The light Percheron, suited to harness, is found particularly in the Norman portion, in the district of Mortagne, near Courtomer, Moulins-la-Marche, Aigle, Mesle-sur-Sarthe, and especially in the parishes of Mesnière, Bures, and Champeaux-sur-Sarthe. This is easily accounted for, as here is the best blood of France, near the region where has been found the best Norman type. Here the soil, temperature, and pasturage, are pretty near the same.
In going from Nogent-le-Rotrou to Montdoubleau, and following the limits of Perche-Manceau, by Saint-Calais, Vilvaye, Ferté-Bernard, Saint-Corme and Mamers, we travel over the birthplace of the heavy draft-horse. Here we meet with the heavy brood-mares.
In the center of Perche, at Mauves, Regmalard, Lougny, Corbon, Courgeon, Reveillon, Villiers, and Saint-Langis, nothing is bred; the farmer brings up the horse colts of Eperrais, Pin-la-Garenne, Coulimer, Saint-Quentin, Buré, Pervercheres and the breeding parishes of the district of Mortagne, Nogent-le-Rotrou, Montdoubleau and Courtalain.
Horses of different sexes and ages are never mingled in Perche; they are there separated with care. But it is not exactly the same in respect to kinds.
The post-coach and the heavy-draft horse are there to be met with upon the same ground. The post-coach horse is, to be sure, bred a little everywhere; his temperament and the conditions in which he is placed, prepare him for this specialty.
It is, as we see, at the two extremities of the ellipse (especially where the pasture grounds are), that the mares are found. In the center, at Mauves, Regmalard, Lougny, etc., etc., the inhabitants turn their attention to bringing up the colts.
CHAPTER III.
ORIGIN OF THE PERCHERON.
What, now, is the origin of the Percheron? Some attribute to him an Arabian ancestry; others, less explicit and without positively assigning to him so noble an origin, hold him to be strongly impregnated with Arabian blood. M. Eugene Perrault, one of the most extensive and skillful dealers in fancy horses in all Europe, has frequently remarked to me that of all the various races of horses none were so interesting to him as the admirable Percheron, and that, judging from his appearance and qualities, he was satisfied he was a genuine Arab, modified in form by the climate and the rude services to which he had for ages been subjected.
We cannot, however, find in history the written positive proof that the Percheron is an Arab, but we believe it easy, by fair historical deduction, to prove what he is in fact.