The autumn meetings at Chantilly close the legitimate season in France. The affairs at Tours are of little interest except to the foreign colony--which at this season of the year is pretty numerous in Touraine--and to the people of the surrounding country. On these occasions the cavalry officers in garrison at Tours get up paper hunts, a species of sport which is rapidly growing in favor and promises to become a national pastime. Whatever interest attaches to the November races at Bordeaux is purely local. Turfmen who cannot get through the winter without the sight of the jockeys' silk jackets and the bookmakers' mackintoshes must betake themselves to Pau in December. The first of the four winter meetings takes place during this month upon a heath at a distance of four kilometres--say about two miles and a half--from the town. The exceptional climate and situation of Pau, where the frozen-out fox-hunters of England come to hunt, and where there is a populous American colony, will no doubt before long give a certain importance to these races, but just now the local committee is short of funds and the stakes have been insufficient to offer an attraction to good horses. Last winter in one of the steeple-chases _all_ the horses tumbled pell-mell into the river, which was the very first obstacle they encountered, and although the public was quite used to seeing riders come to grief, it found the incident somewhat extraordinary. The meetings at Nice, the queen of all winter residences in Europe, are much finer and more worthy of attention. They begin in January, and the programme has to be arranged almost exclusively for steeple-chases and hurdle-races, as flat-racers are not in condition for running at the time when the season at Nice is at its height. The greater number, and particularly the best, of the racers have important engagements for the spring meetings at Paris and at Chantilly, and even in view of really valuable prizes they could not afford at this time of year to undergo a complete preparation, which would advance them too rapidly in their training and would make it impossible to have them in prime condition in the spring. The race-course at Nice is charmingly situated in the valley of the Var. The perfume of flowers from numerous beds reaches the stands, where one may enjoy a magnificent view of mountain and sea, whilst a good band discourses music in the intervals of the races. Some of the prizes are important. The Grand Prix de Monaco, for instance, popularly known as "The Cup", consists of an object of art given by the prince of Monaco and a purse of twenty thousand francs, without counting the entrance-stakes. On the second day is run the great hurdle handicap for seventy-five hundred francs called the Prix de Monte Carlo, and on the third and last day of the meeting the Grand Prix de Nice, a free handicap steeple-chase for a purse of ten thousand francs.