OUGHT THE GRAY COLOR OF THE PERCHERON TO BE INFLEXIBLY MAINTAINED?
Formerly I liked the gray horse very much, and have more than once
praised this color. But time has dissipated my illusions.
Thus, while acknowledging my former preferences for the gray horse
over the horse of a different shade, I am now very far from showing
myself exclusive, and quarreling with the mass of enlightened persons
who seem desirous of adopting the dark colored coats. I only desire
one thing, and that is to save the Percheron race, and to preserve to
Perche its prosperity and its glory.
If I have liked the gray horse, it was from conviction, and not to
court those who saw no safety outside the gray. But when the wisdom and
the extreme intelligence of masters of science, preferring a less showy
color, demonstrated to me that Perche might find an era of new glory
and prosperity in changing the coat of its horse and thus enlarging
the circle of consumption, I bowed meekly to their opinion. I liked
the gray horse because I thought that Providence had created it gray
in order that it might be able to withstand, during its work, the heat
of the sun, and not be prostrated under its rays. I liked it gray, as
the Arab likes his horse gray and his bournous of a whitish color; as
the American planter likes his white cotton suit and his panama; as our
soldier, in the field, liked, under the African or Mexican sky, the
havelock which protected him against the rays of the burning luminary.
I liked it gray because it seemed to me to recall more than any other
the Arab, the primitive horse; because Perche having always possessed
gray horses, I thought there was much more chance of finding, under
this coat, the type of the country; because I had been rocked to sleep
to the tune of that old ballad of our ancestors, celebrating Charles de
Trie, the Percheron Seigneur, going forth to combat the English at the
battle of Poitiers:
“On charger white
The sire of Trie
Against the foe
Has gone to war,” etc. etc.;
because, in a word, during my infancy, I had breathed the dust of the
old manuscripts making mention of the white Percheron mares. I liked
it gray, because, for the service of the post-coaches and couriers, in
their long stages, in the middle of the night, the gray horse appeared
to me more easy to guide than the horse of a dark color. Finally, it
has always seemed to me that this coat was more becoming than any
other the powerful form of a vigorous worker. Does not a good-looking,
stalwart, and honest peasant please you better—is he not infinitely
more at ease with the Gallic blouse covering his broad shoulders, than
under the dark folds of a fashionable coat, which makes him appear
awkward and abashed?
But everything is much changed. The country has no longer any special
type in the midst of all this gray amalgamated with Brittany, Picardy,
and Caux, of which the equine stock of Perche is now composed. If the
Percheron should cease to be bound by this law of gray, if he should
become of all shades, at the same time remaining good, and such as
Perche knows how to make him, he would cease to be dishonored by those
everlasting plagiarists, shamelessly calling themselves Percherons
because they happen to be gray and have travelled across the Perche
country. If he should become of all shades, in preserving the qualities
and movement which are a feature of everything that the tonic grasses
and the fine and vivifying air of Perche produces, he would not be
reduced to the simple role of furnishing the 6,000 or 7,000 horses
that the omnibuses and teamsters each year require, plus the 600 or
700 typical ones that foreign countries demand of Perche. He might,
little by little, contribute to the satisfaction of the half-fancy and
to the wants of the hunting and army equipages; he might advantageously
replace the German horse, which we are obliged to employ in want of a
better. Post-coaches no longer existing, there is no longer need of
gray horses for the night in the midst of the darkness of the highways.
Steam machinery, the indispensable substitute for the lack of human
hands in the country, being destined to execute, in part, the labors
of agriculture, the horse will be less employed there, and the one
that will be called for, having fewer difficulties to overcome, can be
lighter, more _distingué_, faster, and more fit for adaptation to the
exigences of trade and fashion.—Finally, Fashion wishing, positively,
no more gray horses, and the Percheron finding no longer a sufficient
employment in the omnibuses, will soon find himself in a tight place if
he do not take a fresh start, and make himself acceptable—if he do not
conform to the exactions of the age, and become more stylish and darker
colored.
It is settled, then, that he must put upon his back a less showy
covering; but he can only do this on condition that he become, thanks
to good crossings, more presentable and have a more stylish air. And,
really, what is more ridiculous than a vulgar and common beast decked
out with the livery of the fancy and private horse!
Let us occupy ourselves, then, seriously in looking up breeding stock
of dark coats; the time to do this appears to me to have come. But
where will we go to find them? Let us look about us and seek for this
in Perche.
If you there find, under a dark coat, a fine Percheron, possessing all
the qualities and specialties of the race, make haste, take him and
color your horses. Sincerely, I give you this advice. Still, as in the
present state of things, it is rare that the fine and the somber are
met with together among the working races, by reason of the horror
which has been professed, up to the present moment, for everything not
gray, the best expedient would be to color the coat by means of fine,
dark skin Arabs, or with good, well-chosen Norfolks, a subject that we
will treat upon in the chapter of crossings. As to doing it otherwise,
it is not to be thought of, the elements not existing in Perche.
This, however, is only a minor matter. The essential point is to unite
the heavy to the _distingué_, weight to gait, mildness to vigor,
hardiness to energetic temperament, steadiness and precocity; in a
word, to repeat myself for the hundredth time, add a little more dash
and style. Correct the defects of conformation, the imperfections
of color, without weakening, without breaking up the harmony of the
admirable qualities which have made of the Percheron the first horse of
the age.
[Illustration: Decoration]