3-038-949 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Christmas-Day Sports at Versailles, [France], 1871. 'On Christmas Day the ice was so thick and strong upon all the waters in the neighbourhood of Paris, that it would have borne artillery. In the park of Versailles the great ponds were covered with crowds of skaters - many Prussians, a few Americans and Englishmen, and a very few Frenchmen. Some of the figures that glided about, more or less gracefully, upon the burnished bosom of the lake, were quaintly out of keeping with preconceived notions respecting skating costume. It was strange to see upon the ice a gigantic officer of cuirassiers, 6 ft. 4 in. in height and proportionately broad, with huge jackboots reaching to mid-thigh, regulation spurs, and an enormous sword buckled to his side...The wonder was how well these sturdy warriors performed...many of them are first-rate skaters in a rough and ready style...There was much fun among the small French boys when a German had a fall...It was remarked, too, that the conquerors would allow themselves to be tripped up and hampered by the sledges with wonderful good nature; and when a German soldier appeared on a sledge, surrounded and harassed by other sledges, his skirmishes with the French boys excited roars of laughter among his comrades'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.