SAND, George (1804–1876).

A curious letter concerning an incident involving a stable boy and the care of horses. It refers to the Viscount’s servant, Dupont, who has ‘a nasty bruise on his eye. He cannot tell us how it happened; he was found lying on the floor of the stable last night, his face covered in blood. We were frightened at first, but after washing and dressing his wounds, we saw that it was nothing serious and that it was, as they say in Berry, the fault of his best friend, wine. Do not scold him. It is the only mistake he has ever made’. He has harmed ‘only his own snout’; she’s glad he didn’t kill himself at her place, but he risks coming to a bad end ‘after a night of revelry, for he doesn’t do things by halves, the dear fellow’… She then asks for advice regarding her mare Joséphine: ‘her eyes are still a bit sore. I don’t think she needs any further treatment. She has a slight swelling which makes her limp when she sets off. You will tell us when you come to see us whether we should apply a small cauterising agent or simply continue to dress her every evening with a flannel bandage and spirit of wine, as Mr Dupont used to do"... Correspondence, vol. XXV (S 324).