Formerly I liked the gray horse very much, and have more than once praised this color. But time has dissipated my illusions.
Thus, while acknowledging my former preferences for the gray horse over the horse of a different shade, I am now very far from showing myself exclusive, and quarreling with the mass of enlightened persons who seem desirous of adopting the dark colored coats. I only desire one thing, and that is to save the Percheron race, and to preserve to Perche its prosperity and its glory.
If I have liked the gray horse, it was from conviction, and not to court those who saw no safety outside the gray. But when the wisdom and the extreme intelligence of masters of science, preferring a less showy color, demonstrated to me that Perche might find an era of new glory and prosperity in changing the coat of its horse and thus enlarging the circle of consumption, I bowed meekly to their opinion. I liked the gray horse because I thought that Providence had created it gray in order that it might be able to withstand, during its work, the heat of the sun, and not be prostrated under its rays. I liked it gray, as the Arab likes his horse gray and his bournous of a whitish color; as the American planter likes his white cotton suit and his panama; as our soldier, in the field, liked, under the African or Mexican sky, the havelock which protected him against the rays of the burning luminary. I liked it gray because it seemed to me to recall more than any other the Arab, the primitive horse; because Perche having always possessed gray horses, I thought there was much more chance of finding, under this coat, the type of the country; because I had been rocked to sleep to the tune of that old ballad of our ancestors, celebrating Charles de Trie, the Percheron Seigneur, going forth to combat the English at the battle of Poitiers:
because, in a word, during my infancy, I had breathed the dust of the old manuscripts making mention of the white Percheron mares. I liked it gray, because, for the service of the post-coaches and couriers, in their long stages, in the middle of the night, the gray horse appeared to me more easy to guide than the horse of a dark color. Finally, it has always seemed to me that this coat was more becoming than any other the powerful form of a vigorous worker. Does not a good-looking, stalwart, and honest peasant please you better—is he not infinitely more at ease with the Gallic blouse covering his broad shoulders, than under the dark folds of a fashionable coat, which makes him appear awkward and abashed?
But everything is much changed. The country has no longer any special type in the midst of all this gray amalgamated with Brittany, Picardy, and Caux, of which the equine stock of Perche is now composed. If the Percheron should cease to be bound by this law of gray, if he should become of all shades, at the same time remaining good, and such as Perche knows how to make him, he would cease to be dishonored by those everlasting plagiarists, shamelessly calling themselves Percherons because they happen to be gray and have travelled across the Perche country. If he should become of all shades, in preserving the qualities and movement which are a feature of everything that the tonic grasses and the fine and vivifying air of Perche produces, he would not be reduced to the simple role of furnishing the 6,000 or 7,000 horses that the omnibuses and teamsters each year require, plus the 600 or 700 typical ones that foreign countries demand of Perche. He might, little by little, contribute to the satisfaction of the half-fancy and to the wants of the hunting and army equipages; he might advantageously replace the German horse, which we are obliged to employ in want of a better. Post-coaches no longer existing, there is no longer need of gray horses for the night in the midst of the darkness of the highways. Steam machinery, the indispensable substitute for the lack of human hands in the country, being destined to execute, in part, the labors of agriculture, the horse will be less employed there, and the one that will be called for, having fewer difficulties to overcome, can be lighter, more distingué, faster, and more fit for adaptation to the exigences of trade and fashion.—Finally, Fashion wishing, positively, no more gray horses, and the Percheron finding no longer a sufficient employment in the omnibuses, will soon find himself in a tight place if he do not take a fresh start, and make himself acceptable—if he do not conform to the exactions of the age, and become more stylish and darker colored.
It is settled, then, that he must put upon his back a less showy covering; but he can only do this on condition that he become, thanks to good crossings, more presentable and have a more stylish air. And, really, what is more ridiculous than a vulgar and common beast decked out with the livery of the fancy and private horse!
Let us occupy ourselves, then, seriously in looking up breeding stock of dark coats; the time to do this appears to me to have come. But where will we go to find them? Let us look about us and seek for this in Perche.
If you there find, under a dark coat, a fine Percheron, possessing all the qualities and specialties of the race, make haste, take him and color your horses. Sincerely, I give you this advice. Still, as in the present state of things, it is rare that the fine and the somber are met with together among the working races, by reason of the horror which has been professed, up to the present moment, for everything not gray, the best expedient would be to color the coat by means of fine, dark skin Arabs, or with good, well-chosen Norfolks, a subject that we will treat upon in the chapter of crossings. As to doing it otherwise, it is not to be thought of, the elements not existing in Perche.
This, however, is only a minor matter. The essential point is to unite the heavy to the distingué, weight to gait, mildness to vigor, hardiness to energetic temperament, steadiness and precocity; in a word, to repeat myself for the hundredth time, add a little more dash and style. Correct the defects of conformation, the imperfections of color, without weakening, without breaking up the harmony of the admirable qualities which have made of the Percheron the first horse of the age.