts in August at Caen and Déauville the young horses have had time to harden and to show better what they are made of; and it is in the Grand Criterion that one looks for the most certain indications of their future career. The names of the winners will be found to include many that have afterward become celebrated, such as Mon Étoile, Stradella, Le Béarnais, Mongoubert, Sornette, Révigny and others.

Chantilly is the birthplace of racing in France. In the winter of 1833—the same year which also witnessed the foundation of the Jockey Club—Prince Labanoff, who was then living at Chantilly, and who had secured the privilege of hunting in the forest, invited several well-known lovers of the chase to join him in the sport. Tempted by the elasticity of the turf, it occurred to the hunters to get up a race, and meeting at the Constable's Table—a spot where once stood the stump of a large tree on which, as the story goes, the constable of France used to dine—they improvised a race-course which has proved the prolific mother of the tracks to be found to-day all over the country. In this first trial M. de Normandie was the winner. The fate of Chantilly was decided. Since the suicide—or the assassination—of the last of the Condés the castle had been abandoned, the duc d'Aumale, its inheritor, being then a minor. The little town itself seemed dying of exhaustion. It was resolved to infuse into it a new life by taking advantage of the exceptional quality of its turf. The soil is a rather hard sand, resisting pressure, elastic, and covered with a fine thick sward, and of a natural drainage so excellent that even the longest rains have no visible effect upon it. On this ground—as good as, if not better than, that at Newmarket—there is to-day a track of two thousand mètres, or a mile and a quarter—the distance generally adopted in France—with good turns, excepting the one known as the "Réservoirs," which is rather awkward, and which has the additional disadvantage of skirting the road to the training-stables—a temptation to bolt that is sometimes too strong for horses of a doubtful character. For this reason there is sometimes a little confusion in the field at this point. Before coming to the last turn there is a descent, followed by a rise—both of them pretty stiff—and this undoubtedly has its effect on the result, for the lazier horses fall away a little on the ascent. Just at this point too a clump of trees happens to hide the track from the spectators on the stands, and all the lorgnettes are turned on the summit of the rise to watch for the reappearance of the horses, who are pretty sure to turn up in a different order from that in which they were last seen. This crisis of the race is sometimes very exciting. A magnificent forest of beech borders and forms a background to the race-course in the rear of the stands; in front rise the splendid and imposing stables of the duc d'Aumale, built by Mansard for the Great Condé; on the right is the pretty Renaissance château of His Royal Highness; while the view loses itself in a vast horizon of distant forest and hills of misty blue. The stands are the first that were erected in France, and in 1833 they seemed no doubt the height of comfort and elegance, but to-day they are quite too small to accommodate the ever-increasing crowd. The stands as well as the stables, and the race-course itself, all belong to the duc d'Aumale, who gave a splendid house-warming and brilliant fête last October to celebrate the completion of the restorations of his ancestral château. Under the Empire, the property of the Orleans princes having been confiscated, a nominal transfer of Chantilly was made to a friend of the family. The emperor, having one day signified his wish to witness the Derby, had the mortification on his arrival to find the reserved stand closed against him by the prince's orders. It was necessary to force the gate. The emperor took the hint, however, and never went to Chantilly again.

The soil of the Forest of Fontainebleau being of the same nature as that of the turf in the open, the alleys of the park furnish an invaluable resource to the trainer. For this reason, since racing has come in vogue, most of the stables have found their way to Chantilly or to its immediate neighborhood, where one of the largest and finest alleys of the forest, running parallel to the railway and known as the Alley of the Lions, has been given up to their use. Thus, Chantilly, with its Derby Day and its training-grounds, may be called at once the Epsom and the Newmarket of France. There is hardly a horse, with the exception of those of the comte de Lagrange and of M. Lupin, and those of Henry Jennings, the public trainer, that is not "worked" in the Alley of the Lions. The Société d'Encouragement has control of the training-ground as well as of the track, and also claims the right to keep spectators away from the trial-gallops, so that the duc d'Aumale, whose proprietary privileges are thus usurped, is often at war with the society. He has stag-hunts twice a week during the winter, on Mondays and Thursdays, and now and then on Sundays too—as he did with the grand duke of Austria on his late visit to Chantilly—and he naturally objects to having the hunt cut in two by the gallops over his principal avenue. He worries the trainers to such a degree that they begin to talk of quitting Chantilly for some more hospitable quarters. When things get to this pass the duke, who, in his character of councillor-general, is bound to look after the interests of his constituents, relents, and putting aside his personal wrongs calls a parley with the stewards of the races, offers a new prize—an object of art perhaps—or talks of enlarging the stands, and the gage of reconciliation being accepted, peace is made to last until some new casus belli shall occur. His Royal Highness is not forgetful of the duties of his position. When he is at Chantilly on a race-day he gracefully does the honors of his reserved stand to all the little Orleanist court. Since the reconciliation that took place between the comte de Paris and the comte de Chambord in 1873 this miniature court has been enlarged by the addition of several personages of the Legitimist circle, and the "ring" at Chantilly is often graced with a most distinguished and aristocratic assemblage. Amongst the beauties of this brilliant company may be especially noticed Madame de Viel-Castel, the young princesse Amédé de Broglie, the duchesse de Chaulnes with her strange, unconventional type of beauty, Madame Ferdinand Bischoffsheim, the comtesse Beugnot, the comtesse Tanneguy-Duchâtel and the princesse de Sagan. And when all this gay party has dispersed, and the duke is left to his cigar—as constant a companion as the historical weed in the mouth of General Grant—he might almost fancy, as he walks the great street of his good town, that he is back again at Twickenham in the days of his exile. There is something to remind him on every side of the country that once sheltered him. To right and left are English farrieries, English saddleries, and English bars and taverns too. English is the language that reaches his ears, and English of the most "horsey" sort that one can hear this side of Newmarket. Everybody has the peculiar gait and costume that belong to the English horseman: the low-crowned hat, the short jacket, those tight trousers and big, strong boots, are not to be mistaken. It is a little world in itself, in which no Frenchman could long exist, but its peculiar inhabitants have not, for all that, neglected anything that may attract the young folk of the country. They have even offered the bribe of a race in which only French jockeys are permitted to ride, but these, with only an exception here and there, have very promptly given up the business, disgusted either by the severe regimen required in the matter of diet or by the rigorous discipline indispensable in a training-stable. The few exceptions to which I have referred have not sufficed to prevent this race from falling into disrepute; but it may be worth mentioning that on the last occasion on which it was run, the 19th October last, when but three or four horses were engaged, the baron de Bizé, with what has been called a veritable inspiration of genius, threw an unlooked-for interest into the event by mounting in person M. Camille Blanc's horse Nonancourt, and winning the race with him. It is to be borne in mind that the riders must not only have been born in France, but must be of French parentage on the side of both father and mother.

The best-known jockeys are nearly all the children of English parents, and have first seen the light in the little colony at Chantilly or else have been brought very young into France. I give some of their names, classed according to the number of victories gained by them respectively in 1878: Hunter, who generally rides for M. Fould, 47 victories; Wheeler, head-jockey and trainer for M. Ed. Blanc, 45 victories; Hislop, 39; Hudson, ex-jockey to M. Lupin, who gained last year the Grand Prix de Paris, 36 victories; Rolf, 35; Carratt, 32; Goater, who rides for the comte de Lagrange, and who is well known in England; and Edwards, whose "mount" was at one time quite the mode, and whose tragical death on the 3d of October last created a painful sensation. When Lamplugh was training for the duke of Hamilton he made Edwards "first stable-boy," and this and his subsequent successes excited a violent jealousy in one of his stable-companions named Page. The two jockeys separated, but instead of fighting a duel, as Frenchmen might have done, they simply rode against each other one day at Auteuil—Page on Leona, and Edwards on Peau-d'Âne. The struggle was a desperate one: both riders got bad falls from their exhausted mares, and from that time poor Edwards never regained his aplomb. He frequently came to grief afterward, and met his death in consequence of a fall from Slowmatch at Maison Lafitte.

One of the oldest celebrities of Chantilly is Charles Pratt, formerly trainer and jockey for the baron Nivière and for the late Charles Lafitte, and at present in the service of the prince d'Aremberg. His system of training approached very nearly that of Henry Jennings, under whose orders and instructions he had worked for a long time. His horses were always just in the right condition on the day they were wanted, and as he never allowed them to be overridden, their legs remained uninjured for many years—a thing that has become too rare in France as well as in England. As a jockey Pratt possessed, better than any other, that knowledge of pace without which a rider is sure to commit irreparable mistakes. At the Grand Prix de Paris of 1870, when he rode Sornette, he undertook the daring feat of keeping the head of the field from the start to the finish. Such an enterprise in a race so important and so trying as this demanded the nicest instinct for pace and the most thorough knowledge, which as trainer he already possessed, of the impressionable nature and high qualities of his mare.

The autumn meetings at Chantilly close the legitimate season in France. The affairs at Tours are of little interest except to the foreign colony—which at this season of the year is pretty numerous in Touraine—and to the people of the surrounding country. On these occasions the cavalry officers in garrison at Tours get up paper hunts, a species of sport which is rapidly growing in favor and promises to become a national pastime. Whatever interest attaches to the November races at Bordeaux is purely local. Turfmen who cannot get through the winter without the sight of the jockeys' silk jackets and the bookmakers' mackintoshes must betake themselves to Pau in December. The first of the four winter meetings takes place during this month upon a heath at a distance of four kilomètres—say about two miles and a half—from the town. The exceptional climate and situation of Pau, where the frozen-out fox-hunters of England come to hunt, and where there is a populous American colony, will no doubt before long give a certain importance to these races, but just now the local committee is short of funds and the stakes have been insufficient to offer an attraction to good horses. Last winter in one of the steeple-chases all the horses tumbled pell-mell into the river, which was the very first obstacle they encountered, and although the public was quite used to seeing riders come to grief, it found the incident somewhat extraordinary.

The meetings at Nice, the queen of all winter residences in Europe, are much finer and more worthy of attention. They begin in January, and the programme has to be arranged almost exclusively for steeple-chases and hurdle-races, as flat-racers are not in condition for running at the time when the season at Nice is at its height. The greater number, and particularly the best, of the racers have important engagements for the spring meetings at Paris and at Chantilly, and even in view of really valuable prizes they could not afford at this time of year to undergo a complete preparation, which would advance them too rapidly in their training and would make it impossible to have them in prime condition in the spring. The race-course at Nice is charmingly situated in the valley of the Var. The perfume of flowers from numerous beds reaches the stands, where one may enjoy a magnificent view of mountain and sea, whilst a good band discourses music in the intervals of the races. Some of the prizes are important. The Grand Prix de Monaco, for instance, popularly known as "The Cup", consists of an object of art given by the prince of Monaco and a purse of twenty thousand francs, without counting the entrance-stakes. On the second day is run the great hurdle handicap for seventy-five hundred francs called the Prix de Monte Carlo, and on the third and last day of the meeting the Grand Prix de Nice, a free handicap steeple-chase for a purse of ten thousand francs.

The international pigeon-shooting matches at Monaco, which occur at the same time, contribute, with the races, to give an extraordinary animation to this period of the season at Nice. The betting-ring feels the influence of the proximity of the gaming-tables, where everybody goes; and yet one could so easily exchange this feverish life of play for the calmer enjoyments of the capital cuisine of London House and an after-dinner stroll on the English Promenade or the terraces of Monte Carlo, in dreamy contemplation of the mountains with their misty grays and a sea and sky of such heavenly blue. But no: this charming programme is wantonly rejected: not the finest orchestras, not the prettiest fêtes, not the newest chansonettes sung by Judie and Jeanne Granier themselves, can turn the players for a moment from the pursuit of their one absorbing passion. Play goes on at the Casino of Monte Carlo the livelong day, the only relaxation from the couleur gagnante or tiers et tout being when the gamblers step across the way to take a shot at the pigeons or a bet on the birds; for they must bet on something, if it is but on the number of the box from which the next victim will fly. And when in the evening the players have returned to Nice it is only to indulge the fierce passion again in playing baccarat—the terrible Parisian baccarat—at the Massena Club or at the Mediterranean, where the betting is even higher than at Monaco. Hundreds of thousands of francs change hands every hour from noon to six o'clock in the morning in this gambling-hell—a hell disguised in the colors of Paradise.

But let us fly from the perilous neighborhood and reach the nearest race-course by the fastest train we can find. The passion for the turf is healthier than the other, and its ends not so much in need of concealment. Unluckily, we shall not find just at this season—that is to say, in February—anything going on excepting a few steeple-chases—some "jumping business," as the English say rather contemptuously. In England there are certain owners, such as Lord Lonsdale, Captain Machell, Mr. Brayley and others, who, though well known in flat-races, have also good hunters in their stables, while the proprietors of the latter in France confine themselves exclusively to this specialty. Perhaps the best known amongst them are the baron Jules Finot and the marquis de St. Sauveur. Most of the members of the Jockey Club affect to look down upon the "illegitimate" sport, as they call it. It would seem, however, that this disdain is hardly justifiable, for as a spectacle at least a steeple-chase is certainly more dramatic and more interesting than a flat-race. What can be finer than the sight of a dozen gentlemen or jockeys, as the case may be, charging a brook and taking it clear in one unbroken line? And yet, despite the attractions and excitement of the sport, and all the efforts made from time to time by the Society of Steeple-chases to popularize it in France, it cannot as yet be called a success. Complaint is made, as in England, of too short distances, of the insufficiency of the obstacles, of an overstraining of the pace. The whole thing is coming to partake more and more of the nature of a race, an essentially different thing. Field sports are not races—at least they never ought to be. A steeple-chase can never answer the true purpose of the flat-race, which is to prove which is the best horse, to the end that he may ultimately reproduce his like. But nobody ever heard of "a sire calculated to get steeple-chasers". The cleverness and the special qualities that make a good steeple-chaser are not transmitted. The best have been horses of poor appearance, often small and unsightly, that have been given up by the trainer as incapable of winning in flat-races. In England the winners of the "Grand National" have had no pedigree to speak of, and have failed upon the track. Cassetête had run in nineteen races without gaining a single one before he began his remarkable career as a hunter; Alcibiade had been employed at Newmarket as a lad's horse; Salamander was taken out of a cart to win the great steeple-chases at Liverpool and Warwick.

In France there is no Liverpool or Croydon or Sandown for steeple-chases: there is only an Auteuil. The other meetings in the neighborhood of Paris—Maisons, Le Vésinet, La Marche—are in the hands of shameless speculators like Dennetier, Oller and the rest. Poor horses, bought in the selling races and hardly trained at all to their new business, compete at these places for slender purses, and often with the help of dishonest tricks. Accidents, as might be expected, are frequent, although the obstacles, with the exception of the river at La Marche, are insignificant. But the pace is pushed to such excess that the smallest fence becomes dangerous. This last objection, however, may be made even to the running at Auteuil, where the course is under the judicious and honorable direction of the Society of Steeple-chases. The pace is quite too severe for such a long stretch, strewn as it is with no less than twenty-four obstacles, and some of them pretty serious. The weather, too, is nearly always bad at Auteuil, even at the summer meetings, and the ill-luck of the Steeple-chase Society in this respect has become as proverbial as the good-fortune and favoring skies that smile upon the Société d'Encouragement, its neighbor at Longchamps. It is not to be wondered at, then, that the English do not feel at home upon this dangerous track. They have gained but twice the great international steeple-chase founded in 1874—the first time with Miss Hungerford in the year just mentioned, and again with Congress in 1877. This prize, the most important of the steeple-chase purses in France, amounts to twelve hundred sovereigns, added to a sweepstakes of twenty sovereigns each, with twelve sovereigns forfeit—or only two sovereigns if declared by the published time—and is open to horses of four years old and upward. It is run in the early part of June. Last year, whilst Wild Monarch, belonging to the marquis de St. Sauveur and ridden by D'Anson, was winning the race, the splendid stands took fire and were burned, without the loss of a single life, and even without a serious accident, thanks to the ample width of the staircases and of the exits. These stands were the newest and the most comfortable in the country. It is to be hoped that the society will not allow itself to be discouraged by such a persistent run of ill-luck, but that it will continue to pursue its work, the object of which it has declared to be "to encourage, as far as its resources will permit, the breeding and raising of horses for service and for the army." As the Encouragement Society rests upon the Jockey Club, so the Society of Steeple-chases finds its support in the Cercle of the Rue Royale, commonly called the Little Club or the Moutard. This club was reorganized after the war under the direction of the prince de Sagan, and has made great sacrifices to bring Auteuil into fashion.

The regular racing-season in France begins on the 15th of March, and no horse that has appeared upon any public track before this date is permitted to enter. The first event of the series is the spring meeting at Rheims—the French Lincoln. Of the six flat-races run here, one, known as the Derby of the East, is for two-year-olds of the previous year, with a purse of five thousand francs. In the "Champagne" races the winner gets, besides his prize, a basket of a hundred bottles of the sparkling wine instead of the empty "cup" that gives its name to other famous contests. After Rheims the next meeting in course is at Longchamps, in the beginning of April, opening with the Prix du Cadran, twenty-five thousand francs, distance forty-two hundred mètres, for four-year-olds. Then comes the essay of horses of the year in the Trial Sweepstakes and the Prix Daru, corresponding with the Two Thousand Guineas and the Thousand Guineas at Newmarket. The quotation begins to take shape as the favorites for the great events of May and June stand out more clearly. Of all the prizes—not excepting even the Grand Prix de Paris—the one most desired by French turfmen is the French Derby, or, to call it by its official name, the Prix du Jockey Club, the crowning event of the May meeting at Chantilly. The conditions of the Derby are as follows: For colts and fillies of three years, distance twenty-four hundred mètres, or a mile and a half, fifty thousand francs, or two thousand pounds sterling, with stakes added of forty pounds for each horse—twenty-four pounds forfeit, or twenty pounds if declared out at a fixed date; colts to carry one hundred and twenty-three pounds, and fillies one hundred and twenty pounds. The purse last year amounted to £3863 (96,575 francs). Like the English Derby, its French namesake is regarded as the test and gauge of the quality of the year's production. In the year of the foundation of this important race (1836), and for the two succeeding years, it was gained by Lord Henry Seymour's stable, whose trainer, Th. Carter, and whose stallion, Royal Oak, both brought from England, were respectively the best trainer and the best stallion of that time. In 1839, however, the duc d'Orléans's Romulus, foaled at the Meudon stud, put an end to these victories of the foreigner. In 1840 the winner was Tontine, belonging to M. Eugène Aumont, but Lord Seymour, whose horse had come in second, asserted that another horse had been substituted for Tontine, and that under this name M. Aumont had really entered the English filly Hérodiade, while the race was open only to colts foaled and raised in France. A lawsuit was the result, and while the courts refused to admit Lord Seymour's claim, the racing committee declared the mare disqualified, and M. Aumont sold his stable. In 1841, Lord Seymour again gained the Derby with Poetess (by Royal Oak), who afterward became mother of Heroine and of Monarque and grandmother of Gladiateur. In 1843 there was a dead heat between M. de Pontalbra's Renonce and Prospero, belonging to the trainer Th. Carter, and, as often happens, the worse horse—in this case it was Renonce—won the second heat. In 1848, the name of "Chantilly" being just then too odious, the Derby was run at Versailles, and was gained by M. Lupin's Gambetti. This same year is remarkable in the annals of the French turf for the excellence of its production. From this period until 1853—the year of Jouvence—M. Lupin enjoyed a series of almost uninterrupted successes. In 1855 the Derby was won by the illustrious Monarque, and the following year witnessed the first appearance upon the turf of the now famous red and blue of Lagrange. It was Beauvais, belonging to Madame Latache de Fay, who in 1860 carried off the coveted prize, which was won the next year by Gabrielle d'Estrées, from the stable of the comte de Lagrange. Then for a period of nine years the count's stable had a run of ill-luck, its horses always starting as prime favorites and being as invariably beaten. This was Trocadéro's fate in 1867. He was a great favorite, and had, moreover, on this occasion the assistance of his stable-companion Mongoubert, a horse of first-rate qualities. This time, at least, the count's backers were sure of success, but the victory that seemed within their grasp was wrested from their hands by the unexpected prowess developed upon the field of battle by a newcomer, M. Delamarre's Patricien. At a distance of two hundred mètres from the goal the three horses named were alone in the race, and the struggle between them was a desperate one. It looked almost as if it might turn out a dead heat, when Patricien, with a tremendous effort, reached the winning-post a head in advance, after one of the finest and best-contested races ever seen at Chantilly. In 1869, however, Consul succeeded in turning the tide of adverse fortune that had set in against the comte de Lagrange, but it was only for the moment, and it was not until 1878 that he was again the victor, when he won with Insulaire. He repeated the success last year with Zut, whom Goater brought in to the winning-post a length and a half ahead of the field.

Unfortunately, the winner of the French Derby can hardly ever be in good condition to contest the great race at Epsom. These two important events are too near in point of time, and the fatigue of the journey, moreover, puts the horse that has to make it at a disadvantage. Were it not for this drawback it is probable that the comte de Lagrange would beat the English oftener than he does. In May, 1878, his horse Insulaire, having just come in second in the Two Thousand Guineas at Newmarket, left that place for home, won the French Derby on Sunday, and returned to England in time for the Epsom Derby on Wednesday, where he came in second. He recrossed the Channel, and the following Sunday was second again in the Grand Prix de Paris, Thurio passing him only by a head. Making the passage again—and this was his fourth voyage within fifteen days—he gained the Ascot Derby. It is not unlikely that if this remarkable horse had remained permanently in the one country or the other he would have carried off the principal prizes of the turf.

For the last three or four years the racing men have been in the habit of meeting, after the Grand Prix de Paris, in the pretty park of La Marche, between St. Cloud and St. Germain. It is quite a private gathering, and as elegant as a dashing turnout of some fifteen or twenty four-in-hands and a pretty luncheon and charming flirtation can make it, and if dancing has not yet been introduced it soon will be. Prizes in the shape of groups in bronze and paintings and valuable weapons are awarded to the gentlemen present who may take part in the hunting steeple-chase or the race with polo ponies or with hacks.

In 1878 a new race-course was started at Enghien, to the north of Paris. The prizes are sufficiently large, the stands comfortable and the track is good; and these attractions, with the advantage of the neighborhood of the Chantilly and Morlaye stables, will no doubt make Enghien a success. Steeple-chases and hurdle-races predominate.

We can hardly close this review of turf matters in France without at least a reference to the so-called sporting journals, but what we have to say of them can be told in two words. They exist only in name. Any one who buys Le Sport, Le Turf, Le Jockey, Le Derby, the Revue des Sports, etc., on the faith of their titles—nearly all English, be it observed—will be greatly disappointed if he expects to find in them anything beyond the mere programmes of the races: they contain no criticism worthy of the name, no accurate appreciation of the subject they profess to treat of, and are even devoid of all interesting details relating to it. Far from following the example of their fellows of London and New York, these sheets concern themselves neither with hunting, shooting or fishing, nor with horse-breeding or cattle-raising, but give us instead the valuable results of their lucubrations upon the names of the winning horses of the future, and with such sagacity that a subscriber to one of them has made the calculation that if he had bet but one louis upon each of the favorites recommended by his paper he would have lost five hundred louis in the one year of his subscription.

Let us add, however, that, the press excepted, the English have nothing more to teach their neighbors in turf matters. The Pall Mall Gazette has well said that the organization of racing in France has taken a great deal of what is good from the English turf, and has excluded most of what is bad. The liberality of the French Jockey Club is declared by Vanity Fair to be in striking contrast with the starveling policy of its English namesake. The Daily Telegraph has recently eulogized the French club for having found out how to rid the turf of the pest of publicans and speculators and clerks of courses, and of all the riffraff that encumber and disgrace it in England, and that make parliamentary intervention necessary. The French turf, in fine, may be said to be inferior to the English in the number of horses, but its equal in respect of their quality, while it must be admitted to be superior to it in the average morality of their owners.

L. Lejeune.

FROM FAR.