London at the End of the Century:A Book of Gossip
a Beckett, Arthur William
1900
RACING UNDER THE EMPIRE.
I suppose that, although the Duc d'Aumale was always fond of horse training, the great revival of French sport became an accomplished fact under the patronage of Napoleon III. The Emperor had a great love for and did his level best to bring Epsom to Longchamps. During his long sojourn in England-when he was occupying that now-betableted house in , St. James's-the coming ruler of France was con tinually at the more frequented of the meetings. If he never took part in an actual race himself he at least entered in the lists of Eglinton Castle when the glories of Ashby-de-la-Zouch were revived, and some think | |
132 | surpassed. The Emperor Louis Napoleon was the first to render the June meeting at Longchamps thoroughly popular. That popularity has now lasted for something more than forty years. It has survived the dark days of the Siege and the Commune, and promises to be one of the features of the coming twentieth century. The Grand Prix of the Republic is not so very unlike the Grand Prix of the fifties and the sixties. The State tribune is filled by the President, his wife, and the more illustrious of their guests, and the classes and the masses are there-the first in their hundreds and the last in their thousands. The only absentee of to-day is the flower-girl of the Jockey Club. some quarter of a century ago, was an institution. It was her duty to appear in the colours of the favourite, and to supply the swells of the Jockey Club with button-holes. I believe during the rest of the year she was the presiding genius of a newspaper kiosk on the Boulevards opposite the Grand Hotel. But during the Sunday devoted to the Grand Prix she was the heroine of Longchamps. Poor Napoleon III. The last time I saw him was lying in state at Chislehurst. As I write, his pale, calm face comes back to me, his iron-grey moustache and his scanty locks, his apparently well-formed cranium. Only the other day I saw a cast of his head taken by an eminent surgeon immediately after death. The cast showed |
133 | a fine forehead, but my friend the eminent surgeon suggested that, taken as a whole, the head was a poor one. said my friend. Well, Napoleon has long since passed away, and so have Cora Pearl, and Schneider, and the other glories of the Empire. |
