What gave rise to the mendacious proverb
that Paris is the Hades of horses and the
paradise of women, is not known. If ever
two destinies ran parallel to each other, it
is surely that of the Parisian belle and the
Parisian horse, considered both as objects of
luxury. The Boulevart and the Bois de
Boulogne are their common paradise, as long
as beauty, health, and youth endure. The
hackney coach, and public disdain, are
afterwards the Erebus of each; and lovely
creatures, which had been endowed with so many
faculties to please, arrive at last at the fatal
goal—at Montfaucon and the hospital—
after having run through the very same
career. Paris consumes annually nearly
fifteen thousand horses. About the same
number of young girls are every year sacrificed
there before the Minotaur of vice.

Yes! The horse is fallen in France; and so
is gentlemanhood. The offspring of Bayard
are dragging the tumbril; whilst the peer of
France murders his wife, or traffics in mining
and railway shares. The son of heroes sells
the shield of his ancestors to serve as a
sign for the stalls of Judah. If the proud
Gallic horse, so terrible in battle, who fought
himself, by kicking and biting, as fiercely as
his cavalier—if both he and his noble rider
have perished, because they knew not how to
make a worthy use of the precious gifts with
which they were endowed;—at least let their
ruin be a lesson for the future to all others
of the same race. Ye horses, and gentlemen,
be warned by the avenging voice of revolutions,
and learn that the duties of individuals
are in direct proportion to their faculties:
that the more we can, the more we ought to
do, to increase the happiness of our brothers
in God: that the indolence and parasitism
of those who are neither idiots nor paralytic,
are veritable robberies committed against
society—and strive, henceforward, to conform
your conduct to these principles.

A step lower amongst the varieties of the
genus Equus is found the Ass, the primitive
emblem of the peasant, the thorough despiser
of finery and fine words; and who, in return
for board and lodging, is content to put up
with anything. The water-carrier,
fellow-labourer of the ass, and native of the
mountains of Auvergne, is not at all his superior
in the Atticism of his language, the elegance
of his manners, and the niceness of his
gastronomical tastes. There is the same kindred
between the ass and the Auvergnat as there
is between the gentleman and the Arabian
horse. Asses, and analogies, have been understood
before to-day. Some thousands of years
ago history and fable have placed them in
close relationship.

The spirit of obscurantism, and of systematic
repulsion to new ideas, is the passional
dominant of the donkey; and he is very fond
of boasting of it. But the spirit of obscurantism
has never constituted wisdom; quite the
contrary. The donkey, who is the emblem
of the coarse peasant and of the conservative
boundary post, specially sins through his
sluggishness of intellect. It is not so much
the love of ancient usages and customs which
retains him in the wheel-rut of routine, as
the horror of new ones. Our author is good
enough to give cheerfully both to the ass and to
his image, the peasant, full credit for the
virtues which they possess in common;—for their
sobriety, their perseverance in toil, and their
resignation in indigence; but he declines to
make virtues of their vices. " As I well know,"
he continues, " that it is only through default
of elevation of thought that the ass and the
peasant support so patiently the yoke of
tyranny, I will not look upon their patience
as a merit. When their odious provincialisms
grate upon my ear, I cannot begin a panegyric
upon the sonorous energy of their masculine
accents. Erasmus, who is unable to conceal
his sympathies with the ass, confesses,
nevertheless, that the cruciferous quadruped has
very little taste for music; but he tries to
bring forward in favour of his protégé the
extenuating circumstance, that if the ass,
during his lifetime, but slightly contributes
to harmony, he makes ample recompense after
his death, by furnishing the best leather in
the world for drum-heads, and the best tibias
for clarionets."

A very slight knowledge of the language
of animals, and a limited appreciation of the
peculiar style of each, is sufficient to show
that three quarters of the proverbs of Sancho
Panza were whispered in his ear by the
donkey he rode. No more complete identity
between beast and man exists than that
between Don Quixote's squire and his steed.
On both sides you find the same coarse good
sense, the same selfishness, the same absence
of feeling, the same propensity to jeer at just
principles and generous ideas, the same
contempt for right, and the same respect for
fact. It would not take longer than a week
to draw up a complete treatise on morals
and politics without using an atom of any
other material than the donkey's most
popular aphorisms. With practical men,
Don Quixotism is the proper word for
devotion, delicacy, and faithfulness. But let
us not deceive ourselves. The ass, like the
Auvergnat, is a great deal more cunning
and ignorant than foolish, and history has
made a large collection of his incontrovertible
sayings; notably this, " Our enemy
is our master;" proving that the awkward-
tempered brute can speak plainly enough,
when he chooses. The essential folly of the
ass is, never to vote in conformity with this
opinion, but always to bestow his suffrage on
him who ill-uses him the most brutally. This
strange contradiction between his bon-mots
and his votes demonstrates that the ass's
opposition is only an opposition of temperament,
which in most cases goes no further
than epigram and restiveness.

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