A FAMOUS HORSE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1246, 30 September 1884, Page 3

A FAMOUS HORSE.

The charger which Napoleon 111. rode at the batlle of Sedan has fared, upon the whole, as well as the more famous steed which the Commander of the British army bestrode at Waterloo. The first of these horses, called Arcole, has just been turned out to grass, and will no more, it is said, be called upon to carry a rider. ' He has therefore, though considerably later in his career than the animal that bore the hero of Waterloo, become a pensioner ; less on account, though, of his past services than of the historic associations he awakens. At the demise of the unfortunate French Emperor, 4rcole was sold to Lord Aylesford for £2OO, and the old warhorse was subsequently disposed off to hi* present owner for £BO. Under ordinary circumstances it might have been anticipated that a horse which bore an Emperor safely through so sanguinary a day as that of Sedan would have been provided for amply by him during the rest of its existence, however fallen the fortunes of its master’s house. But if we may accept the statement of the defeated Emperor in the brief letter he addressed to the King of Prussia on the day after the battle, Arcole would have pleased his rider more if it had fallen and placed the despairing Emperor at the mercy of his foes, “Not having been able to die at the head of my troops,” wrote Napoleon, “I yield my sword to your Majesty.” With him four thousand officers, eighty-three thousand soldiers, and fourteen thousand wounded fell into the hands of the victorious Germans. From that hour the fortunes of Arcole waned, and in the old age of the steed it was ridden by one in no way connected with the brilliant Frenph Court which existed in the days of the second Empire. But the horse is now as well provided for as the best of his kind could desire.— Chronicle.