Paddy at Home ("Chez Paddy")

by baron de E. Mandat-Grancey

And the young girl sprang upon the mare’s back as she rose to her feet. The frightened filly started off at a gallop. The girl standing, her hair flying in the wind, her arms stretched out to aid her balance, her body leaning forward, her little bare feet clinging to the filly’s back, allowed herself to be carried round like a circus rider. She remained there during three or four rounds, and then feeling herself about to fall, she sprang lightly to the ground and returned laughing to her father quite proud of her freak. What a pretty subject for a picture!

Amongst us, every where, except in Normandy and in a few country houses in other parts of France, the stable arrangements are deplorable. Here, on the contrary, even in the most miserable farms that we visited, they are wonderfully complete for securing the well-being of the horses. Loose boxes are very general. The use of straw as litter would be very difficult and very dear, since we may say that scarcely any wheat is grown; it is always replaced by a mossy turf, which is first thoroughly dried and is then reduced to powder by the stamping of the horses. This litter appears excellent in every respect. It forms very soft standing for the feet, and a good bed; there is no dust, and cleanliness is secured by a simple stroke of the rake. Besides, the turf once reduced to a pulverised state is so absorbent that one cannot detect the faintest smell. I noticed that the other night at Sir Croker Barrington’s, and I have been struck with it again to-day when visiting a stallion’s stable. One thing appears very singular to me; I am told that all the turf used is imported from Germany, being found superior to anything in this country for the purpose. The loss is so little that in spite of the money spent in carriage the expenses are very small. There are many places in France where turf is most abundant, but I have never yet seen any used in this way in our own country.

In the villages and on the roads we continually pass long lines of horses fastened one behind the other and led by a man who rides the leader. They are returning from the fair at Cahirmee which ended to-day; it is the most important in the south of Ireland. The farmers tell us that they saw seven or eight French dealers there. They ought to have done a good business, for the sales were bad, only weight-carrying hunters fetched a good price. A stout priest passed in his cassock, his legs encased in black leggings, mounted on a good cob, and complacently eyeing a superb filly which a ragged urchin was leading in front of him. He was pointed out to us as the victor of the day. His filly won the first prize at the show. He refused 250l. for her.

These prices are quite exceptional. However, I think that this crisis is less felt here than with us. Horses were shown to me that had been sold for 90l. or 100l. which would certainly not have fetched the same money at the last fair at Guibray; but on an average the carriage horses are not at all better than those we see in the Normandy markets. On the other hand, saddle horses are certainly superior and are yet sold very cheaply. Mr. Thompson took me to see a lady, who showed us a very handsome little mare, five years old, a wonderful jumper, beautifully groomed, which had been just brought back from the fair unsold, although only 45l. were asked for her. How small the world is! We entered the lady’s house quite accidentally, and after five minutes’ conversation we discovered that we had already met twenty years before, when she was quite a little girl and I was a middy. Our meeting had taken place at Siam.

Every one confirms what I already suspected, that horse-breeding is in its decadence here as well as in England. Formerly the English were greatly in advance of us in rearing carriage horses. Now they have nothing equal to our Anglo-Norman horse, and of this I have just received a most convincing proof. The Americans are now endeavouring to create a race of carriage horses in their country, that are to be elegant and yet a little taller and stouter than their present breeds. They come to Caen to purchase their studs. A train of thirty-five was sent over from there quite recently. If they had formed the same wish thirty or forty years ago, they would not for one instant have dreamed of seeking the horses they required from us. Why have we remained behind England for so long? In order to have good horses we must have good pastures, a good climate, and above all the assurance of a remunerative sale. Now, our pasturage is quite equal to theirs, and our climate is infinitely better; if then our breeders could not compete with theirs it is only because they did not obtain a sufficiently high price for their productions. I have a very clever friend with whom I have often talked over this subject, and who clearly explains why English horse raising is so much more flourishing than our own. He asserts that we have no reason to blush for this retrospective inferiority, and that, on the contrary, we may feel proud of it, for it proceeded from a purely moral cause. The superiority of English horse-breeding was, according to him, entirely due to the extraordinary way in which the English manage their love affairs. Every one knows that, during the whole of the last and even during the early part of the present century, English ladies were extremely frivolous. In France, when a marquise selected a lover, it never occurred to them that it was necessary to scour the high roads together in order to assure each other of their affection. On the contrary, when an Englishwoman felt that she could not offer a prolonged resistance to some gallant colonel, she did not throw herself into his arms, but into a post-chaise drawn by the four best horses money would procure in the neighbourhood. Custom exacted that, as soon as the husband had discovered to which point of the compass his guilty wife and her lover had fled, he should also procure four horses, equally good, for their pursuit; and thus as the mischievous little god, who is so sedentary with us, only appeared in English homes with the attributes of a postilion, one sees at a glance the connection between these strange customs and the production of light carriage horses. Lovers are always liberal, and if those who followed them wished for any chance of stopping their flight, they were obliged to equal them in that respect. Post-masters who had the reputation of owning excellent horses made their fortunes at once. Lovers came even from a distance to elope from their neighbourhood. Competition intervened, and they became willing to pay any price for a pair of horses which could secure a large custom. Moralists should deplore these things; horse-breeders can only regret them. If the Norfolk trotters acquired such high reputations, was it because the ladies of that county lamentably compromised their own?

All this ceased with the accession of Queen Victoria. England became virtuous. No woman dared to elope, for she knew she would not be received at Court afterwards; the postilions became stout, the old trotters became broken-winded and were not replaced; the breeders, reduced like their colleagues in France to the custom of the public coaches, soon discovered that they could not afford to make the same sacrifices as before, and their productions degenerated. Have they any chance of seeing their ancient prosperity restored? It is very improbable. With advancing years her majesty has ceased to watch over the English ladies so carefully, and it is said that their moral standard is considerably lower. If we may believe some recent law reports, they can enter into elopements with as much spirit as their grandmothers. But they no longer have recourse to a post-chaise, and this return to ancient custom can now benefit only railways and steamers. This is my learned friend’s theory. I have tried my best to explain it in the interest of science. But I leave him all the responsibility of it and all the honour.

Mr. Thompson exaggerated greatly when he spoke to me of the privations I should be obliged to submit to when sharing the life of a boycotted landlord. In default of the leg of mutton which he had been forced to leave in Miss McCarthy’s rather red hands, rabbits from the park, poultry from the yard, and vegetables from the garden, furnished materials for a dinner that an old cordon bleu, who had remained faithful to his master even in boycottage, rendered excellent. I said the other day when speaking of the manner in which Irishwomen prepare their husbands’ meals, that I believed they have little taste for cooking; I perhaps spoke rather too hastily. Their taste is not sufficiently developed, but it exists. This is another good side to the national character; I even think that if the nations were to be arranged in the order of their culinary aptitudes, the Irish would take a very honourable rank. Professors affirm that it is to them we owe that excellent combination our fathers appreciated under the name of haricot mutton, and that ignorant practitioners of our epoch call navarin. It seems that from the earliest ages this dish has been known in Ireland as Irish stew. According to the same authorities, the recipe was brought to St. Germain by King James’s cooks, who took refuge in France with their master after the disaster of the Boyne; and that by diffusing it amongst us they acknowledged our country’s hospitality. If this be true, here is a new instance of the consoling truth, that a kind action is never lost.

Perhaps, however, to be absolutely impartial we should temper this praise by some criticism. Irishmen are volatile and little observant. These faults, which injure their politics, have also a regrettable influence over their cooking. Thus the affinities, secret, yet so close, between a duck and turnips seems to have escaped their notice. During my sojourn in Ireland I was able to prove that the country produces numbers of excellent ducks, and an abundance of most succulent turnips. But the palmipede always appeared separated from the vegetable, and I never was lucky enough to find united on the same dish these two elements, although, when combined, nature has rendered them so rich in gastronomic delights.

An organisation so powerful and complicated as the Land League necessarily appears under very different aspects when one studies it in the different centres where it works. At Dublin I saw some of the men who composed the managing body, and they spoke to me about the general direction of the movement. At Kenmare I found it weakened by a combination of circumstances which contributed, if not to paralyse it, at least to prevent it from pushing things to extremities. With Lord Cloncurry and in the neighbourhood of Ballinacourty the situation was more strained already. There the League found favourable soil, its evolution was able to pass through each of its successive phases; I am now, at this moment, in a fully boycotted county. I wished to ascertain the state of feeling amongst a population subject to such a rule, and particularly that of the secondary personages who are charged with carrying out the instructions of the directing committee. Mr. Thompson gave me every facility for this work, by this evening confiding to me as I was leaving him, a thick bundle of documents relative to his boycottage—a bundle which he wished to carry to my room himself, for he was unwilling I should ascend the staircase alone. And, indeed, this staircase is an interesting monument. Four years ago it was being repaired, the workmen had taken off the balustrade on the very day the boycotting was declared. From that time it has been impossible to get it replaced!