he partook of some excellent smoked ribs of
horse, whose fine flavour excited his long and
loud eulogy. A justly-esteemed author,
Parent Duchâtelet, asserts that, formerly,
large quantities of horseflesh were brought
into Paris, under one pretext or another, for
the purpose of being sold as meat. M.
Huzard, Senior, an able veterinarian of the
end of the eighteenth century, assures us
that, during the famine which raged at the
same time as the Revolution, the greater part
of the meat consumed in Paris was
supplied, for six months, by slaughtered horses,
without the public health being in the least
inconvenienced by the change. In the
campaigns of the Rhine, Catalonia, and the
Maritime Alps, the celebrated army-surgeon,
Baron Larrey, often had recourse to horseflesh
as a means of strengthening his wounded
soldiers ; and it helped him to save the greater
part of his patients. "Experience," says the
illustrious military doctor, "demonstrates
that the use of horseflesh is a very suitable
mode of feeding men. In my own opinion,
it is exceedingly nourishing, and its flavour is
equally agreeable. I have often employed it,
with the greatest success, for the sick and
wounded in our army. During the siege of
Alexandria, in Egypt, I derived great benefit
from it. To obviate the objections made to it
by many personages of high military standing,
I myself was the first to slaughter my
horses, and to eat their flesh. At the battle
of Eylau, during the first four-and-twenty
hours, I was obliged to sustain my wounded
with horse-flesh." In eighteen hundred and
eleven, at the request of the Paris police,
Cadet, Parmentier, and Pariset certified that
"horse-flesh is very well flavoured ; that it is
nutritious, like the flesh of other animals ;
that the labourers at Montfaucon, who
consume it, enjoy good health." These savans
demanded, in the name of the Council of
Salubrity, " that the sale of horse-flesh should
be tolerated, and that an abattoir should be
specially devoted to slaughtering, quartering,
and cutting it into joints."

The sole cause of the repugnance which
now prevents us from admitting chevaline
dishes into our bills of fare, is simply that
the various nations of Europe have ceased to
eat them for a long time past. A decided
aversion has succeeded to the predilection
which the ancient populations—the
Germans especially—entertained for this
description of diet. The Scandinavians and
Germans, worshippers of Odin, reared and
kept with the utmost care, in sacred pastures,
a race of white horses, destined to be
immolated to the gods they adored. The sacrifice
ended, they boiled the flesh of the animals,
and feasted on it. Such is the probable
origin of the hippophagy which prevailed
amongst the nations of the North, and which
became an integral part of the popular habits,
until Christianity, penetrating into northern
Europe, succeeded in putting down a custom
which was intimately mixed up with pagan
rites. Hippophagy, thus blended with the
practice of Odinism, was an obstacle to the
establishment of Christianity amongst the
northern nations. In fact, every time that a
Scandinavian, even after his conversion,
tasted a morsel of horse, he indulged in the
reminiscences of his former belief.
Consequently, at an early date, the popes prohibited
the use of that meat ; religious policy having
almost compelled them to it. In a letter
written in the eighth century, by Gregory
the Third to Saint Boniface, Archbishop of
Mayence, we find, "You have informed me
that some persons eat wild horse, and the
majority domestic horses. Do not allow it
to occur for the future. Abolish the custom,
by every means in your power, and impose a
heavy penance on all horse-eaters. They are
unclean, and their acts are execrable." Pope
Zachariah, the successor of Gregory the
Third, renewed the prohibition. Nevertheless,
in spite of papal interdictions, it is
believed that the use of horse-flesh was
prevalent in Scandinavia for many years
afterwards. The opinion is confirmed by the
circumstance that the race of white horses,
which furnished the victims for the sacrifices,
has never become completely extinct. A
tour in Flanders will afford abundant proof
to the contrary ; though the Frederiksberg
stud, belonging to the crown of Denmark, is
the only one on the globe in which it is found
pure from the slightest taint.

In these enlightened days it will hardly be
urged that a return to horse-flesh, on the
part of the modern Gauls and Anglo-Saxons,
is also a return to the worship of Odin; that
Woden's Day and Thor's Day are no longer
to remain unmeaning proper names.
Perhaps the days are not so enlightened; and a
smothered rumour may be whispered about,
that true religion is in danger, from the
threatened blow of a horse's hoof, as foretold
in no one quite knows which prophecy. It
is a fact that the nomade population of
northern Asia have retained, even to the
present time, a marked predilection for the
flesh of the horse; it constitutes their favourite
dish, although possessed of numerous
flocks and herds. The more barbarous the
tribe, the more decided is their taste for
horse-flesh; and the Russian missionaries,
aping the popes of the eighth century, still
find the extirpation of hippophagy a powerful
means of proselytism. In our own time, the
alimentary employment of horse-flesh has
regained a certain degree of favour amongst
certain populations. Of the civilised nations,
of Europe, the descendants of the ancient
Scandinavians, the Danes, have been the first
to give the signal of a return to the usage of
antiquity. During the siege of Copenhagen,
in eighteen hundred and seven, the Danish
government authorised the sale of horse
in the butcheries; and, since that epoch, the
animal has continued to supply the abattoirs.