ace-day he gracefully does the honors of his reserved stand to all the
little Orleanist court. Since the reconciliation that took place between
the comte de Paris and the comte de Chambord in 1873 this miniature
court has been enlarged by the addition of several personages of the
Legitimist circle, and the "ring" at Chantilly is often graced with a
most distinguished and aristocratic assemblage. Amongst the beauties of
this brilliant company may be especially noticed Madame de Viel-Castel,
the young princesse Amede de Broglie, the duchesse de Chaulnes with her
strange, unconventional type of beauty, Madame Ferdinand Bischoffsheim,
the comtesse Beugnot, the comtesse Tanneguy-Duchatel and the princesse
de Sagan. And when all this gay party has dispersed, and the duke is
left to his cigar--as constant a companion as the historical weed in
the mouth of General Grant--he might almost fancy, as he walks the great
street of his good town, that he is back again at Twickenham in the days
of his exile. There is something to remind him on every side of the
country that once sheltered him. To right and left are English
farrieries, English saddleries, and English bars and taverns too.
English is the language that reaches his ears, and English of the most
"horsey" sort that one can hear this side of Newmarket. Everybody has
the peculiar gait and costume that belong to the English horseman: the
low-crowned hat, the short jacket, those tight trousers and big, strong
boots, are not to be mistaken. It is a little world in itself, in which
no Frenchman could long exist, but its peculiar inhabitants have not,
for all that, neglected anything that may attract the young folk of the
country. They have even offered the bribe of a race in which only French
jockeys are permitted to ride, but these, with only an exception here
and there, have very promptly given up the business, disgusted either by
the severe regimen required in the matter of diet or by the rigorous
discipline indispensable in a training-stable. The few exceptions to
which I have referred have not sufficed to prevent this race from
falling into disrepute; but it may be worth mentioning that on the last
occasion on which it was run, the 19th October last, when but three or
four horses were engaged, the baron de Bize, with what has been called a
veritable inspiration of genius, threw an unlooked-for interest into the
event by mounting in person M. Camille Blanc's horse Nonancourt, and