du Roi). This veterinarian, a man of great observation, and an enlightened practitioner, may be said to have been the most advanced of that school which, for two centuries, had been endeavouring to improve the vicious courses adopted by the farriers in their treatment of horses' feet. The principal of these practices were injudicious removal of the horn, and the great weight and length of the shoes. We have seen that the Italian writer, Fiaschi, had already protested against the use of calkins, which were becoming of greater size as time advanced. An example of this, from the church-door of Saint-Saturnin, has been already given. During the reign of Louis XIV., this absurd fashion appears to have been at its height. No thought seems to have been bestowed on the injurious influence such shoeing might have on the form or quality of the hoofs, on the true or false disposition of the limbs, nor yet on the horse's natural movements. Chargers and ordinary riding-horses wore strangely-shaped masses of iron, which, for weight and clumsiness, could scarcely, one would think, be carried by a strong waggon-horse of our own times. This unreasonable and most pernicious custom, which makes us wonder how it was possible that anything like quick progression could be accomplished without serious damage to the limbs of horses and riders, is shown in the paintings of Lebrun, court-painter to the Grand Monarque, which may be seen in the galleries of the Louvre, and in which Alexander and other heroes of antiquity are represented on horses whose feet are cum-
had performed a like service for Lafosse's earlier work, 'Traité des Observations et des Decouvertes sur les Chevaux'). It has been republished in the Bibliotheque Vétérinaire, Paris, 1849.
