The horse is always sure of a proprietor, and with horses Mr.
Risque was more at home than with men.
"Man is ungrateful," soliloquized Risque, keeping along the Rue
Mouffetard in the Chiffoniers' Quarter; "a horse is invariably faithful,
unless he happens to be a mule. Confound men! the only excellence they
have is not a virtue--they can play cards!"
Here he turned to the left, followed some narrow thoroughfares, and
stopped at the great horse market, a scene familiarized to Americans, in
its general features, by Rosa Bonheur's "La Foire du Chevaux."
Double rows of stalls enclosed a trotting course, roughly paved, and
there was an artificial hill on one side, where draught-horses were
tested. The animals were gayly caparisoned, whisks of straw affixed to
the tails indicating those for sale; their manes and forelocks were
plaited, ribbons streamed over their frontlets, they were muzzled and
wore wooden bits.
We have no kindred exhibition in the States, so picturesque and so
animated. Boors in blouses were galloping the great-hoofed beasts down
the course by fours and sixes; the ribbons and manes fluttered; the
whips cracked, and the owners hallooed in _patois_.
Four fifths of French horses are gray; here, there was scarcely one
exception; and the rule extended to the asses which moved amid hundreds
of braying mulets, while at the farther end of the ground the teams were
parked, and, near by, seller and buyer, book in hand, were chaffering
and smoking in shrewd good-humor.
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