THE UGLY

HORSES OF

PARIS.

FROM THE FRENCH.

(Communicated and Edited by Lord William Lennox.)

The ugly horses of Paris! What an extensive field is thus opened to criticism! With such a subject one might fill twenty volumes, and we have but the dimensions of a few pages. We do not intend to attack horses, however ill-favoured they may be, who move in a humble class of life, nor to pry into the privacy of those obscure stables which shelter such steeds as are the objects of the affections of a whole family. There a horse is not only a horse, but he is also the friend of the house. He is beloved, caressed, and taken care of; not on account of his usefulness, but from affection. Were it possible, he would be transferred from the stables to the drawing-room: we have nothing to censure in such respectable attachments. There is another class we will pass over, that host of fantastic riders-lions without manes-exquisites without cash, who gallop by us, risking our lives as well as their own, and who take up with their horrible steeds the alleys of the Bois de Boulogne; for the world would care but little to know that Messrs. Pierre, Paul, or Jacques, the Brown, Jones, and Robinson of Paris, exhibit themselves on lame, one-eyed, broken-down Rosinantes. We have therefore selected, among the ugly horses of the French capital, individualities, notorious enough in one way or the other to excite more general interest.

At the head of the column let us place the horses of the superior officers of infantry. Happily for these brave soldiers, they are not dependent on the beauty of their steeds; or, at all events, they may quote the old proverb, Handsome is as handsome does." Mounted or dismounted, the gallant heroes of the line are ever in the foremost rank, as their deeds at the Alma and Inkermann, prove without a fear of contradiction. Long life to our noble allies!

The second rank unquestionably belongs to the bay, grey, brown, and black, asthmatic, lame chargers mounted by the Polish Lancers of the National Guard. Avaunt! butchers' horses, who smell of the shambles! Avaunt! heavy and lymphatic brewers' horses, who fatten upon economical hops! Begone, tailors' horses! But what do I behold? Is it thou, Ferragus? Is it thou, noble beast? Hast thou fallen to such a state of degradation? Ah! I see. Like thy master, thou hast had misfortunes; and he hath delivered thee over to the Philistines, in exchange for the coats, trousers, and waistcoats he could no longer pay for. Thou art now doomed to carry about the new fashions his genius invented, and which thou wast so proud to exhibit in the Bois de Boulogne.

Paris is inundated with advertising horses, harnessed to rolling shops of English blacking and cheap stoves. They are certainly the worst remains of animals that ever existed; but speculation fares the better

when it is laboriously dragged about by two exhausted jades. Fools have leisure to suffer themselves to be fascinated by the mendacious promises of these moving "puffs." Such are the ordinary advertising

horses.

Mr. Curedent has carried innovation further still; he has presented his lawful wife with a little calash and two horses. The equipage stops daily, by mere chance, at one of the most frequented spots in Paris. A female alights from it, tall, ugly, thin, but splendidly "got up." This is enough to kindle curiosity; and with the help of an intelligent confederate, an imposing crowd soon gathers round the vehicle. People ask, "What are those two horses that open their mouths so wide, to exhibit the enamel of their teeth ?" "What!" exclaims another confederate, "don't you know the horses of Monsieur Curedent, the dentist, who lives at No. 100, Rue de la Banque. Approach and examine, ladies and gentlemen; these horses are above five-and-twenty years old; see how ugly and thin they are-they can scarcely stand; but only look at their mouths, and they don't appear to be more than five years' old. What rose-coloured and fresh gums!-what short and white teeth! But, to be sure, Mr. Curedent, dentist, residing at No. 100, Rue de la Banque, descends himself every morning to his stables, with his cele brated dentifrice water and powder, and then he files their teeth; it is, indeed, affirmed that he has already filed off above an inch of them. But far more splendid are his operations on man and woman. Madame Curedent, that tall and magnificent creature, who was just now in the carriage, had formerly teeth of rare dimensions; if Mr. Curedent, who resides at No. 100, Rue de la Banque, had found a woman with longer teeth, he would have married her; and yet, thanks to the talents of her incomparable husband, her teeth are now like yours and mine. Oh ! what a dentist is M. Curedent, who resides at No. 100, Rue de la Banque !"

A foreign nobleman, celebrated for his habit of wearing his head aside, is possessed of another mania almost as singular. Every year, at the Longchamp promenade, he metamorphoses his demi-daumont into a heavy and ancient coupé. On these days horses and servants indulge in a prodigious elegance of toilet; the former appear in rich harness, the latter in splendid liveries, woefully inconsistent with their ages and infirmities.

To court Alexander, King of Macedon, all the grandees of his country wore their heads inclined on one side. Our great nobleman has no courtiers about him, but he has lacqueys, who in the way of adulation almost equal high and powerful lords. To please their master, all the servants strive to keep their heads on one side, and the said master's household is a perpetual parody on the Court of Macedon. The coachman, a refined flatterer, has drilled his horses to this novel style; and the coach-maker's cajollery has even made the vehicle incline to one side. I do assure you it is almost impossible not to roar with laughter in the presence of the old coachman, so ill at ease in his leather breeches and hussar jacket; of the old footmen, decked with gold epaulettes; and of the old horses, ornamented with roses.

The bankrupts' or insolvents' horses are ugly and dirty, but swift and indefatigable. They have so many creditors to mollify, and the hearts of creditors do not surrender upon the first summons of their debtors.

What importunities are required to extort from them the promise of accepting ten per cent. in five years! Horses are the very life and soul of such compromises; they go twenty times to a creditor before he will suffer himself to be seen: they return twenty or thirty times before he is convinced that he loses not a penny by the proposed arrangement. A debtor who thought proper to pay his visits on foot to his creditors would be a ruined man, or would arrive too late; in which case, of what use to him would even the eloquence of Cicero be? If, perchance, he arrived in time, fatigue would have exhausted his strength along with the fluency of his captivating speech; he would neither have energy nor persuasion.

This is what has been perfectly understood by many a ruined man. We could quote one in particular, who, both before and after a bankruptcy, always has a horse and a cabriolet; before to prepare, and after to repair it. A man of sense and execution, he suffers not his affairs, whether good or bad, to linger, especielly his bad affairs; no sooner has he declared himself a bankrupt than he takes the field, and stops not until all is settled.

There are humourists, and people of limited intelligence, who know nothing of business. One of these, one day, had the bad taste to reproach our said friend with the possession of his horse and cab. "What!" replied the amiable bankrupt, "do you not understand that if I have a cabriolet, it is not for myself, but for my creditors? Believe me, they are much more just, and appreciate me better than you do they know the value of time. Whilst another obtains a compromise, I obtain two or three; and until steam be applied to bankruptcies, I defy anybody to proceed quicker."

We have several more varieties of ugly horses, which we shall consider under the common denomination of those belonging to unfortunate

amateurs.

:

A young hotel-keeper of Paris imagines he has fine horses, and he is mistaken. We sincerely wish him as a restaurateur more success than he obtains as an equestrian. By the smoke that issues from locomotives, one distinguishes from afar the trains on railroads in the same way, the smoke of the young hotel-keeper's cigar is perceived before his horse and its rider can be seen. It is not known whether he smokes every time he rides, or rides every time he smokes; but it is an undoubted fact that he is never seen on horseback without smoking, or smoking without being on horseback.

Baron de

may be a very distinguished hippologue, but he certainly has not the merit of combining practice and theory; what he writes is worth more than what he does, and his stables yield a very poor example. He is much engaged upon the improvement of breeds, and carries his passion for the melioration of horses into extravagance. He buys only ruined and lame horses, in order to have the pleasure of restoring their legs. His stables are hospitals opened to all sick horses, and his grooms would more properly deserve to be called nurses. Dealers turn this mania of the Baron's to a strange account. They invent surprising cases, names of imaginary diseases; and nothing is more amusing than to hear them extol a horse before him. Baron," they say, "this animal is very ill; is about to lose both eyes; he coughs shockingly; he has a fever, together with curbs, ringbone, lampas,

splints, spavins, surfeit, strained sinews, and numberless other ills that (horse) flesh is heir to.' It will require immense care to cure him." Upon this fascinating portrait, the horse is bought. The Baron is rich, and if he devoted to buying good horses only half the money he loses in purchasing unsound ones, he would have the finest stud in Paris; for he lacks neither knowledge nor cash, which is more essential still. But the Baron has fallen into a deplorable path, which leads all the world to say with us, "What frightful horses he has!"

Be

In speaking of the "turns-out" of the medical men, doctors and surgeons, it is not our intention to offer any facetious remarks when their horses are employed professionally; it is only when they devote their leisure hours to the Bois de Boulogne that our remarks apply. hold their wearied limbs, their dull eyes, their trembling legs, and heaving sides! It is not in visiting patients that they can have fallen into such a condition; the poor creatures must ascribe their decrepitude to other causes they breakfast on bark, dine on acetate of morphia, and sup with a decoction of lime-tree leaves. Such fare may be excellent for patients, and above all to physicians, but to horses it is not worth a ration of oats. They enrich their master; for what does a doctor's fortune often depend on? On the swiftness of his cattle. They (the horses) raise the faculty to the rank of sportsmen, and then sink under the two-fold duties of their private practice and public promenades.

In the fine season the rosined or circus horses exercise their profession from eight to ten in the evening. What they do in winter we know not; perhaps they drive about, incog., the charms of some illustrious theatrical horse-woman. In summer their fate is better known; they are applauded like so many Marios, when Madame Lejeares and Mademoiselle Camille, erect upon them, indulge in a thousand exercises. Do not be afraid of their falling; fear rather that they will be unable to get down. Their horses are smeared with rosin, such inches thick! Woe to those who touch them! woe, above all, to such as know not the secret of touching them with impunity! Last year one of those problematic dandies who frequent the behind scenes of the Circus was imprudent enough to pat a quadruped artist that passed him. In vain did he attempt to extricate his hand. The horse entered the ring with him; and had he not been fortunately rescued, he might have shared the fate of Mazeppa. This interlude, which was not included in the bill of the performance, was not the least amusing of the evening's entertainments.

For a long time France wished to see her great singers provided with horses and carriages: it was the cause of much misery and torment she suffered, especially for her favourite baritone, who was obliged to expose his precious voice to the contact of rain and mud. With 30,000 francs a-year, this illustrious artist could only walk. A man like him--a man deserving temples and honours, on foot! and yet to such extremity were the arts reduced in the person of their noblest representative: it was a general sorrow. The rigours of winter and heat of summer were dreaded for him. When people met, "Will he sing, or not, to-night?" said they. "It rained this morning, and yesterday the heat was very great; perhaps he has caught cold-perhaps he is hoarse." The Bourse the Bourse itself shared these painful emotions. The Three per Cents. languished, the railroad shares were neglected, the asphaltes withered. Such a state of things could not last.

On a sudden a cry of joy was heard, and it was re-echoed throughout Paris the baritone had been seen in a cab, drawn by a grey horse. Oh, happy day! His engagement had been renewed. The manager, listening to the wishes of the nation, had forced the artist to accept 30,000 francs for his equipage expenses. In future the opera's success is ensured, and the public's pleasures run no risk. Rain and snow may now come down, and the thermometer rise or fall to twenty degrees of heat or cold: our baritone has a cab and horse. The horse, indeed, is not a handsome one-he is even a mighty ugly fellow; the cab, if pos sible, is worth less still than the horse. But what does it matter? What we required above all was the health-the dear health of our singer; and he will have his feet as dry in his second-hand cabriolet as in one of Erhlerr's most elegant carriages. Justice, then, begins at length to prevail in this earth of ours. Many other artists still walk, but how far are they from possessing our baritone's talents! Instead of an equipage, one wears goloshes, another waterproof boots, a third cork soles. Let us hope their turn will come but they have no right to complain their master has a carriage, and they may well use their legs. France is saved!

The second known theatrical horse is that of a young singer; but the modest artist feels that he can follow our baritone only at a distance: he has allowed himself a mere saddle-horse. When the weather is fine, when the sun is visible to the naked eye at two o'clock, there is sometimes a great bustle on the Boulevard des Italiens; everybody clusters under and looks up to a sumptuously gilt balcony. It is because the said balcony is inundated with charming young girls, with wasp shapes, glittering eyes, and elegant dresses; they wave their handkerchiefs, make signs, and utter exclamations. What can it be? Why such a movement, and such agitation? The young singer is about to pass under their windows, on his way to the Bois de Boulogne, and they have not eyes enough to admire him, nor voice enough to express their admiration. Their enthusiasm, we suppose, is addressed to the rider, and not to his horse, for the latter is the most ordinary-looking animal in the whole world. He performs none of the graceful capers, the pretty pawings which please the fair sex. Instead of feeling proud of the noble master he bears, he ignominiously lowers his head; he appears sad, ugly, and morose. The young artist merited a better horse.

The business horses lead the most fatiguing lives horses can lead. As early as eight in the morning they are torn from the delights of the stable, the harness of misery is thrown over their backs, and they are chained to the tilbury of tribulation; the master appears, and off they are driven. It would be impossible to tell all their visits. To some they offer Peruvian wines and African sugar; to others, places of sous préfets, or rural guards. Horse and master are gifted with incomparable swiftness. The former goes over space with the rapidity of lightning, the latter springs up staircases with the nimbleness of a cat. At two o'clock they re-enter the Bourse and stable. But rest is not made for them. At the Bourse the master is in greater motion than ever; he gesticulates, walks, shakes, and discourses upon all the events of the day; he distributes advice, and shakes everybody's hand; he sells or buys 3,000 or 6,000 francs' worth of stock, and realizes when he has a profit of a centime. At half-past three he escapes; his forced labour is over, his