CHAPTER XXIX.

"Joan, you needn't expect me till you see me"--Joan turned quickly

round to see Adam at the door, looking angry and determined--"and you

can tell Eve from me that as it seems all one to her whatever companion

she has, I don't see any need for forcing myself where I am told I

should only be one in the way."

"Adam--" But the door was already slammed, and Joan again left in

possession of the kitchen.--"Now, there 'tis," she said in a tone of

vexation, "just as I thought: a reg'lar piece o' work made all out o'

nothin'. Drabbit the maid! If her's got the man her wants, why can't

her study un a bit? But somehow there's bin a crooked stick lyin' in

her path all day to-day: her's nipped about somethin', I'm positive

sure o' that; and they all just come home too, and everythin', and now

to be at daggers--drawn with one 'nother! 'Tis terrible, 'tis."

Joan's reflections, interrupted by the necessary attention which her

cakes and pasties made upon her, lasted over some considerable time,

and they had not yet come to an end when two of the principal objects

of them presented themselves before her. "Why, wherever have 'ee bin

to?" she said peevishly. "Whatever made 'ee stay away like this

for--actin' so foolish, when you knaws, both of 'ee, what a poor temper

Adam's got if anythin' goes contrary with un?"

Jerrem shrugged his shoulders, while Eve, at once assuming an injured

air for such an unmerited attack, said, "Really, Joan, I don't know

what you mean. Old Poll Potter has just been telling us that Adam came

flying and fuming up her way, wanting to know if she'd seen us, and

then, when she said where we'd gone to, he used the most dreadful

language to her--I'm sure I don't know for what reason. He chose to go

out without me this morning."

"But that was 'bout business," said Joan.

"Oh, business!" repeated Eve. "Business is a very convenient word when

you don't want to tell a person what your real errand is. Not that I

want to pry into Adam's secrets--far from it. He's quite welcome to

keep what he likes from me, only I'd rather he wouldn't tell me half

things. I like to know all or none."

Joan looked mystified, and Jerrem, seeing she did not know what to say,

came to the rescue. "I'm sure I'm very vexed if I've been the cause of

anything o' this, Eve," he said humbly.

"You needn't be at all vexed: it's nothing at all to do with you. You

asked me to go, and I said yes: if I hadn't wanted to go I should have

said no. Any one would think I'd committed a crime, instead of taking a

simple walk, with no other fault than not happening to return home at

the very same minute that it suited Adam to come back at."

"But how is it he's a seed you if you haven't a seed he?" said Joan,

fairly puzzled by this game of cross-purposes. "He came home all right

'nuf, and then went off to see whereabouts he could find 'ee to; and

'bout quarter'n hour after back he comes in a reg'lar pelt, and says,

'You tell Eve,' he says, 'that I'm not goin' to foace myself where I'm

told I sha'n't be wanted.' Awh, my dear, he'd seed 'ee somewheres," she

continued in answer to Eve's shrug of bewilderment: "I could tell that

so soon as iver I'd clapped eyes on un."

"And where's he off to now?" said Eve, determined to have an immediate

settlement of her wrongs.

"I can't tell: he just flung they words at me and was gone."

Eve said no more, but with the apparent intention of taking off her hat

went up stairs, while Joan, bidding Jerrem go and see if Uncle Zebedee

was roused up yet, returned to her previous occupation of preparing the

tea. When it was ready she called out, "Come 'long, Eve;" but no answer

was returned. "Tay's ready, my dear." Still no reply.--"She can't ha'

gone out agen?" thought Joan, mounting the stairs to ascertain the

cause of the silence, which was soon explained by the sight of Eve

flung down on the bed, with her head buried in the pillow.--"Now,

whatever be doin' this for?" exclaimed Joan, bending down and

discovering that Eve was sobbing as if her heart would break. "Awh,

doan't cry now, there's a dear: 't 'ull all come straight agen. Why,

now, you'll see Adam 'ull be back in no time. 'Twas only through bein'

baulked when he'd a come back o' purpose to take 'ee out."

"How was I to know that?" sobbed Eve.

"No, o' course you didn't, and that's what I told un. But, lors! 'tis

in the nature o' men to be jealous o' one 'nother, and with Adam more

partickler o' Jerrem; so for the future you must humor un a bit, 'cos

there's things atwixt they two you doan't know nothin' of, and so can't

allays tell when the shoe's pinchin' most."

"I often think whether Adam and me will be happy together," said Eve,

sitting up and drying her eyes. "I'm willing to give in, but I won't be

trampled upon."

"And he won't want to trample 'pon 'ee, neither. Only you study un a

bit, and you'll soon learn the measure o' Adam's foot. Why, 'tis only

to see un lookin' at 'ee to tell how he loves 'ee;" and Joan

successfully kept down a rising sigh as she added, "Lors! he wouldn't

let a fly pitch 'pon 'ee if he could help it."

"If he'd seen us before he came in first he'd have surely told you?"

said Eve.

"Awh, he hadn't seen 'ee then," said Joan, "'cos, though he was a bit

vexed, he wasn't in no temper. 'Twas after he went out the second time

that he must have cast eyes on 'ee some way. Jerrem wasn't up to none

of his nonsense, was he?" she asked. '"Cos I knaws what Jerrem is. He

don't think no more o' givin' 'ee a kiss or that than he does o'

noddin' his head or crookin' his elbaw; and if Adam caught un at that,

it 'ud be enough for he."

Eve shook her head. "Jerrem never takes none of those liberties with

me," she said: "he knows I won't allow him to. The whole of the time we

did nothing but talk and walk along till we came to a nice place, and

then we stayed for a little while looking at the view together, and

after that came back."

"'Tis more than I can make out, then," said Joan, "'cos, though I

wondered when you set off whether Adam would 'zactly relish your bein'

with Jerrem, I never thought 'twould put un out like this."

"It makes me feel so miserable!" said Eve, trying to keep back her

tears; "for oh, Joan"--and she threw her arms round Joan's neck--"I do

love him very dearly!"

"Iss, my dear, I knaws you do," returned Joan soothingly, "and he loves

you too."

"Then why can't we always feel the same, Joan, and be comfortable and

kind and pleasant to one another?"

"Oh lors! that 'ud be a reg'lar milk-and-watter set-out o' it. No, so

long as you doan't carry on too far on the wan tack I likes a bit of a

breeze now and then: it freshens 'ee up and puts new life into 'ee. But

here, come along down now, and when Adam comes back seem as if nothin'

had happened, and p'r'aps seein' you make so light of it 'ull make un

forget all about it."

So advised, Eve dried her eyes and smoothed down her ruffled

appearance, and in a short time joined the party below, which now

included Uncle Zebedee, Barnabas Tadd and Zeke Teague, who had brought

word that the Hart had only that morning returned to Fowey, entirely

ignorant of the skirmish which had taken place between the Looe boats

and the Lottery, and that, though it was reported that the man shot had

been shot dead, nothing was known for certain, as it seemed that the

men of Looe station were not over-anxious to have the thing talked

about.

"I should think they wasn't, neither," chuckled Uncle Zebedee.

"Sneakin', cowardly lot! they was game enough whiles they was creepin'

up behind, but, lors! so soon as us shawed our faces, and they seed

they'd got men to dale with, there was another tale to tell, and no

mistake. I much doubt whether or no wan amongst 'em had ever smelt

powder afore our Jerrem here let 'em have a sniff o' his mixin'. 'Tis

my belief--and I ha'n't a got a doubt on the matter, neither--that if

he hadn't let fly when he did they'd ha' drawed off and gone away

boastin' that they'd got the best o' it."

"Well, and more's the pity you didn't let 'em, then," said Joan. "I

would, I knaw. Safe bind's safe find, and you can never tell when

fightin' begins where 'tis goin' to end to."

"It shouldn't ha' ended where it did if I'd had my way," said Jerrem.

"Awh, well! there, never mind," said old Zebedee. "You'll have a chance

agen, never fear, and then we must make 'ee capen. How'd that plaze

'ee, eh?"

Jerrem's face bespoke his satisfaction. "Take care I don't hold 'ee to

yer word," he said, laughing. "I've got witnesses, mind, to prove it:

here's Barnabas here, and Zeke Teague, and they won't say me nay, I'll

wager--will 'ee, lads?"

"Wa-all, bide a bit, bide a bit," said Zebedee, winking in appreciation

of this joke. "There'll be two or three o' the oldsters drap in durin'

the ebenin', and then us 'll have a bit of a jaw together on it, and

weigh sides on the matter."

As Uncle Zebedee anticipated, the evening brought a goodly number of

visitors, who, one after another, came dropping in until the

sitting-room was pretty well filled, and it was as much as Eve and Joan

could manage to see that each one was comfortably seated and provided

for.

There were the captains of the three vessels, with a portion of the

crew of each, several men belonging to the place--all more or less

mixed up with the ventures--and of course the crew of the Lottery, by

no means yet tired of having their story listened to and their

adventure discussed. Adam's absence was felt to be a great relief, and

each one inwardly voted it as a proof that Adam himself saw that he'd

altogether made a missment and gone nigh to damage the whole concern.

Many a jerk of the head or the thumb accompanied a whisper that "he'd a

tooked hisself off," and drew forth the response that "'twas the proper

line to pursoo;" and, feeling they had no fear of interruption, they

resigned themselves to enjoyment and settled down to jollity, in the

very midst of which Adam made his appearance. But the time was passed

when his presence or his absence could in any way affect them, and,

instead of the uncomfortable silence which at an earlier stage might

have fallen upon the party, his entrance was now only the occasion of

hard hits and rough jokes, which Adam, seeing the influence under which

they were made, tried to bear with all the temper he could command.

"Don't 'ee take no notice of 'em," said Joan, bending over him to set

down some fresh glasses. "They ain't worth yer anger, not one among

'em. I've kept Eve out of it so much as I could, and after now there

won't be no need for her to come in agen; so you go outside there.

Her's a waitin' to have a word with 'ee."

"Then wait she may," said Adam: "I'm goin' to stop where I am.--Here,

father," he cried, "pass the liquor this way. Come, push the grog

about. Last come first served, you know."

The heartiness with which this was said caused considerable

astonishment.

"Iss, iss, lad," said old Zebedee, his face glowing under the effects

of hot punch and the efforts of hospitality. "That's well said. Set to

with a will, and you'll catch us up yet."

During the laughter called forth by this challenge, Joan took another

opportunity of speaking. "Why, what be 'bout, Adam?" she said, seeing

how unlike his speech and action were to his usual self. "Doan't 'ee go

and cut off your naws to spite yer face, now. Eve's close by here.

Her's as sorry as anythin', her is: her wouldn't ha' gone out for

twenty pounds if her'd knawed it."

"I wish you'd hold yer tongue," said Adam: "I've told you I'm goin' to

stop here. Be off with you, now!"

But Joan, bent on striving to keep him from an excess to which she saw

exasperation was goading him, made one more effort. "Awh, Adam," she

said, "do 'ee come now. Eve--"

"Eve be--"

But before the word had well escaped his lips Joan's hand was clapped

over his mouth. Too late, for Eve had come up behind them, and as Adam

turned his head to shake Joan off he found himself face to face before

her, and the look of outraged love she fixed upon him made his heart

quail within him. What could he do? what should he say? Nothing now,

for before he could gather up his senses she had passed by him and was

gone.

A sickening feeling came over Adam, and he could barely put his lips to

the glass which, in order to avert attention, he had caught up and

raised to his mouth. At a blow all the resolutions he had forced

himself to were upset and scattered, for he had returned with the

reckless determination of plunging into whatever dissipation chanced to

be going on.

He had roamed about, angry and tormented, until the climax of passion

was succeeded by an overpowering sense of gloom, to get away from which

he had determined to abandon himself, and, flinging all restraint

aside, sink down to that level over which the better part of his nature

had vainly tried to soar. But now, in the feeling of degradation which

Eve's eyes had flashed upon him, the grossness of these excesses came

freshly before him, and the knowledge that even in thought he had

entertained them made him feel lowered in his own eyes; and if in his

eyes, how must he look in hers?

Without a movement he knew every time that she entered the room: he

heard her exchange words with some of those present, applaud a song of

Barnabas Tadd's, answer a question of Uncle Zebedee's, and, sharpest

thorn of all, stand behind Jerrem's chair, talking to him while some of

the roughest hits were being made at his own mistaken judgment in

holding back those who were ready to have "sunk the Looe boats and all

aboard 'em."

In the anguish of his heart Adam could have cried aloud. It seemed to

him that until now he had never tasted the bitterness of love nor

smarted under the sharp tooth of jealousy. There were lapses when,

sending a covert look across the table, those around him faded away and

only Eve and Jerrem stood before him, and while he gazed a harsh,

discordant laugh would break the spell, and, starting, he would find

that it was his own voice which had jarred upon his ear. His head

seemed on fire, his senses confused. Turning his eyes upon the tumbler

of grog which he had poured out, he could hardly credit that it still

stood all but untasted before him. A noisy song with a rollicking

chorus was being sung, and for a moment Adam shut his eyes, trying to

recollect himself. All in vain: everything seemed jumbled and mixed

together.

Suddenly, in the midst of the clamor, a noise outside was heard. The

door was burst violently open and as violently shut again by Jonathan,

who, throwing himself with all his force against it, cried out, "They'm

comin'! they'm after 'ee--close by--the sodjers. You'm trapped!" And,

exhausted and overcome by exertion and excitement, his tall form swayed

to and fro, and then fell back in a death-like swoon upon the floor.

_The Author of "Dorothy Fox."_

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A VILLEGGIATURA IN ASISI.

To most travellers a visit to Asisi is a flying visit. They drive over

from Perugia or up from the railway station, and if, besides San

Francesco and Santa Chiara, they see the cathedral and San Damiano,

they believe themselves to have exhausted the sights of the town. The

beautiful front of what was once a temple of Minerva can be seen in

passing through the piazza in which it stands: the departing visitors

glance back at the city from the plain, and--"Buona notte, Asisi!"

Yet this town, as well as most Italian _paesi_, would reward a more

lengthened stay, and, unlike many of them, a refined life is possible

here. A person at once studiously and economically inclined might do

much worse than commit himself to spend several months in the city of

St. Francis. We did so last year, on the same principle that made us in

childhood prefer the cherries that the birds had pecked, finding them

the sweetest. We had heard Asisi abused: it was out of the world, it

was desperately dull and there was nothing to eat. We therefore sent

and engaged an apartment for the summer, and our confidence was not

betrayed.

Perhaps the hotels are not good: we have never tried them. But the

market is excellent for a mountain-city, and in the autumn figs and

grapes are cheap and abundant. There are apartments to be let, and

servants to be had who, with a little instruction, soon learn to cook

in a civilized manner.

We have a fancy that there is a different moral atmosphere in a town

surrounded by olive trees and one set in vineyards, the former being

more sober and reserved, the latter more joyous and expansive. The

latter may, indeed, carry its spirit too far--like the little city of

Zagorolo near Rome, where the inhabitants are noted at the same time

for the strength and excellence of their wines and for the

quarrelsomeness of their dispositions. Palestrina, a little way off on

the hillside, with a flowing skirt of vines all about it, breathes

laughter in its very air. One may sit in Bernardini's--known to all

visitors to the city of Fortune--and hear the travellers who come there

laugh over mishaps which they would have growled over anywhere else.

The comparison might be made of many other towns.

Asisi is set in a world of olives. They swing like smoke from a censer

all through the corn and grain of the plain; they roll up the hills and

mountains, climbing the almost perpendicular heights like goats; they

crawl through the ravines; they cover the tiny plateaus set between the

crowded hills; and plantations of slim young trees are set through the

city, bending like long feathers and turning a soft silver as the wind

passes over them. It is delightful to walk under the olive trees in

early summer, when they hang full of strings of tiny cream-colored

blossoms. In winter these blossoms will have changed to a small black

fruit. The trees are as rugged as the roughest old apple trees, and

many of them are supported only on a hollow half-circle of trunk or on

two or three mere sticks. One wonders how these slender fragments of

trunk can support that spreading weight above, especially in wind and

tempest, and how that wealth of blossom and fruit can draw sufficient

sustenance through such narrow and splintered channels; but the olive

is tough, and the oil that runs in its veins for blood keeps it ever

vigorous.

True to my fancy--which, indeed, it helped to nourish--Asisi is a

serious town. It has even an air of gentle melancholy, which is not,

however, depressing, but which inclines to thoughtfulness and study.

Travellers are familiar with its aspect--the crowning citadel with the

ring of green turf between it and the city, which stretches across the

shoulders of the mountain, row above row of gray houses, with the

magnificent pile of the church and convent of St. Francis at its

western extremity, clasped to the steep rock with a hold that an

earthquake could scarcely loosen. Three long streets stretch from east

to west, the central one a very respectable street, clean, well-paved,

and delightfully quiet. You may sit in a window there and hear nothing

the livelong day but the drip of a fountain and the screaming of clouds

of swallows, which are, without exception, the most impudent birds that

can be imagined. Annoyed one day by the persistent "peeping" of a

swallow that had perched in a nook just outside my window, I leaned out

and frightened him away with my handkerchief. He darted down to a

little olive-plantation below, and a minute after up came a score or

two of swallows and began flying round in a circle directly before my

window, screaming like little demons. Now and then one would dart out

of the circle and make a vicious dip toward my face, with the evident

wish to peck my eyes out, so that I was glad to draw back. It reminded

me of the famous circular battery which attacked one of the Confederate

forts during our civil war, and it was quite as well managed.

The _vetturino_ whom we took from the station up to the town on our

arrival told me, when I gave my address, that the Sor Filomena had gone

away from Asisi, and I had better go to the hotel Leone. I insisted on

being taken to the Sor Filomena's house. He replied that the house was

closed, and renewed his recommendations of the Leone. After the

inevitable combat we succeeded in having ourselves set down at our

lodgings, where Sor Filomena's rosy face appeared at the open door.

"Why did you tell such a lie?" I asked of the unblushing vetturino,

using the rough word _bugia_.

He looked insulted: "I have not told a bugia."

With a philosophical desire for information I repeated the question,

using the milder word _mensogna_. He drew himself up, looked virtuous

and declared that he had not told a mensogna.

"Why, then," I asked, "have you said one thing for another?"

It was just what he wanted. He immediately began a profuse verbal

explanation of why one thing was sometimes better to say than another,

why one was truer than another, and so mixed up his _una cosa_ and _un'

altra cosa_ as to put me quite _hors de combat_, and send me into the

house with the impression that I ought to be ashamed of myself for

having told somebody a lie. It brought to my mind one of my father's

favorite quotations: "Some things can be done as well as some other

things."

I was shown to my room, which was rough, as all rooms in Asisi are, but

large and high. As Sor Filomena said, it had _un' aria signorile_ in

spite of the coarse brick floor and the ugly doors and lumpy walls.

Some large dauby old paintings gave a color to the dimness, there were

a fine old oak secretary black with age, a real bishop's carved stool

with a red cushion laid on it, and a long window opening on to a view

of the wide plain with its circling mountains and its many cities and

_paesetti_--Perugia shining white from the neighboring hill; Spello and

Spoleto standing out in bold profile in the opposite direction;

Montefalco lying like a gray pile of rocks on a southern hilltop; the

village and church of Santa Maria degli Angeli nestled like a flock of

cloves in the plain; and half a dozen others.

I ordered writing-table and chair to be set before the window, and

enthroned upon the bishop's tabouret an unabridged Worcester--this

being probably his first visit to Asisi--and I was immediately at home.

The servant, Maria, whose maternal grandmother was a countess, was

making some last arrangements in the room.

"Come and see what a beautiful new moon there is," I said to her.

She came to the window and looked toward the west. "That isn't the

moon: it is a star," she said, fixing her eyes upon Venus.

It was quite characteristic of her class. They all think _forestieri_

do not know the moon from a star.

I pointed lower down, to where an ecstatic crescent was melting in the

sunset gold.

She gazed at it a moment, then said: "It is beautiful: I never noticed

it before. I never look at the sky except to see what the weather is to

be. It is for you signori to look at beautiful things, not for us

_poveretti_.--Do you see the sky in America?" she asked presently.

I assured her that we do, and that the sun, moon and stars shine in it

just as here in Italy.

She was greatly puzzled. "I thought that America was under ground," she

said.

I remembered Galileo and held my peace. Besides, in these days of

universal knowledge, when we hear scientific terms lisped by infant

lips, it is refreshing to see an example of fine old-fashioned

ignorance. Yet this woman had better manners than are to be found in

most drawing-rooms, a sweet, courteous dignity, and in matters which

came within her personal knowledge great good sense and judgment. Only

she had never learned that from the centre of the earth all directions

are up.

Of course a stranger's first visit in Asisi is to the basilica of San

Francesco, and, though I had seen it before, I lost no time in renewing

my acquaintance with it. This church is not only the jewel of Asisi,

but one of the most precious of Italy. It is among churches what a

person of genius is in a crowd. The rich marbles one sees elsewhere

suggest the mechanic in their arrangement, and one grows almost tired

of them; but here the soul of Art and Faith has poured itself out,

covering all the wide walls, the ceilings, the sides of arches, the

ribs of groinings--every foot of space, in short--with life and color;

and how much more precious is one of those solemn pearly faces than a

panel of alabaster or the most cunning mosaic of marbles! In the upper

church alone there are twenty-two large frescoes of Cimabue and thirty

of Giotto. Over these pours the light from fourteen large colored

windows, unimpeded by side-aisles. When the sun beats upon these

windows the church seems to be filled with a transparent mist softly

tinted with a thousand rich hues. The deep-blue, star-sown vault

sparkles and the figures on the walls become a vision.

The upper church has been in danger of losing its beautiful choir, a

marvel of carving and _intarsio_, which Cavalcasella, inspector of fine

arts in Italy, removed for the odd reason that it was a work of the

fourteenth century, while the church was of the thirteenth, and to be

in perfect keeping should have a stone choir. I have not learned

whether this hyper-purist will require of the congregation a

thirteenth-century costume when the church is again open for service.

These beautiful stalls, one hundred and two in number, are now placed

for safe-keeping in what was the infirmary of the adjoining college.

Possibly, when the work going on _pian piano_ in the church is

completed, they may be restored to their original place. Their sombre

richness would show well in that radiant atmosphere.

The work in the church is, however, well done, and was greatly needed,

for those precious frescoes were gradually going to decay. No touch of

pencil is allowed: the work is one of preservation merely, and is being

conducted with the greatest care. The loosened _intonaco_ is found by

tapping lightly on the wall: plaster is then slipped underneath and the

painting firmly pressed to its place. At first _gesso_ was used, but it

was found not to answer the purpose. Every smallest fragment of

painting is saved, and the blank spaces are filled in with plaster

which is painted a light gray. This freshens and throws out the

adjoining colors.

It is customary to call the lower church "devotional." With many, a

dark church is always devotional. I should rather call it sympathetic.

Every sort of mood may here find itself reflected, and the sinner be as

much at home as the saint. Anger and hate may hide as well as devotion:

the artist may dream, the weary may rest, the stupid doze. The only

objects which ever seemed to me utterly incongruous there were a brisk

company of hurried tourists, red-covered guidebook in hand, clattering

with sharp-sounding boot-heels up the dim nave and talking with sharp,

loud voices at the very steps of the altar where people were kneeling

at the most solemn moment of the mass. But even these invariably soften

their tones and their movements after a while.

This church has always some pleasant surprise for the frequent visitor.

The morning light shows one picture, the evening light another: the

sunrise adorns this window, the sunset that. There is no hour from dawn

to dark in which some gem of ancient painting does not look its best,

while little noticed, if seen at all, at other hours. Some are seen by

a reflected light; others, when the church is so dark that one may

stumble against a person in the nave, gather to themselves the dim and

scattered rays like an aureole, from which they look out with soft

distinctness; and there are others, again, upon which a sun-ray,

finding a narrow passage through arch after arch, alights with a sudden

momentary glory that is almost startling.

It is a fascinating place, that middle church--never light, but always

traversed by some varying illumination which is ever lost in shadows.

And in those shadows how much may lurk of present material beauty and

of beautiful memory! Here, before the chapel of St. Louis, Raphael

lingered, learning the frescoed Sibyls of its vault so by heart that he

almost reproduced them afterward in the Pace at Rome--that dear Raphael

who did not fear being called a plagiarist, his soul was so full of

beauty, and he so transfigured whatever he touched with that suave

pencil of his that seemed to have been clipped in light for a color.

And where did the feet of Michael Angelo rest when he stood in the

transept and praised that Crucifixion painted on the wall? One might

expect that the stones would have been conscious of the Orpheus they

supported.

In the college adjoining the church there were a year ago but fifteen

monks, and no others are admitted. When these fifteen shall be dead the

convent--_Sacro Collegio_ they call it--will pass entirely into the

hands of the government, which now uses the greater part of it for a

school for the sons of poor teachers, who are sent here from all parts

of Italy.

Accompanied by a professor of the college, we went over that part of

the building not appropriated to the monks. It is a little town in

itself, and has something of the variety and contrasts of a town. To go

from the vast refectory to that upper part of the building called the

Ghetto, with its interminable low and narrow corridor and lines of

little chambers, is to see the two extremes of which building is

capable.

Without intending to write a statistical article, I may give a few of

the dimensions we took note of. The refectory is one hundred and ninety

feet long and forty wide, and is capable of seating at table five

hundred persons. The tables run around the room, with a single row of

seats against the wall, and are served from the centre of the hall.

Quite across one end extends a painting of the Last Supper. At one side

is a tiny pulpit, from which in the old time one would read aloud while

the monks ate.

The infirmary and rooms used for storing articles in ordinary use

occupy twenty large chambers. The five elementary school-rooms are each

fifty feet square, the kitchen is eighty-three feet square, and the

fencing-hall and garden adjoining contain together over sixty-six

hundred square feet. The cistern under the cloister is of nearly the

same size.

There is water in profusion--in the court, the kitchen, the boys'

wash-rooms, wherever it can be needed. In the entry from the principal

court is an odd fourteenth-century fountain which is a perfect

calendar. It is set against the wall, and is in twelve compartments,

answering to the twelve months of the year. In the frieze above are

carved roses, red stone on a white ground--in some compartments thirty,

in others thirty-one, answering to the days of the month. All the

fountains are made of the crimson-and-white stone of Asisi, which is

seen everywhere about the city--in vases for holy water, in pavements,

in garden-walls, in the foundations of houses. The stone, a red

sandstone, is found in plenty in the adjoining mountains, and has a

rich, soft crimson hue with irregular lines of white. But it is very

hard to work, and could scarcely be made to pay the expense of the

necessary machinery.

"For what I should have to pay for a bath of red marble, about one

hundred lire (twenty dollars)," said the Count B---- to me, "I could

buy a bath of Carrara."

"Baths of crimson marble and of Carrara!" I thought, and remembered

with an involuntary shudder my dear native zinc.

But to return to the Sacro Collegio. In one of the immense labyrinthine

cellars is a _botte_ for wine capable of containing five thousand

litri. There, it is said--I know not how truly--once a year, when the

botte was emptied, came four of the spiritual fathers of the college

above, with a table and chairs, and played a certain game of cards,

which was one of their simple amusements. Whether this meeting was

intended as an exorcism of any evil influences which might threaten the

new must about to be put in, or a mild bacchanalian tribute to the

empty space from which they had drawn so much comfort and cheerfulness

during the year, or whether the wine left some fine perfume behind it

which they wished to inhale, tradition saith not. Maybe the fathers

never went there, and the story is merely _ben trovato_.

In the school of design we admired a copy of some of the carving of the

choir of the cathedral of Asisi. The leaves were remarkably crisp and

all the lines full of life. My guide told me that this choir and the

famous one of St. Peter's in Perugia were designed by the same artist,

but that of Perugia was executed by another and more timid hand, while

this of Asisi was carved by the artist himself.

Our last visit in the college was to the grand _loggia_--finer than

anything of the kind I have seen in Italy except the Loggia del

Paradiso of Monte Casino, which is open, while this of San Francesco is

closed. The grandeur of this loggia, with its lofty arches and long

perspective, is in harmony with the magnificence of the view to be seen

from it. Seated there, on the stone divan that runs the whole length of

the colonnade, I listened a while to the very interesting talk of my

companion. This gentleman, Professor Cristofani, is said to be one of

the most learned men in Umbria, and has studied so thoroughly his

native province as to be an authority on all that concerns its history

and antiquities. A native of Asisi, he has devoted himself especially

to that city, and his _Storia di Asisi_ and _Guida di Asisi_ are

monuments of learned and patient research. He has written also a

history of San Damiano which has lately been translated in England.

The government took possession of this church and convent of San

Damiano, the first home of St. Clara and her companions, and proposed

establishing there a school of arts and trades; but Lord Ripon

persuaded them to sell the property to him, and in his turn presented

it to the _frati_ from whom it had been taken. It is a rough place, but

interesting in memories.

"I have a book _in petto_," the professor said, "which will, I think,

be more valuable and interesting than the others. I have collected

material for a history of the church and convent of St. Francis, and

shall write it as soon as I have time. I should be glad if it could be

illustrated."

While he spoke my imagination was already turning over the leaves of a

history of that stately monument, around which clusters so much of

Middle-Age story, and looking at copies of forms and faces which to

remember is a dream of rainbows and angels. There should be that quaint

Madonna who points her thumb over her shoulder at St. Francis while she

asks her Son to bless him, and the three saints and the Madonna of the

north transept, and the pictures at the entrance of the chapel of San

Martino, and the vault of the chapel of St. Louis, and a thousand other

lovely things.

And, "Signor Professore," I said eagerly, "how I should like to

translate that work, pictures and all, into English!"

He cordially consented, with many compliments.

As we left the loggia he pointed to the arch opposite the

entrance-door. "That is the arch of suicides," he said: "more than one

man has thrown himself down that precipice."

We were joined by a Benedictine monk as we went but, who proposed that

we should go up the campanile. It is pleasant to visit the bells of a

famous or favorite church. It is like seeing a poet whose songs we have

heard, and pleasanter in some respects; for while the poet may mantle

himself in commonplace at our approach, like Olympus in clouds, one can

always waken the spirit of song in these airy singers.

The way up this campanile is very rough, a mere gravelly path, and one

can only maintain his footing by holding a rope that runs all the way

up, following the four sides. Reaching the large chamber at the top, we

paid our respects to the seven bells, whose intricate changes I had so

many times tried to follow. Their ringing is a puzzle. In the middle

hung the melancholy _campanone_, with a silvery soprano by its side--a

very Dante and Beatrice among bells.

We stayed to hear the noon Angelus strike, and while the last stroke

was still booming around the great bell I took a step toward it and

stretched my hand out.

I was instantly snatched backward, with a profusion of excuses.

"It is said," the professor explained, "that if a bell be touched, even

with the finger-tip, while ringing, it will instantly break. I do not

know if it be true, but it is worth guarding against."

It was indeed! A fine appetite I should have had for my breakfast, at

that moment awaiting me, if I had had to reflect over it that the great

bell of the great basilica of St. Francis of Asisi had that very

morning been cracked into pieces by my fore finger! What visions of

horrified crowds of _Asisinati_, of black storms of newspaper items, of

censuring gossip the world over, would have come between me and that

purple pigeon smothered in rice which Maria had promised me! The pope

himself would have known me individually out of the cloud of his

subjects, and have frowned upon my image. And how it would have been

whispered behind me to the end of my days, "That is the lady who broke

the great bell of St. Francis"! But I had not broken it, and it still

hangs sound and strong, to send its melancholy sweet music out to meet

the centuries as they roll in storm and sunshine over the eastern

mountains. Let us be thankful for the evils which might have happened

and did not.

I cannot resist the temptation to relate a little incident concerning

this same learned Professor Cristofani, it struck me as so quaint. He

is a poor man--literature, and even teaching, do not pay very well in

Italian paesi--and he has a family. Cheaply as servants may be

employed, he could not afford one, and his wife was not very well. Last

summer the _Alpinisti_ visited Asisi, and some of the principal

members, having an introduction to him, wished to visit him. Their stay

in Asisi was short, and, being sunrise-and-mountain-top people, they

made their call at six o'clock in the morning on their way to the top

of Mount Asio, from which Asisi takes its name, and, I may here add,

the correct spelling of its name, which I have followed. A servant from

the Leone Hotel showed the visitors to the house, and very stupidly

knocked at the kitchen-door. A loud "_Avanti!_" from within answered

the knock. The door was opened by the guide, revealing a tableau. The

professor, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and an apron tied on, was

earnestly kneading a mass of dough preparatory to sending it to the

baker's oven, where everybody bakes their bread, and his pretty blonde

young daughter was making coffee at the kitchen fire.

"Well, I am a poor man, and my wife was sick," he said afterward, in

telling the story, with a sad smile in his eyes, which are as blue and

almost as blind as violets.

These stories awaken a laugh only at the time, but gain a certain

sublimity when years have gilded them--like that one of St.

Bonaventura, which this reminds us of: When the two legates sent by the

pope of that time to carry the scarlet beretta of a cardinal to St.

Bonaventura set out in search of him, they were obliged to follow him

to a little Franciscan convent at a short distance from Florence, where

he had retired for devotion and to practise for a while the humble

rules of his order. As these two dignified prelates came solemnly

around an angle of the building they glanced through the open

kitchen-window, and were astonished to see the personage they sought

engaged in washing the supper-dishes. He accosted them with perfect

calmness, and, learning their errand, requested them to hang the hat in

a tree near by till he should have finished washing the dishes. They

complied, and the pots and pans and plates having been attended to, the

whole community adjourned to the chapel and the saint received the

dignity of prince of the Church.

The eight days' festa of Corpus Domini opened in Asisi with one of the

most exquisite sights I have ever seen, the procession of the cathedral

as it passed from San Francesco through Via Superba on its return to

the cathedral. We took our places in a window reserved for us, and

waited. There all was quiet and deserted. The air was perfumed by

sprigs of green which each one had strewn before his own house. One

living creature alone was visible--a little boy who knelt in the middle

of the street and carefully placed small yellow flowers in the form of

an immense sunflower chalked out on the pavement. Here and there, in

some stairway-window, a shrine had been prepared, with its Madonna,

lamp and flowers. It was near noon of a bright June day, but the houses

were so high that the sun struck only on the upper stories of the north

side of the street. All below was in that transparent shadow wherein

objects look like pictures of themselves or like reflections in clear

water. The whole street was indeed a picture, with its gray houses set

in irregular lines, and as distinct in character as a line of men and

women would have been. On the building opposite our window was an

inscription telling that Metastasio had lived there--on another a date,

1419.

In 1419, when they piled the stones of that wall, Christopher Columbus

was not born, yet the basilica of St. Francis had been built more than

one hundred and fifty years; and on such a June day as this the

Asisinati leaned from their windows to see a Corpus Domini procession

come up the street, just as they were now doing. It came through the

fragrant silence and clear shadow like a vision. I could not restrain

an exclamation of surprise and delight, for I had not dreamed of

anything so beautiful. The procession would have been striking

anywhere, but shut in as it was between the soft gray of the opposite

stone houses, with the green-sprinkled street beneath and the glorious

blue above, it was as wonderful as if, looking down into clear deeps of

water, one should see the passing of some pageant of an enchanted city

buried deep in the crystalline waves centuries ago. There was nothing

here but the procession, leisurely occupying the whole street, treading

out faint odors without raising a particle of dust. The crowd that in

other places always obscures and spoils such a display here followed on

behind. The leisureliness of an Italian religious procession is

something delicious, as well as the way they have of forming hollow

squares and leaving the middle of the street sacred to the grander

dignities.

The members of the different societies wore long robes of red, blue or

of gray trimmed with red, and had small three-cornered pieces of the

material of the robe suspended by a string at the back of the neck, to

be drawn up over the head if necessary. The arms of the societies were

embroidered on the breast or shoulder, and each one had its great

painted banner of Madonna or saint and a magnificent crucifix with a

veil as rich as gold, silver, silk and embroidery could make it. There

were the white _camicie_ half covering the brown robes of long-bearded,

bare-ankled Cappuccini, and sheets of silver and gold in the vestments

of the other clergy.

Presently the canopy borne over the Host appeared, with the

incense-bearers walking backward before it and swinging out faint

clouds of smoke: the voices of the choir grew audible, singing the

_Pange lingua_, and everybody knelt. In a few minutes all was over.

There was a fair in connection with this feast, the most notable part

of which was dishes of all sorts set on tables or spread on the grass

of the pleasant piazza of St. Peter's, the Benedictine church, with no

roof over but the sky. The brown and yellow-green earthenware for

kitchen use would have delighted any housekeeper. We bought some tiny

saucepans with covers, and capable of holding a small teacupful, for a

cent each. Italian housekeepers make great use of earthen saucepans and

jars for cooking. One scarcely ever sees tin--iron almost never. In

rich houses copper is much used, but brown ware is seen everywhere.

The next notable festa, and the great feast of Asisi, is the Pardon,

called variously the Pardon of Asisi, the Pardon of St. Francis and the

Porziuncola.

In the old times, and particularly when this indulgence could be

obtained only in Asisi, the concourse of people was so great that there

were not roofs to cover them, and many slept in the open air. But since

the favor has been extended to other churches, as well as from other

reasons, the number is greatly diminished, and consists chiefly of

people in _villeggiatura_ near by and of a few hundred Neapolitan

peasants, who with undiminished fervor come to obtain the Pardon, and

whose singular performance, called _gran ruota_ (the great wheel),

everybody goes to see.

The Catholic reader will know that this Pardon can be obtained only

from vespers of the first to vespers of the second day of August, and

that while in every other church communion is a necessary condition, it

is sufficient to merely pass through the chapel of the Porziuncola, for

which St. Francis obtained the indulgence from Pope Honorius.

There is a large fair in connection with this festa--merchandise of all

sorts in the piazza and corso, and a cattle-fair in the upper part of

the town. The long white road stretching from Asisi to Santa Maria

degli Angeli in the plain was quite black with _contadini_ coming up

with their goods in the early dawn, and a sound of hoofs and of many

feet told that the procession was passing the house. There were carts

full of produce, men leading white and dove-colored cattle, and women

with large round baskets on their heads. These baskets contained live

fowl. In one a large melancholy turkey meditated on his approaching

fate: in another, two of lighter disposition swung their long necks

about and viewed the scene. One of these baskets was as pretty as the

blackbird pie of famous memory. In it sat eight chickens of an age to

make their début on the platter, all settled into a fluffy, soft-gray

cushion, out of which their little heads and necks and half-raised

wings peeped and turned and fluttered in a manner that testified to the

agitation of their spirits. The woman carrying this basket would have

made a pretty caryatid, chickens and all, so straight was she, so

robust her shoulders and so full and regular the oval of her face.

The cattle were superb--some immensely large, others delicately small,

and all with such long, slim, pointed horns as made one shrink. Those

strong, high-lifted heads carried their weapons like unsheathed

scymitars. Red cords were twined across their foreheads from horn to

horn, and red tassels swung beside their faces. This procession passed

in almost entire silence, with only a pattering of hoofs that sounded

like heavy rain.

Presently appeared a light wagon in which sat alone a large fleshy

woman, who had quite the expression of one making a triumphal entry

into the city. Her black hair was elaborately dressed in braids

fastened with gold pins and in short curls on the forehead, and was

lightly covered with a black lace veil. Her dress was a sky-blue silk,

with a lace shawl carefully draped over the wide shoulders. Her hands

were loaded with rings and her neck with gold chains, and a large

medallion swung over two large brooches. There was a smile of conscious

superiority on her coarsely-handsome face as she glanced over the

contadini, who humbly made way for her. A small, meek, well-dressed man

who walked beside the wagon seemed to be the proprietor of its

occupant, and to be somewhat oppressed by his good fortune. There was

no room for him in the wagon. It occurred to me that this might be an

avatar of the old woman of Banbury Cross.

The crowd thinned away like rain that from a heavy shower falls only in

scattered drops, and I was about turning from the window when my eyes

fell upon a beautiful bit of color across the way, standing out, as so

much Italian color does, against the background of a gray stone wall.

It was an odd, slim cone, something over five feet high, made of grass

and clover sprinkled through with burning poppies. I was just thinking

that this verdure must be fastened to a pole set into the ground when

it began to move. The fresh, long grass waved, the poppies glowed like

live coals when blown upon, two slim brown feet and ankles appeared

under the green fringe, and the dimpled elbow of a slim brown arm

peeped out above. Nothing else human was visible as this figure walked

away up the street toward the fair. Poor Ruth! She had neither cows,

pigs nor chickens, but she came with such riches as she could glean at

the roadside from bountiful Nature, clothed and covered from the top of

her invisible head down to her well-turned ankles in a garment as fair

as fancy could weave.

Later, Count B---- came to take me to the cattle-fair, where we found

the upper piazza all a drift of shaded snow at one side with cows and

oxen, and at the other a shining chestnut-color with horses and

donkeys. We walked among these creatures, my companion warding away

from me their long horns and telling me some little items of bovine

character which may be known the world over, but which were new to me.

Some cattle are women-haters, he said, and in a country where women

have so much to do with the cattle that was a great defect. The buyer

detected the flaw in this way: he passed his hand slowly down the

creature's back from the neck to the tail: then a woman would do the

same. If the animal made any difference between the two or looked round

at the woman, he would not buy. They try them also when they are eating

in the stall. If the animal looks round when it is eating at the person

who is approaching, it is ill-natured.

We went then to see the old theatre, where plays used to be performed

on great occasions. It was a large circle of stone wall, a miniature of

the old amphi-theatre of the Roman Forum, with the sky for a roof. But

now a vegetable-garden grows where the spectacle once was seen, and

along the walls where the audience sat and gazed deep-hued wallflowers

bloom and delicate jasmine-vines hang out their white stars.

Farther on is an old city-gate, which, unfortunately, was to be torn

down to make way for a new road. Those gates are veritable pictures,

with their beautiful round arches and the niche with its fresco

underneath. This porta preserved perfectly in the crimson stone the

smooth slide down which the suspended gate slipped at night or in times

of danger.

Returning through the piazza, I saw the balcony of a public building

draped with red satin, and a flag hung out in it. While this flag was

out, Count B---- said, no creature which was sold could be returned to

the seller, no matter what flaw might be discovered in it after the

bargain was concluded. It was then the time to get rid of women-hating

cows and oxen and "made-up" horses.

In the afternoon we went to the church of St. Francis to see the

_piccola ruota_ of the Neapolitan peasants, which is apparently a

rehearsal for the _gran ruota_ to be performed in the Porziuncola the

day following. These people were all gone, when we reached the church,

to follow a relic-bearing procession of Franciscans to the little

chapel built over the spot where St. Francis was born, and the

spectators took advantage of the opportunity to range themselves about

the walls and wherever they could find places. We were scarcely in the

seats offered us in the choir when a murmur of subdued exclamations, a

trampling of many feet and a cloud of dust that filled the vestibule

announced the return of the procession. The gates of the iron grating

which shut off the chancel and transepts from the nave were opened to

admit the monks with their relic, and closed immediately to exclude the

crowd. After the short function was ended they were again opened, and

the crowd rushed in and began to run around the altar.

These people were all poor: many were old and had to be held up and

helped along by a younger person at either side. The women wore

handkerchiefs on their heads, and many wore those sandals made of a

piece of leather tied up over the foot with strings which give these

peasants their popular name of _sciusciari_, an imitative word derived

from the scuffling sound of the sandals in walking. They hurried

eagerly on, hustling each other, murmuring prayers and ejaculations,

and seemed quite unconscious of the crowd of persons who had come there

to stare, perhaps to laugh, at them. The Asisinati looked on without

taking any part, and with a curiosity not unmingled with contempt. "The

Neapolitans are so material!" they say.

These repeated circlings of the altar, I was told, are intended as so

many visits, each time they go round having the value of a visit. Many

of these people seek the Pardon not only for themselves, but for

friends who are unable to come. The absent confess and communicate at

their parish church at home, and unite their intention with that of the

person who makes the visit for them.

My _padrona di casa_ told me an anecdote in illustration of this

materialism of the Neapolitans, which the Asisinati are anxious not to

be thought to share: On the first of August several years before, she

said, when the church of St. Francis was full of people waiting around

the confessionals, a man at one of them was observed to be disputing

with the priest inside. Pressed so closely as they were, many might

excuse themselves for being aware that the penitent was refusing to

agree to the penance imposed by the priest, who consequently declined

to give him absolution. The priest cut the dispute short by closing the

wicket and addressing himself to the penitent at the other side. The

man left his place and wandered disconsolately about the church,

followed by many curious eyes, for not to listen in silent submission

to the penance imposed by the priest is a rare scandal. After a while

he seemed to have resolved on a compromise, but it was no longer

possible to obtain his place in advance of the crowd, where each one

waited his turn. He took a post, therefore, directly opposite the front

of the confessional, as near as he could get, but with half the width

of the nave between, and waited till the priest should be visible. The

moment came when the confessor, turning from one penitent to another,

was seen from the front. The man leaned eagerly forward, and throwing

out his right hand with three fingers extended, as if playing _morra_,

called out, "Quello del casotiello, volete farlo per tre?" ("You in the

confessional there, will you do it for three?") (These peasants call

the confessional _casotiello_.) Whether the bargain related to a number

of prayers to be said, a number of visits or of masses, does not

concern us.

The next afternoon we went down to Santa Maria degli Angeli in the

plain, the very penetralia of the Pardon. Those who have visited this

church know that the little chapel of the Porziuncola, which is

enclosed in its midst like the heart in a body, has two doors--one at

the lower end, the other at the upper right corner. It is very dim

except when its altar is blazing with candles and its hanging lamps

lighted. As we have already said, a visit to this chapel or merely

passing through it, for a person who has confessed, satisfies the

outward conditions of the Pardon.

In the gran ruota which we were about to witness the Neapolitans

entered in an unbroken line at the lower door, passed out without

stopping at the upper, ran down the side-aisle of the church and out of

the door, in again at the great door, up the nave, and again through

the chapel, repeating this over and over for fifteen or twenty minutes.

While they make the wheel no one else enters the chapel: all are

spectators.

It was for these poor people the supreme moment. They had come from

afar at an expense which they could ill afford; they had endured

fatigue, perhaps hunger; and they had been mocked at. But, so far, they

had accomplished their task. They had confessed their sins with all the

fervor and sincerity of which they were capable, had visited the

birthplace, the home, the basilica and the distant mountain-retreat of

St. Francis, and they had gathered the miraculous yellow fennel-flowers

of the mountain. Now they were to receive the Pardon. The chains of

hell had fallen from them in confession: at the moment of entering the

chapel the bonds of Purgatory would also be loosened, and if they

should drop dead there, or die before having committed another sin,

they would fly straight to heaven as larks into the morning sky. No

passing from a miserable present to a miserable Purgatory, but

unimaginable bliss in an instant. Their ideal bliss might not be the

highest which the human mind is capable of conceiving, but it was the

highest that they could conceive, and their souls strained blindly

upward to that point where imagination faints against the thrilling

cord with which the body holds the spirit in tether. To these people

heaven was not a mere theological expression, a vague place which might

or might not be: it was as real as the bay and the sky of Naples and

the smoking volcano that nursed for ever their sense of unknown

terrors. It was as real as the poppies in their grass and the oranges

ripening on their trees. Maria Santissima, in her white robe and the

blue mantle where they could count the creases, was there, with ever

the vision of a Babe in her arms, and Gesù, the arms of whose cross

should fall into folds of a glorious garment about his naked crucified

form, in sleeves to his hands, in folds about his feet and raised into

a crown about his head. Into this blessed company no earthly pain could

enter to destroy their delights. Cold and hunger and the dagger's point

could never find them more, nor sickness rack them, nor betrayal set

their blood in a poisoned flame, nor earthquakes chill them with

terror. Lying in that heavenly sunshine, with fruit-laden boughs within

reach and heaps of gold beside them if they should wish for it, they

could laugh at Vesuvius licking in vain with its fiery tongue toward

them, and at the black clouds heavy with hail that would spread ruin

over the fields far away from these celestial vineyards and the waving

grain of Paradise.

Exalted by such visions, what to them were the gazing crowd and their

own rags and squalor? They entered the Porziuncola singing: they came

out at the side-door transfigured, and silent except for some

breathless "Maria!" or "Gesù!" Their arms were thrown upward, their

glowing black eyes were upraised, their thin swarthy faces burned with

a vivid scarlet, their white teeth glittered between the parted lips.

Round and round they went like a great water-wheel that revolves in sun

and shadow, and the spray it tossed up as it issued from the

Porziuncola was rapture, the fiery spray of the soul.

At last all remained outside the chapel, making two long lines from

either side the door down the nave to the open air, their faces ever

toward the chapel. Then they began to sing in voices as clear and sweet

as a chorus of birds. Not a harsh note was there. They sang some hymn

that had come down to them from other generations as the robins and the

bobo-links drop their songs down to future nestlings, and ever a

long-drawn note stretched bright and steady from one stanza to another.

So singing, they stepped slowly backward, always gazing steadily at the

lighted altar of the Porziuncola, visible through the door, and,

stepping backward and singing, they slowly drew themselves out of the

church, and the Pardon for them was over.

But though Asisi is not without its notable sights, the chief pleasures

there are quiet ones. A walk down through the olive trees to the dry

bed of the torrent Tescio will please one who is accustomed to rivers

which never leave their beds. One strays among the rocks and pebbles

that the rushing waters have brought down from the mountains, and

stands dryshod under the arches of the bridges, with something of the

feeling excited by visiting a deserted house; with the difference that

the Undine people are sure to come rushing down from the mountains

again some day. There one searches out charming little nooks which

would make the loveliest of pictures. There was one in the Via del

Terz' Ordine which was a sweet bit of color. Two rows of stone houses

facing on other streets turn their backs to this, and shade it to a

soft twilight, till it seems a corridor with a high blue ceiling rather

than a street. There it lies forgotten. No one passes through it or

looks into it. In one spot the tall houses are separated by a rod or so

of high garden-wall with an arch in the middle of it, and under the

arch is a door. Over this arch climbs a rose-vine with dropping

clusters of tiny pink roses that lean on the stone, hang down into the

shadow or lift and melt into the liquid, dazzling blue of the sky.

Except the roses and the sky all is a gray shadow. It reminds one of

some lovely picture of the Madonna with clustering cherub faces about

her head, and you think it would not be discordant with the scene if a

miraculous figure should steal into sight under that arch. It is one of

the charms of Italy that it can always fitly frame whatever picture

your imagination may paint.

One finds a pleasant and cultivated society there too. One of my most

highly-esteemed visitors was the _canonico priore_ of the cathedral,

whose father had been an officer in the guard of the First Napoleon. A

pious and dignified elderly man, this prelate is not too grave to be

sometimes amusing as well as instructive. In his youth he had the

privilege of being intimate with Cardinal Mezzofanti, who apparently

took a fancy to the young Locatelli--"Tommassino" he called him, which

is a musical way of saying Tommy. At length he offered to give him

lessons in Greek. Full of proud delight at such a privilege, the

student went with his books for the first lesson, and was most kindly

received.

"Listen, Tommassino!" the cardinal said, turning over the leaves of a

great folio. "Here is a magnificent passage of St. Chrysostom's;" and

he read it out enthusiastically in fine, sonorous Greek.

"But I do not understand what it means," said the pupil.

"To be sure;" and the savant at once translated the passage into

musical Italian, and pointed out its beauties of thought and

expression. And so on, passage after passage, but never a word of

grammar.

Another time it was another of the Fathers or a heathen poet or a

chapter from the Bible read, translated and commented upon; but never

from first to last did Tommassino learn to conjugate a verb or form a

sentence from his learned professor.

"Mezzofanti," the prior said, "was as good as he was learned. He lived

simply, would not have been known from a common priest by his dress in

the street, and visited the sick like a parish priest."

Just at the foot of the hill on which Asisi is built a farm-school was

established a few years ago, the first director being the Benedictine

abate Lisi, a nobleman by birth and a farmer-monk by choice. His death

a year or two ago was deeply regretted. To this establishment boys are

sent, instead of to prison, after their first conviction for an offence

against the law. We saw this school on a former visit to Asisi, and

were much amused to see the tall, raw-boned abate stride about in his

long black robe, which some of his motions threatened to rend from top

to bottom. Clergymen habituated to the wearing of the long robe

acquire, little by little, a restrained step and carriage, somewhat

like a woman's, so that in ordinary masculine dress they may be

discovered by their walk: one would say that they walk like women

dressed in men's garments. The free stride in a narrow petticoat is

almost comical.

On this occasion we had a new exemplification of the almost incredible

riches of Italy, for the abate Lisi's house was crowded with objects

dug up in digging cellars and drains and in cultivating the farm,

though there had been no intention to excavate and the owner was rather

embarrassed than otherwise by the riches he had acquired. Ancient coins

of many different nations, fragments of exquisite architectural

carving, statuary and household utensils, loaded shelves, tables and

drawers. Italy would seem to be wrought of such like a coral-reef, down

to its very foundations in the deep.

The abate had no utopian ideas concerning his work, though he heartily

devoted his life to it. "These boys," he said, "will go out

contadini--still thieves, if you will--but they will limit themselves

to stealing a third out of their master's portion of the produce."

In Asisi we learned to understand what we may call atmospheric

politics, and it confirmed our former opinion that the Italian people

do not care a fig who governs them if only they are well fed. When they

are hungry they rebel, and the only freedom they covet is freedom from

the pangs of hunger. They are equally well pleased with the pope or

with "Vittorio," as they called him, if their simple meal is always

within reach; and if on feast-days they can have a chicken, red wine

instead of white, and a _dolce_, their contentment rises to enthusiasm.

A drought or a destructive rain is therefore to be feared by any

government, especially if there be malcontents to make use of it. There

was quite a severe drought in Asisi last summer, and loud and deep were

the imprecations we heard against the government. As the vines withered

and the corn shrank, so withered and shrank the king and his ministers

in the esteem of these poor people. Count Bindangoli told me that they

very much feared some democratic demonstration, and that they were

anxiously looking forward to the winter. In vain for weeks we looked

over to Perugia for rain (rain comes to Asisi only from that

direction). In vain were prayers in the churches, processions and

promises. We saw the gray showers sail around the horizon, heard their

far-off thunders, saw the lightning zigzag down through the slanting

torrents, and almost saw the hills grow green under them. The only

tempests we had were those we saw brooding on the brows of scowling

contadini. They talked openly of a republic, they were sick of the

devouring taxes, they regretted the papacy: there was certainly danger

of some "scompiglio," my padrone di casa assured me.

At length, after long weeks of waiting, Perugia disappeared in a gray

deluge: the rain came marching like an army across the plain toward us;

its first scattered drops printed the dust, its sheets of water

drenched the windows, its small torrents rushed down the steep streets.

The mountains grew dim and almost disappeared: we were shut in with

hope and a fresh delight. Then the deluge settled into a gentle rain,

under which the grapes swelled out their globes, the corn rustled with

a fuller growth and the hearts of men grew content. The king and his

ministers also budded out into new beauty, and flourished in popular

esteem like the green bay tree, and the republic was quenched--till the

next drought.

_The Author of "Signor Monaldini's Niece._"

HORSE-RACING IN FRANCE,

TWO PAPERS.--I.

[Illustration: THE RACE-COURSE AT LONGCHAMPS.]

The passion for horse-racing, which for more than two centuries has

made the sport a national one in England, cannot be said to exist in

France, and the introduction of this "pastime of princes" into the

latter country has been of comparatively recent date. Mention, it is

true, has been found of races on the plain of Les Sablons as early as

1776, and in the next year a sweepstakes of forty horses, followed by

one of as many asses, was run at Fontainebleau in the presence of the

court. But it is not until 1783 that one meets with the semblance of an

organization, and this as a mere caprice of certain grandees, who

affected an English style in everything, and who thought to introduce

the customs of the English turf along with the _chapeau Anglais_ and

the riding-coat. It was notably the comte d'Artois (afterward Charles

X.), the duc de Chartres (Philippe Égalité), the marquis de Conflans

and the prince de Guéménée who fancied themselves obliged, in their

character of Anglomaniacs, to patronize the race-course; but the public

of that time, to whom this imitation of English manners was not only an

absurdity, but almost a treason against the state, gave but a cold

reception to the attempted innovation. Racing, too, from its very

nature, found itself in direct conflict with all the traditions of the

ancient school of equitation, and it encountered from the beginning the

severe censure and opposition of horsemen accustomed to the measured

paces of the _manége_, whose highest art consisted in consuming a whole

hour in achieving at a gallop the length of the terrace of St. Germain.

The professors of this equestrian minuet, as solemn and formal in the

saddle as was the dancer Dupré in the ballets of the period, predicted

the speedy decay of the old system of horsemanship and the extinction

of the native breed of horses if France should allow her soil to be

invaded by foreign thoroughbreds with their English jockeys and

trainers. The first French sportsmen--to use the word in its limited

sense--thus found themselves not only unsupported by public opinion,

but alone in the midst of an actively-hostile community, and no one can

say how the unequal contest might have ended had not the graver events

of the Revolution intervened to put an end, for a time at least, not

only to the luxurious pleasures, but to all the hopes and ambitions, of

the noble class of idlers.

The wars with England that followed retarded for a quarter of a century

the introduction of racing into France. The first ministerial ordinance

in which the words _pur sang_ occur is that of the 3d of March, 1833,

signed by Louis Philippe and countersigned by Adolphe Thiers,

establishing a register of the thoroughbreds existing in France--in

other words, a national _stud-book_, by which name it is universally

known. The following year witnessed the foundation of the celebrated

Society for the Encouragement of the Improvement of Breeds of French

Horses, more easily recognized under the familiar title of the "Jockey

Club." The first report of this society exposed the deplorable

condition of all the races of horses in the country, exhausted as they

had been by the frightful draughts made upon them in the imperial wars,

and concluded by urging the necessity of the creation of a pure native

stock, of which the best individuals, to be selected by trial of their

qualities of speed and endurance upon the track, should be devoted to

reproduction. This was the doctrine which had been practically applied

in England, and which had there produced in less than a century the

most important and valuable results. France had but to follow the

example of her neighbor, and, borrowing from the English stock of

thoroughbreds, to establish a regular system of races as the means of

developing and improving the breed of horses upon her own soil.

This reasoning seemed logical enough, but the administration of the

_Haras_, or breeding-stables--which is in France a branch of the civil

service--opposed this innovation, and contended that the only pure type

of horse was the primitive Arab, and that every departure from this

resulted in the production of an animal more or less degenerate and

debased. The reply of the Jockey Club was, that the English

thoroughbred is, in fact, nothing else than a pure Arab, modified only

by the influences of climate and treatment, and that it would be much

wiser and easier to profit by a result already obtained than to

undertake to retrace, with all its difficulties and delays, the same

road that England had taken a century to travel.

The experience gained since 1833 has shown that the conclusions of the

Jockey Club were right, but the evidence of facts and of the results

obtained has not yet brought the discussion to a close. The

administration of the Haras still keeps up its opposition to the

raising of thoroughbreds, and will no doubt continue to do so for some

time to come, so tenacious is the hold of routine--or, as the

Englishman might say, of red tape--upon the official mind in France,

whether the question be one of finance, of war or of the breeding of

horses.

But it is not only against the ill-will of the administration that the

Jockey Club has had to struggle during all these years: it has had also

to contend with the still more disheartening indifference of the public

in the matter of racing. There is no disputing the fact that the

genuine lover of the horse, the _homme de cheval_--or, if I may be

forgiven a bit of slang for the sake of its expressiveness, the

_horsey_ man, whether he be coachman or groom, jockey or trainer--is

not in France a genuine product of the soil, as he seems to be in

England. Look at the difference between the cabman of London and his

brother of Paris, if there be enough affinity between them to justify

this term of relationship. The one drives his horse, the other seems to

be driven by his. In London the driver of an omnibus has the air of a

gentleman managing a four-in-hand: in Paris the imbecile who holds the

reins looks like a workman who has been hired by the day to do a job

that he doesn't understand. So pronounced is this antipathy--for it is

more than indifference--of the genuine man of the people toward all

things pertaining to the horse that, notwithstanding all the

encouragements that for nearly half a century have been lavishly

offered for the purpose of developing a public taste in this direction,

not a single jockey or trainer who can properly be called a Frenchman

has thus far made his appearance. All the men and boys employed in the

racing-stables are of English origin, though many, perhaps most, of

them have been born in France; but the purity of their English blood,

so important in their profession, is as jealously preserved by

consanguineous marriages as is that of the noble animals in their

charge. It was an absolute necessity for the early turfmen of France to

import the Anglo-Saxon man with the Anglo-Arabian horse if they would

bring to a creditable conclusion the programme of 1833. And during all

the long period that has since elapsed what courage and patience, what

determined will, to say nothing of the prodigious expenditure of money,

have been shown by the founders of the race-course in France and by

their successors! Their perseverance has had its reward, indeed, in the

brilliancy of the results obtained, but there is still due to them an

ampler tribute of recognition than they have yet received, and it will

be a grateful duty to dwell for a while upon the history of the Jockey

Club.

Of its fourteen original members but two survive, the duc de Nemours

and M. Ernest Leroy. The other twelve were His Royal Highness the duc

d'Orléans, M. Rieussec, who was killed by the infernal machine of

Fieschi, the comte de Cambis, equerry to the duc d'Orléans, Count

Demidoff, Fasquel, the chevalier de Machado, the prince de la Moskowa,

M. de Normandie, Lord Henry Seymour, Achille Delamarre, Charles Lafitte

and Caccia. To these fourteen gentlemen were soon added others of the

highest rank or of the first position in the aristocratic world of

Paris. People began to talk with bated breath of the Jockey Club and of

its doings, and strange stories were whispered of the habits of some of

its distinguished members. The eccentricities of Count Demidoff and of

Major Frazer, the obstreperous fooleries of Lord Henry Seymour, the

studied extravagances of Comte d'Alton-Shee, created in the public mind

the impression that the club was nothing less than a sort of infernal

pit, peopled by wicked dandies like Balzac's De Marsay, Maxime de

Trailles, Rastignac, etc. Even the box of the club at the opera was

dubbed with the uncanny nickname _loge infernale_, and the talk of the

town ran upon the frightful sums lost and won every night at the tables

of the exclusive _cercle_, while the nocturnal passer-by pointed with a

shudder to the windows of the first floor at the corner of the Rue de

Grammont and the Boulevard, glimmering until morning dawn with a light

altogether satanic. The truth must be confessed that _jeunesse dorée_

of the period affected a style somewhat "loud." There was exaggeration

in everything--in literature--for it was the epoch of the great

romantic impulse--in art, in politics: what wonder, then, that the

distractions of high life should over-pass the boundaries of good

taste, and even of propriety? The Jockey Club in the time of Louis

Philippe did but recall the good old days of Brookes's and of White's,

of the two Foxes, of George Selwyn and of Sheridan. But how changed is

all this! There is not to-day in Paris, perhaps in the world, a more

sedate, reputable and in every sense temperate club than the "Jockey."

It concerns itself only with racing, the legitimate object of its

foundation, and nothing else is discussed in its salons, if we except

one room, which under the Empire was baptized "The Camp of Châlons,"

for the reason that it had come to be reserved for the use of the old

soldiers, who met there to talk over incidents of army life. Baccarat,

that scourge of Parisian clubs, is forbidden, and lovers of play are

obliged to content themselves with a harmless rubber of whist. As one

black ball in six is sufficient to exclude a candidate--or, to use the

official euphemism, to cause his "postponement"--it is not difficult

for the coterie that controls the club to keep it clear of all noisy,

or even of merely too conspicuous, individuality. Lord Henry Seymour

would be "pilled" to-day by a probably unanimous vote. A candidate may

enjoy all the advantages of wealth and position, he may have the entrée

to all the salons, and may even be a member of clubs as exclusive as

the Union and the Pommes-de-Terre, and yet he may find himself unable

to gain admission to the Jockey. Any excess of notoriety, any marked

personal eccentricity, would surely place him under the ban. Scions of

ancient families, who have had the wisdom to spend in the country and

with their parents the three or four years succeeding their college

life, would have a much better chance of admission than a leader of

fashion such as I have described. The illustrious General de Charette;

M. Soubeyran, at that time governor of the _Crédit foncier_ of France;

the young Henry Say, brother-in-law of the prince A. de Broglie, rich

and accomplished, and the owner, moreover, of a fine racing-stable;

together with many other gentlemen whose private lives were above

suspicion,--have been blackballed for the simple reason that they were

too widely known. As to foreigners, let them avoid the mortification of

certain defeat by abstaining from offering themselves, unless indeed

they should happen to be the possessors of a great historic name or

should occupy in their own country a position out of the reach of

ordinary mortals. This careful exclusion of all originality and

diversity has, by degrees, communicated to the club a complexion

somewhat negative and colorless, but at the same time, it must be

admitted, of the most perfect distinction. The most influential

members, although generally very wealthy, live in Paris with but few of

the external signs of luxury, and devote their incomes to home comforts

and to the improvement of their estates. If one should happen to meet

on the Champs Élysées a mail-coach or a _daumont_ [an open carriage,

the French name of which has been adopted by the English, like

_landau_, etc. It is drawn by two horses driven abreast, and each

mounted by a postilion. The nearest English equivalent is a

"victoria."] that makes the promenaders turn and look back, or if there

be an _avant-scène_ at the Variétés or the Palais Royal that serves as

a point of attraction for all the lorgnettes of the theatre, one may be

quite sure that the owners of these brilliant turnouts and the

occupants of this envied box are not members of the club--"_the_ Club,"

_par excellence_, for thus is it spoken of in Paris. It is considered

quite correct at the club to devote one's self to the raising of cattle

and sheep, as the comtes de Bouvillé, de Béhague, de Hauteserre and

others have done with such success, and one may even follow the example

of the comte de Falloux, the eloquent Academician, in emblazoning with

one's arms a pen of fat pigs at a competitive show, without in the

least derogating from one's dignity. One may also sell the wine from

one's vineyards and the iron from one's furnaces--for the iron industry

is in France looked upon as a sort of heritage of the nobility--but to

get money by any other means than those I have indicated would be

considered in the worst possible taste. On the other hand, it is

permitted to any member of the club to lose as much money as he pleases

without loss of the respect of his fellows, and the surest way to

arrive at this result is to undertake the breeding and running of

horses.

As to the external appearance and bearing of the perfect clubman, it is

very much that of Disraeli's hero, "who could hardly be called a dandy

or a beau. There was nothing in his dress, though some mysterious

arrangement in his costume--some rare simplicity, some curious

happiness--always made him distinguished: there was nothing, however,

in his dress, which could account for the influence that he exercised

over the manners of his contemporaries;" and it is probably a fact that

a member of the club is never noticed by passers on the street on

account of anything in his dress or appearance. In short, the club

seems to have adopted for its motto _Sancta simplicitas_, and the

descendants of the old nobility of France, excluded as they practically

are to-day from all public employment save that of the army, seem

determined to live amongst themselves, in tranquillity and retirement,

in such a way as to attract the least possible notice from the press or

from the crowd. Their portraits never find their way into the

illustrated papers, and no penny-a-liner ventures to make them the

subject of a biographical sketch: indeed, any one rash enough to seek

to tread upon this forbidden ground would find himself met at the

threshold by a dignified but very decided refusal of all information

and material necessary to his undertaking.

As an illustration of the care taken by the ruling spirits of the club

to preserve the attitude which they have assumed toward the public, it

may be worth mentioning that Isabelle, who for a long time enjoyed the

distinction of serving the club as its accredited flower-girl, and who

in that capacity used to hold herself in readiness every evening in her

velvet tub at the foot of the staircase of the splendid apartments at

the corner of the Boulevard and the Rue Scribe--the present location of

the club--was dismissed for no other reason than that she had become

too extensively known to the gay world of Paris. Excluded from the

sacred paddock on the race-course, she is to-day compelled to content

herself on great occasions with selling her flowers on the public turf

from a pretty basket-wagon drawn by a pair of coquettish black ponies,

or "toy" ponies in the language of the day.

Notwithstanding the magnificence of the present quarters of the club to

which I have referred, one cannot help regretting that, unlike the

Agricultural Society and the Club of the Champs Élysés, it is obliged

to confine itself to one story of the building--the first floor,

according to continental enumeration--though the rental of this floor

alone amounts to some three hundred thousand francs a year.

The committee on races, composed of fifteen members (founders) and

fifteen associate members--the latter elected every year by the

founders--represents the club in all that concerns its finances and

property, votes the budget, the programme of all races and the

conditions of the prizes, and not only legislates in making the laws

that govern the course, but acts also as judge in deciding questions

that may arise under the code that it has established. And as a

legislative body it has its hands almost as full as that of the state,

for the budget of the society grows from year to year as rapidly as the

nation's, and there are now forty-nine turfs for which it is

responsible or to which it has extended its protection. The presidency

of the committee, after having been held for many years by the lamented

Vicomte Daru, passed on his death last year to M. Auguste Lupin, the

oldest proprietor of race-horses in France. To M. Lupin, moreover,

belongs the honor of being the first breeder in France who has beaten

the English in their own country by gaining the Goodwood Cup in 1855

with Jouvence--success that was renewed by his horse Dollar in 1864. M.

Lupin, who had six times won the Jockey Club Purse (the French Derby)

and twice the Grand Prix de Paris, occupies very much the same position

in France that Lord Falmouth holds in England, and, like him, he never

bets. His colors, black jacket and red cap, are exceedingly popular,

and received even more than their wonted share of applause in the year

1875, the most brilliant season in the history of his stables, when he

carried off all the best prizes with St. Cyr, Salvator and Almanza. His

stud, which has numbered amongst its stallions the Baron, Dollar and

the Flying Dutchman, is at Vaucresson, near Versailles. His

training-stables are at La Croix, St. Ouen.

Of the remaining members of the committee on races, the best known are

the prince de la Moskowa, the comte A. de Noailles, Henry Delamarre,

Comte Frédéric de Lagrange, Comte A. des Cars, J. Mackenzie-Grieves,

Comte H. de Turtot, the duc de Fitz-James, Baron Shickler, the prince

A. d'Aremberg, Prince Joachim Murat, Comte Roederer, the marquis de

Lauriston, Baron Gustave de Rothschild, E. Fould and the comtes de St.

Sauveur, de Kergorlay and de Juigné. Most of these gentlemen run their

horses, or have done so, and the list will be found to comprise, with

two or three exceptions, the principal turfmen of France. The comte de

Juigné and the prince d'Aremberg, both very rich, and much liked in

Paris, have formed a partnership in turf matters, and the colors they

have adopted, yellow and red stripes for the jacket, with black cap,

are always warmly welcomed. In 1873, with Montargis, they won the

Cambridgeshire Stakes, which were last year carried off by the American

horse Parole, and in 1877 they renewed the exploit with Jongleur. The

count, on this latter occasion, had taken no pains to conceal the

merits of his horse, but, on the contrary, had spoken openly of what he

believed to be his chances, and had even advised the betting public to

risk their money upon him. As the English were giving forty to one

against him, the consequence of M. de Juigné's friendly counsel was

that the morning after the race saw a perfect shower of gold descending

upon Paris, the English guineas falling even into the white caps held

out with eager hands by the scullions of the cafés that line the

Boulevard. One well-known restaurateur, Catelain, of the Restaurant

Helder on the Boulevard des Italiens, pocketed a million of francs, and

testified his satisfaction, if not his gratitude, by forthwith

baptizing a new dish with the name of the winning horse. The comte de

Juigné himself cleared three millions, and many members of the club

were made the richer by sums ranging from one hundred to one hundred

and fifty thousand francs. The marquis de Castellane, an habitual

gambler, who happened to have put only a couple of hundred louis on the

horse, could not hide his chagrin that his venture had returned him but

a hundred and sixty thousand francs. Jongleur won the French Derby (one

hundred and three thousand francs) in 1877, besides thirteen other

important races. He was unfortunately killed while galloping in his

paddock in September, 1878.

The Scotch jacket and white cap of the duc de Fitz-James, owner of the

fine La Sorie stud, and the same colors, worn by the jockeys of the duc

de Fézenzac, have won but few of the prizes of the turf, and another

nobleman, the comte de Berteux (green jacket, red cap) is noted for the

incredible persistency of his bad luck. M. Édouard Fould, whose mount

is known by the jackets hooped with yellow and black and caps of the

latter color, is the proprietor of the well-known D'Ibos stud at the

foot of the Pyrenees, one of the largest and best-ordered

establishments of the kind in France; and it is to him and to his

uncle, the late Achille Fould, that the South owes in a great degree

the breeding and development of the thoroughbred horse. M. Delâtre

(green jacket and cap) raises every year, at La Celle St. Cloud, some

twenty yearlings, of which he keeps but three or four, selling the rest

at Tattersall's, Rue Beaujon, to the highest bidder. They generally

bring about six thousand francs a head, on an average.

The feeling against Germany after the war led to a proposition to expel

from the club all members belonging to that country; and it was only

the liking and sympathy felt for one of them, Baron Schickler, a very

wealthy lover of the turf and for a long time resident in France, which

caused a rejection of the motion. Baron Schickler, however, has

nominally retired from the turf since 1870, and his horses are now run

under the pseudonyme of Davis. His colors are white for the jacket,

with red sleeves and cherry cap. Another member, Mr. A. de Montgomery,

the excellent Norman breeder and the fortunate owner of La Toucques and

of Fervaques, has also given up racing under his own name, and devotes

himself exclusively to the oversight of the Rothschild stables. The

good-fortune which the mere possession of this distinguished name would

seem sufficient to ensure has not followed the colors of Baron Gustave

de Rothschild in the racing field, where his blue jackets and yellow

caps have not been the first to reach the winning-post in the contests

for the most important prizes. He buys, nevertheless, the best mares

and the finest stallions, and he has to-day, in his excellent stud at

Meautry, the illustrious Boïard, who had won, before he came into the

baron's possession, the Ascot Cup of 1873 and the Grand Prix de Paris.

The Rothschild training-stables are at Chantilly. Boïard, as well as

Vermont, another of the grandest horses ever foaled in France, and a

winner also of the Grand Prix de Paris, was formerly in possession of

M. Henry Delamarre, who in the days of the Empire enjoyed a short

period of most remarkable success, having won the French Derby no less

than three times within four years. His choice of colors was a maroon

jacket with red sleeves and black cap. He had some lesser triumphs last

year, at the autumn meeting in the Bois de Boulogne, where his mare

Reine Claude won the Prix du Moulin by two lengths, his horse Vicomte,

who up to that time had been running so badly, taking the Prix

d'Automne, while the second prize of the same name was carried off by

Clélié, thus gaining for the Delamarre stables three races out of the

five contested on that day. All M. Delamarre's horses come from the

Bois-Roussel stud, belonging to Comte Roederer.

There remain to be mentioned, amongst the number of gentlemen who are

in the habit of entering their horses for races in France, a Belgian,

the comte de Meeüs, one of whose horses was the favorite in the race

last mentioned, and though beaten, as often happens with favorites, he

and other animals from the same stables have this year carried away

several of the provincial prizes; M.L. André, owner of this season's

winners of the steeple-chase handicap known as the Prix de Pontoise and

of several hurdle-races; M.A. de Borda, who was unsuccessful in the

present year in three at least of the races in which he had entered;

M.E. de la Charme, who in June, 1879, took the Grand Prix du

Conseil-Général (handicap) at Lyons, and in September won at Vincennes

the hurdle-race Prix de Charenton; the marquis de Caumont-Laforce,

whose colors were first this summer at Moulins in the Prix du

Conseil-Général, and in the third Criterium at Fontainebleau, as well

as in the grand handicap at Beauvais last July; M.P. Aumont, who has

been not without some good luck in the provinces during the past

season; M. Moreau-Chaslon, whose successes of late have hardly been in

proportion to his numerous entries, though he won the last Prix des

Villas at Vésinet, the Prix du Jockey Club (three thousand francs) at

Châlons-sur-Saône and the Prix du Mont-Valérien at the Bois de

Boulogne; and, to bring to an end our long list of devotees of the

turf, we add the name of M. Ephrussi, who, amongst the numerous races

in which he has entered horses in 1879, has been victorious in not a

few--for instance, in the steeple-chase handicap at La Marche, called

the Prix de Clairefontaine, in L'Express at Fontainebleau, in the Prix

de Neuilly at the Bois de Boulogne, and in the handicap for the Prix

des Écuries at Chantilly, as well as in a race for gentlemen riders

only at Maison-Lafitte. Besides these and others, he gained last August

the Jockey Club Prize (five thousand francs) at Châlons-sur-Saône, the

Prix de Louray at Déauville for the like amount, another of the same

figures at Vichy, and the six thousand francs of the Grand Prix du

Havre. Most of the gentlemen last named are the owners of a

comparatively small number of horses, which are, perhaps without

exception, entrusted to the care of the famous trainer Henry Jennings

of La Croix, St. Ouen, near Compiègne.

Henry Jennings is a character. His low, broad-brimmed beaver--which has

gained him the sobriquet of "Old Hat"--pulled well down over a

square-built head, the old-fashioned high cravat in which his neck is

buried to the ears, the big shoes ensconced in clumsy gaiters, give him

more the air of a Yorkshire gentleman-farmer of the old school than of

a man whose home since his earliest youth has been in France. He is one

of the most original figures in the motley scene as he goes his rounds

in the paddock, mysterious and knowing, very sparing of his words, and

responding only in monosyllables even to the questions of his patrons,

while he whispers in the ears of his jockeys the final instructions

which many an interested spectator would give something to hear.

Beginning his career in the service of the prince de Beauvan, from

which he passed first to that of the duc de Morny and afterward to that

of the comte de Lagrange, he is now a public trainer upon his own

account, with more than a hundred horses under his care. No one has

devoted more intelligent study to the education of the racer or shown a

more intuitive knowledge of his nature and of his needs. It was he who

first threw off the shackles of ancient custom by which a horse during

the period of training was kept in such an unnatural condition, by

means of drugs and sweatings, that at the end of his term of probation

he was a pitiful object to behold. The pictures and engravings of

twenty years ago bear witness to the degree of "wasting" to which a

horse was reduced on the eve of a race, and the caricatures of the

period are hardly over-drawn when they exhibit to us the ghost of an

animal mounted by a phantom jockey. When people saw that Jennings was

able to bring to the winning-post horses in good condition, whose

training had been based upon nothing but regular work, they at first

looked on in astonishment, but afterward found their profit in

imitating his example. Under this rational system it has been proved

that the animal gains in power and endurance while he loses nothing in

speed. The same intrepid trainer has ventured upon another innovation.

Impressed with the inconveniences of shoeing, and annoyed by the

difficulty of finding a skilful smith in moving from one place to

another in the country, he conceived the idea of letting his horses go

shoeless, both during training and on the track; and, despite all that

could be urged against the practice his horses' feet are in excellent

condition. His many successes on the turf have not, however, been

crowned, as yet, by the Grand Prix de Paris, though in 1877 he thought

to realize the dream of his ambition with Jongleur, whom he had trained

and whom he loved like a son; and when the noble horse was beaten by an

outsider, St Christopher, "Old Hat" could not control an exhibition of

ill-humor as amusing as it was touching. When Jongleur died Jennings

wept for perhaps the first time in his life, and he was still unable to

restrain his tears when he described the tortures of the poor beast as

he struck his head against the sides of his box in the agonies of

lockjaw.

Let us close our list--in which, however, we have endeavored to

enumerate only the principal figures upon the French turf--with two

names; and first that of the young Edmond Blanc, heir to the immense

fortune gained by his late father as director of the famous

gaming-tables of Monaco. The latter, like a prudent parent, forbade his

son to race or to play, and Edmond, obeying the letter of the law--at

least during the lifetime of his father--was known, if known at all

upon the course, under the pseudonyme of James. At present, however, he

is the owner of an important stud and stable which are constantly

increasing, and which bid fair before long to take rank amongst the

principal establishments in the country. Waggish tongues have whispered

that when he had to make choice of colors he naturally inclined to

"rouge et noir," but finding these already appropriated by M. Lupin,

the representative of "trente et quarante" was forced to content

himself with tints more brilliant perhaps, but less suggestive. But let

him laugh who wins. The annals of the turf for 1879 inscribe the name

of M. Blanc as winner of the Grand Prix de Paris. It was his mare,

Nubienne, who first reached the winning-post by a neck in a field of

eleven horses, M. Fould's Saltéador being second, with barely a head

between him and the third, Flavio II., belonging to the comte Frédéric

de Lagrange.

This latter proprietor, the most celebrated of all--in the sense of

being the most widely known and the most talked about--I have reserved

for the end of my catalogue. Comte de Lagrange made his début upon the

turf in the year 1857, now more than twenty years ago, by buying

outright the great stable of M. Alexander Aumont, which boasted at that

time amongst its distinguished ornaments the famous Monarque, who had,

before passing into the hands of his new owner, gained eight races in

eight run, and who, under the colors of the comte, almost repeated the

feat by winning eight in nine; and of these two were the Goodwood Cup

and the Newmarket Handicap. Afterward, at the Dangu stud, he achieved a

fame of another sort, but in the eyes of horsemen perhaps still more

important. Never has sire transmitted to his colts his own best

qualities with such certainty and regularity. Hospodar, Le Mandarin,

Trocadéro were amongst his invaluable gifts to the comte, but his

crowning glory is the paternity of the illustrious Gladiateur, the

Eclipse of modern times. Gladiateur, said the baron d'Étreilly, recalls

Monarque as one hundred recalls ten. There were the very same lines,

the same length of clean muscular neck well set on the same deep and

grandly-placed shoulders, the same arching of the loins, the same

contour of hips and quarters, but all in proportions so colossal that

every one who saw him, no matter how indifferent to horseflesh in

general, remained transfixed in admiration of a living machine of such

gigantic power.

The first appearance of Gladiateur upon the race-course was at the

Newmarket autumn meeting of 1864, where he won the Clearwell Stakes,

beating a field of twelve horses. He was kept sufficiently "shady,"

however, during the winter to enable his owner to make some

advantageous bets upon him, though it required careful management to

conceal his extraordinary powers. His training remains a legend in the

annals of the stables of Royal-Lieu, where the jockeys will tell you

how he completely knocked all the other horses out of time, and how two

or three of the very best put in relay to wait upon him were not enough

to cover the distance. Fille-de-l'Air herself had to be sacrificed, and

it was in one of these terrible gallops that she finished her career as

a runner. Mandarin alone stood out, but even he, they say, showed such

mortal terror of the trial that when he was led out to accompany his

redoubtable brother he trembled from head to foot, bathed in sweat. In

1865, Gladiateur gained the two thousand guineas and the Derby at

Epsom, and for the first time the blue ribbon was borne away from the

English. "When Gladiateur runs," said the English papers at this time,

"the other horses hardly seem to move." The next month he ran for the

Grand Prix de Paris. His jockey, Harry Grimshaw, had the coquetry to

keep him in the rear of the field almost to the end, as if he were

taking a gallop for exercise, and when Vertugadin reached the last turn

the favorite, some eight lengths behind, seemed to have forgotten that

he was in the race at all. The public had made up its mind that it had

been cheated, when all at once the great horse, coming up with a rush,

passed all his rivals at a bound, to resume at their head his former

easy and tranquil pace. There had not been even a contest: Gladiateur

had merely put himself on his legs, and all had been said. These three

victories brought in to Comte de Lagrange the sum of four hundred and

forty-one thousand seven hundred and twenty-five francs, to say nothing

of the bets. Gladiateur afterward won the race of six thousand mètres

(two miles fourteen furlongs) which now bears his name, and also the

Great St. Leger at Doncaster. He was beaten but once--in the

Cambridgeshire, where he was weighted at a positively absurd figure,

and when, moreover, the track was excessively heavy. After his

retirement from the turf he was sold in 1871 for breeding purposes in

England for two hundred thousand francs, and died in 1876.

Like M. Fould and several other brethren of the turf, Comte de Lagrange

felt the discouragements of the Franco-German war, and sold all his

horses to M. Lefèvre. Fortunately, however, he had retained in his stud

at Dangu a splendid lot of breeding-mares, and with these he has since

been able to reconstruct a stable of the first order, though the effort

has cost him a very considerable sum. Indeed, he himself admits that to

cover expenses he would have to make as much as thirty thousand pounds

every year. Four times victorious in the French Derby before 1870, he

has since repeated this success for two successive years--in 1878 with

Insulaire, and in 1879 with Zut. His colors (blue jacket with red

sleeves and a red cap) are as well known in England as in his own

country. Within the last six years he has three times won the Oaks at

Epsom with Regalia, Reine and Camelia, the Goodwood Cup with Flageolet,

the two thousand guineas and the Middlepark and Dewhurst Plates with

Chamant. On the 12th of June, last year, at Ascot, he gained two races

out of three, and in the third one of his horses came in second.

But the count is by no means always a winner, nor does he always win

with the horse that, by all signs, ought to be the victor. He has

somehow acquired, whether justly or not, the reputation of being a

"knowing hand" upon the turf, and all turfmen will understand what is

implied in the term, whether of good or of evil. His stable has been

called a "surprise-box," which simply means that the "horse carrying

the first colors does not always carry the money;" that people who

think they know the merits of his horses frequently lose a good deal by

the unexpected turn of affairs upon the track; and that the count, in

short, manages to take care of himself in exercising the undoubted

right of an owner, as by rule established, to win if he can with any

one of the horses that he may have running together for any given

event. Nothing dishonorable, according to the laws of the turf, has

ever been proved, nor perhaps even been charged, against him; but as

one of his countrymen, from whom I have just now quoted, remarks, "He

is fond of showing to demonstration that a man does not keep two

hundred horses in training just to amuse the gallery."

These repeated triumphs, as well as the not less frequent ones of MM.

Lefèvre, Lupin and de Juigné, have naturally set the English

a-thinking. They have to admit that the time has passed when their

handicappers could contemptuously give a French horse weights in his

favor, and a party headed by Lords Falmouth, Hardwicke and Vivian and

Sir John Astley of the London Jockey Club has been formed with the

object of bringing about some modifications of the international code.

A war of words has ensued between Admiral Rous and Viscount Daru, the

respective presidents of the two societies, in the course of which the

admiral has urged that as English horses are admitted to only two races

in France, the Grand Prix de Paris and the D[/e]auville Cup, while

French horses are at liberty to enter upon any course in England, it is

quite time that a reciprocity of privileges were recognized, and that

racers be put upon an equal footing in the two countries. Not at all,

replies M. Daru; and for this reason: there are three times as many

race-horses in England as in France, and the small number of the latter

would bring down the value of the French prizes to next to nothing if

the stakes are based, as they are in England, upon the sum-total of the

entries. In France the government, the encouragement societies, the

towns, the railway companies, all have to help to make up the purses,

and often with very considerable sums. Would it be fair to let in

English horses in the proportion of, say, three to one--supposing the

value of the horses to be equal--to carry off two-thirds of these

subscriptions? To this the Englishman answers, not without a show of

reason, that if the foreign horses should come into France in any great

numbers this very circumstance would make the entrance-moneys a

sufficient remuneration to the winner, and that the government, the

Jockey Club and the rest would be relieved from a continuance of their

subventions. The discussion is still kept up, and it is not unlikely

that the successors of MM. Rous and Daru will keep on exchanging notes

for some years without coming nearer to a solution than the diplomats

have come to a settlement of the Eastern Question.

I have said that the Jockey Club of Paris grants subventions to the

racing societies of the provinces, which it takes under its patronage

to the number of about forty-five, but it undertakes the actual

direction of the races at only three places--namely, Chantilly,

Fontainebleau and Déauville-sur-Mer--besides those of Paris. Up to

1856, the Paris races were run on the Champ de Mars, where the track

was too hard and the turns were very sharp and awkward. In the

last-mentioned year the city ceded to the Société d'Encouragement the

open field at Longchamps, lying between the western limit of the Bois

de Boulogne and the river Seine. The ground measures about sixty-six

hectares in superficial area, and this ample space has permitted the

laying out of several tracks of different lengths and of varying form,

and has avoided any necessity for sharp turns. The whole race-course is

well sodded, and the ground is as good as artificially-made ground can

be. It is kept up and improved by yearly outlays, and these very

considerable expenses are confided to Mr. J. Mackenzie-Grieves, so well

known for his horsemanship to all the promenaders of the Bois.

The race-course at Longchamps enjoys advantages of situation and

surroundings superior, beyond all question, to those of any other in

the world. The approaches to it from Paris are by an uninterrupted

succession of the most charming drives--the Champs Élysées, the grand

avenue of the Bois de Boulogne, and finally through the lovely shaded

alleys of the Bois. Arrived at the Cascade, made famous by the attempt

of Berezowski upon the life of the czar in 1867, the eye takes in at a

glance the whole of the vast space devoted to the race-course,

overlooked to the right by a picturesque windmill and an ancient

ivy-mantled tower, and at the farther extremity by the stands for

spectators. To the left the view stretches over the rich undulating

hills of S[\e]vres and of Meudon, strewn with pretty villas and towers

and steeples, and rests in the dim distance upon the blue horizon of

Les Verriéres.

The elegant central stand or tribune, of brick and stone, is reserved

for the chief of the state. In the time of the last presidency it was

almost always occupied by the marshal, a great lover of horses, and by

his little court; but his successor, M. Grévy, whose sporting

propensities are satisfied by a game of billiards or a day's shooting

with his pointers, generally waives his privilege in favor of the

members of the diplomatic corps.

The stand to the left of the track is the official tribune, very gay

and attractive in the days of the Empire, when it was filled by the

members of the municipal council of Paris and their families, but

to-day rather a blot upon the picture, the wives of the Republican

ædiles belonging to a lower--though, in this case, a newer--stratum of

society than did their imperial predecessors. The Jockey Club reserves

for itself the first stand to the right, from which all women are

rigorously excluded. The female element, however, is represented upon

the lower ranges of benches, though the ladies belonging to the more

exclusive circles of fashion prefer a simple chair upon the gravel of

the paddock. It is there, at the foot of the club-stand, that may be

seen any Sunday in spring, expanding under the rays of the vernal sun,

the fresh toilettes that have bloomed but yesterday, or it may be this

very morning, in the conservatories of Worth and Laferrière. The

butterflies of this garden of sweets are the jaunty hats whose tender

wings of azure or of rose have but just unfolded themselves to the

light of day. My figure of "butterfly hats" has been ventured upon in

the hope that it may be found somewhat newer than that of the

"gentlemen butterflies" which the reporters of the press have chased so

often and so long that the down is quite rubbed from its wings, to say

nothing of the superior fitness of the comparison in the present case.

In fact, the gentlemen do but very rarely flutter from flower to flower

within the sacred confines of the paddock, but are much more apt to

betake themselves in crowds to the less showy parterre of the

betting-ground, where, under the shadow of the famous chestnut tree,

such enormous wagers are laid, and especially do they congregate in the

neighborhood of the tall narrow slates set up by such well-known

bookmakers as Wright, Valentine and Saffery.

Each successive year sees an increase in the number of betters, who

contribute indirectly, by means of subscriptions to the races, a very

important proportion of the budget of the Jockey Club. But if any one

should imagine from this constant growth of receipts that the taste for

racing is extending in France, and is likely to become national, he

would be making a great mistake: what is growing, and with alarming

rapidity, is the passion for gambling, for the indulgence of which the

"improvement of the breed of horses" is but a convenient and

sufficiently transparent veil. Whether the money of the player rolls

around the green carpet of the race-course or upon that of M. Blanc at

Monte Carlo, the impulse that keeps it in motion is the same, and the

book-maker's slate is as dangerous as the roulette-table. The manager

of the one piles up a fortune as surely as the director of the other,

and in both cases the money seems to be made with an almost

mathematical certainty and regularity. They tell of one day--that of

the Grand Prix of 1877--when Saffery, the Steel of the French turf and

the leviathan of bookmakers, cleared as much as fifty thousand dollars.

Wright, Valentine, Morris and many more make in proportion to their

outlay. Four or five years ago these worthies had open offices on the

Rue de Choiseul and the Boulevard des Italiens, where betting on the

English and French races went on night and day; but the police,

following the lead of that of London, stepped in to put an end to this

traffic in contraband goods, and the shops for the sale of this sort of

merchandise are now shut up. But if all this has been done, and if even

those great _voitures de poules_ which once made the most picturesque

ornament of the turf, have been banished out of sight, it has been

impossible to uproot the practice of betting, which has more devotees

to-day than ever before. It has been discovered in other countries than

France that the only way to deal with an ineradicable evil is to check

its growth, and an attempt to prohibit pool-selling a year or two ago

in one of the States of this Union only resulted in the adoption of an

ingenious evasion whereby the _pictures_ of the horses entered were

sold at auction--a practice which is, if I am not misinformed, still

kept up. The same fiction, under another form, is to be seen to-day in

France. In order to bet openly one has to buy an entrance--ticket to

the paddock, which costs him twenty francs, whereas the general entry

to the grounds is but one franc, and any one found betting outside the

enclosure or _enceinte_ of the stables is liable to arrest. The police,

no doubt, are willing to accept the theory that a man who can afford to

pay twenty francs for a little square of rose- or yellow-tinted paper

is rich enough to be allowed to indulge in any other extravagant freaks

that he pleases.

But with all the numerous bets that are made, and the excitement and

interest, that must necessarily be aroused, there is nothing of the

turbulent and uproarious demonstration so characteristic of the English

race-course. The "rough" element is kept away from the French turf,

partly because it would find its surroundings there uncongenial with

its tastes, and partly by the small entrance-fee required; and one is

thus spared at Longchamps the sight of those specimens of the various

forms of human misery and degradation that offend the eye at Epsom and

infest even the more aristocratic meetings of Ascot and Goodwood. At

the French races, too, one never hears the shrieks and howls of an

English crowd, save perhaps when in some very important contest the

favorite is beaten, and even then the yells come from English throats:

it is the bookmakers' song of victory. A stranger at Longchamps would

perceive at once that racing has no hold upon the popular heart, and

that, so far as it is an amusement at all apart from the gambling

spirit evoked, it is merely the hobby and pastime of a certain number

of idle gentlemen. As to the great mass of spectators, who are not

interested in the betting, they go to Longchamps as they would go to

any place where uniforms and pretty toilettes and fine carriages are to

be seen; for the Parisian, as one of them has well said, "never misses

a review, and he goes to the races, although he understands nothing

about them: the horses scarcely interest him at all. But there he is

because he must do as 'all Paris' does: he even tries to master a few

words of the barbarous jargon which it is considered _bon-ton_ to speak

at these places, for it seems that the French language, so rich, so

flexible, so accurate, is insufficient to express the relations and

affinities between man and the horse."

The _enceinte du pesage_, often called in vulgar English "the

betting-ring," or the enclosure mentioned above to which holders of

twenty-franc tickets are admitted, at Longchamps is scrupulously

guarded by the stewards of the Jockey Club from the invasion of the

_demi-monde_--a term that I employ in the sense in which it is

understood to-day, and not in that which it bore twenty years ago. A

woman of this demi-monde, which the younger Dumas has defined as that

"community of married women of whom one never sees the husbands," may

enter the paddock if she appears upon the arm of a gentleman, but the

really objectionable element is obliged to confine itself to the

five-franc stands or to wander over the public lawns. Some of the

fashionable actresses of the day and the best-known _belles-petites_

may be seen sunning themselves in their victorias or their

"eight-springs" by the side of the track in front of the stands, but

this is not from any interest that they feel in the performances of Zut

or of Rayon d'Or, but simply because to make the "return from the

races" it is necessary to have been to them, and every woman of any

pretension to fashion, no matter what "world" she may belong to, must

be seen in the gay procession that wends its way through the splendid

avenue on the return from Longchamps.

The great day at Longchamps, that crowns the Parisian season like the

"bouquet" at the end of a long series of fire-works, is the

international fête of the Grand Prix de Paris, run for the first time

in 1863. It is open to entire horses and to fillies of all breeds and

of all countries, three-year-olds, and of the prize, one hundred

thousand francs, half is given by the city of Paris and half by the

five great railway companies. It was the late duc de Morny who first

persuaded the municipal council and the administrations of the railways

to make this annual appropriation; ail of which, together with the

entries, a thousand francs each, goes to the winner, after deducting

ten thousand francs given to the second horse and five thousand to the

third. Last year the amount won by Nubienne, carrying fifty-three and a

half kilogrammes, was one hundred and forty-one thousand nine hundred

and seventy-five francs, and the time made was three minutes

thirty-three seconds on a track of three thousand mètres--one mile

seven furlongs, or three furlongs longer than that of the Derby at

Epsom.

The fixing of Sunday for this international contest has aroused the

prejudices of the English, and has been the occasion of a long

correspondence between Admiral Rous and Viscount Daru, but the

committee on races has refused to change the day, contending, with

reason, that the French people cannot be expected to exchange their

usages for those of a foreign country. Although it is understood that

Queen Victoria has formally forbidden the prince of Wales to assist at

these profane solemnities, this interdict has not prevented the

appearance there of some of the principal personages of England, and we

have several times noticed the presence of the dukes of St. Albans,

Argyll, Beaufort and Hamilton, the marquis of Westminster and Lords

Powlett, Howard and Falmouth; though the last, be it said, is believed

to be influenced by his respect for the day in his refusal to run his

horses in France.

Those who remember the foundation of the Grand Prix will recall the

extraordinary excitement of the occasion, when the whole population of

Paris, as one of the enemies of the new system of racing said, turned

out as they would to a capital execution or the drawing of a grand

lottery or the ascension of a monster balloon: the next day the name of

the winner was in everybody's mouth, and there was but one great man in

the universe for that day at least--he who had conceived the idea of

the Grand Prix de Paris. The receipts on this occasion amounted to

eighty-one thousand francs: last year they were two hundred and forty

thousand. I subjoin a list of the winners from 1863 to 1879, inclusive:

Years. Horses. Owners. Nationality.

1863 The Ranger H. Savile English.

1864 Vermont H. Delamarre French.

1865 Gladiateur Comte F. de Lagrange French.

1866 Ceylon Duke of Beaufort English.

1867 Feryacques A. de Montgomery French.

1868 The Earl Marquis of Hastings English.

1869 Glaneur A. Lupin French.

1870 Sornette Major Fridolin (Ch. French.

Lafitte)

1871 (Not run).

1872 Cremorne H. Savile English.

1873 Boïard H. Delamarre French.

1874 Trent W.R. Marshall English.

1875 Salvator A. Lupin French.

1876 Kisber Baltazzi Hungarian.

1877 St. Christophe Comte F. de Lagrange French.

1878 Thurio Prince Soltikoff Russian.

1879 Nubienne Edmond Blanc French.

It will be seen by this list that the superiority of the English-bred

horse over the French is far from being established. Of sixteen races,

the English have gained but five, [Since this article was written the

Grand Prix has again been won (June, 1880) by an English horse, Robert

the Devil.] while they have been three times second and four times

third, and in 1875 their three representatives came in last. The winner

of the Epsom Derby has been beaten several times, as in the case,

amongst others, of Blair Athol by Vermont and Doncaster by Boïard. The

winners of the two chief prizes of last year were a French, an English

and an Hungarian horse--Gladiateur, Cremorne and Kisber. It may be

remarked also that the winner of the French Derby, as it is called,

which is run at Chantilly a fortnight earlier, is almost never the

gainer of the Grand Prix, the only exceptions having been Boïard and

Salvator. This result is no doubt the consequence of the system of

training too long in vogue in France, and upheld by Tom Jennings and

the Carters, which consists in bringing a horse to the post in the

maximum of his condition upon a given day and for a given event. The

animal can never be in better state, and if he does not win the race

for which he has been specially prepared, it is because he is not good

enough: he cannot be made to do any better than he has done. But if it

is hard to bring a horse to this culminating point of training, it is

still more difficult to keep him there, even for a period of a few

days. Training has been compared to the sides of a triangle: when one

has reached the apex one must perforce begin to descend. It being,

then, impossible that the animal should support for any length of time

the extreme tension of his whole organism that perfect training

supposes, it but very rarely happens that the horse prepared according

to this system--for the French Derby, for example--can be maintained in

such a condition as to enable him to win the Epsom Derby or the Grand

Prix de Paris. We have heretofore referred to the reaction against this

practice of excessive training, and to the efforts of Henry Jennings in

the direction of a reform--efforts which within the last few years have

been crowned with great success.