At the end of the eighteenth century Philippe Égalité raced at Newmarket, where he seems to have created an unfavourable impression. Though he entered a good many horses, he was not particularly successful as an owner. In France the sporting exploits of this Prince and of the Comte d'Artois excited a good deal of indignation. They were declared to be the associates of grooms, and to enter into scandalous combinations in the races which they organised, whilst treating the onlookers with the most ineffable contempt and savage ferocity. It would certainly appear that at times they used their whips on the spectators as well as on their horses; and not only encouraged the officers to maltreat the crowd, but employed such grossness of speech, and offensive oaths, as showed that these Princes were not unskilled in the language of the vilest part of the nation. High betting was general, and noblemen turned jockeys and rode their own racers. When the Comte de Lauraguais appeared at Court, after a long absence, the King coldly inquired where he had been for so long. "In England," the Count replied. "What did you do there?" "I learnt there, please your Majesty, to think." "Of horses," retorted the King. The early days of the French Turf were unedifying. In a match between the Duc de Lauzun and M. de Fénelon the latter fell from his horse, broke his arm, and lost his wager. The same gentleman betted with another nobleman as to which of them could reach Versailles and return to Paris the quicker in a single-horse chaise. The horse of the first died at Sèvres, and the other expired in the stable at Paris, a few hours after his return. Frivolous courtiers, not satisfied with exercising their inhumanity on their horses, exposed themselves to the derision of Paris by other kinds of races. The Duc de Chartres, the Duc de Lauzun, and the Marquis FitzJames once betted five hundred louis who could first reach Versailles on foot. Lauzun gave up the foot-race about half way; Chartres about two-thirds; FitzJames arrived in an exhausted state, and was saluted as conqueror by the Comte d'Artois. The hero in question was near expiring in the arms of victory and had to be put to bed. Blood-letting was resorted to, and though he won his wager he contracted asthma. Marie Antoinette, not satisfied with foot and horse racing, instituted contests of speed in which donkeys were bestridden, the successful jockey being rewarded with three hundred livres and a golden thistle. During the first Empire, Napoleon, probably with an eye to the horsing of his cavalry, decreed that there should be races, and races of a sort there were, chiefly in the Department of the Orne and at a hippodrome at Le Pin, the seat of a Government stud established by Colbert in the days of the Roi Soleil.