of its
proximity to Paris and to the numerous chateaux, all occupied at this
season of the year, and in one of which, at Mouchy-le-Chastel, the duc
de Mouchy entertains a large and distinguished company. Sunday and
Tuesday are the days for races at Beauvais, Monday being given up to
pigeon-shooting. Then follow in quick succession the _courses_ of
Amiens, Abbeville, Rouen, Havre and Caen; and in all these places the
daily programme will be found to be a very varied one--too much so,
indeed, to suit the taste of the English, whose notions of the fitness
of things are offended by the sight of a steeple-chase and a flat-race
on the same track. The Normans, on the contrary, finding even this
double attraction insufficient, add to it the excitement of a
trotting-match in harness and under the saddle. And such trotting!
"Allais! marchais!" shouts the starter in good Norman, and away go the
horses, dragging their lumbering, rattling Norman carts, guided by
equally ponderous Norman peasants, over a track that is sure to be heavy
or else too hard--conditions sufficient of themselves to account for the
fact that the time made by these provincial trotters has not by any
means been reduced to figures like the 2.18 of Dexter or the phenomenal
2.14 of Goldsmith Maid. It is possible, however, that this somewhat
primitive condition of things may be gradually bettered by time, and
that when American institutions and customs shall have come to be the
_mode_ in France trotting-races, and perhaps walking-matches and
base-ball, will be developed with the rest; but up to the present time,
it must be confessed, these various amusements have been regarded by the
French public with profound indifference.

I cannot help feeling the most lively regret that trotting-contests
should have taken no hold upon the fancy of my countrymen, who would
find in their magnificent roads an opportunity for the demonstration of
the practical, every-day value of a good trotter far more favorable than
any possessed by America. But it seems that no considerations of utility
or convenience can prevail against popular prejudices and, above all,
the _mode_; and we find even the baron d'Etreilles, official handicapper
and starter to the Jockey Club--and therefore an authority--writing this
singular paragraph in _Le Sport_: "Trotting-races deserve but little
encouragement. The so-called trotting-horse does not, in fact, trot at
all. His pace is forced to such a degree