Riding-school is a serious business; when a man first leads his horse through the riding-school entrance and mounts, he learns what a perfect brute--from his point of view--an instructor can be, and it is not until he is nearing the end of his period of riding-school instruction that he learns to look on the instructor as not a bad fellow, a bit strict at his work, but responsible for the turning out of some of the finest riders in the world. For in horsemanship the French soldier is no whit behind his English confrère, and it is only in recent years that the British Army has taken up the circus tricks which for many years have been practised in the French Army in order to make men thoroughly familiar with their mounts. A conscript is taught not only to ride a saddled horse, but also to vault on to the back of a cantering horse, to make his horse lie down, and various other tricks--they are nothing more in themselves--which give him thorough confidence in himself and thorough knowledge of the capabilities, intelligence, and nature of his horse. Recognising the wisdom of this form of teaching, the British Army has of late adopted it, to the betterment of cavalry riding as a whole.
The new _loi de trois ans_, introduced in the war ministry of M. Viviani, will be to the advantage of the French cavalry, when it has had chance of a fair trial--it had hardly become a definite law before the outbreak of war put a stop to peace training and peace organisation. But, when things become normal again, it is certain that the cavalry will benefit by the extension of the period of service, and although they were perfectly capable of taking the field when need arose, French cavalry will be improved in quality by the additional training. This applies not so much to the main points of drill and discipline as to little things; veterinary tricks and ways, capacity for individual service, and self-dependence in the fullest sense, especially to the extent demanded of the man who goes out on patrol work and scouting duty, are not to be learned as thoroughly as could be wished in two years, but must be ingrained by experience as well as by tuition.
Before his first year of training is concluded the cavalry conscript is expected to have learned all that the riding-school can teach him. In addition to the class of riding which may be termed circus work, and is taught on horses with handled pads instead of saddles, the recruit is initiated into bending lessons, by which his horse is rendered flexuous and easily amenable to pressure of leg and rein. It is worthy of note, by the way, that the principle on which the modern training of horses is based is due to a Frenchman, who brought to England what were at the time considered revolutionary principles with regard to riding.