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