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Outcross BreedingIn the summer of 1970 Helen searched for purebred Chartreux in France without success, until she met Mme. Bastide, whose cats consisted of Chartreux-to-Chartreux breeding for several generations. Prior to that, Mme. Bastide's cats had as an ancestor blue Persian, Joupouk du Fouilloux and so-called "natural" Chartreux, which meant any local cat which resembled a Chartreux in color and body type. After the purchase of Taquin and Tornade from Mme. Bastide, Helen, upon her return to California began an active correspondence with the European breeders, notably Mme. Dartois, Mme. Vivat, M. Durodie, Mme. Lachaize, and the Leger sisters, seeking the pure-bred Chartreux. None could provide them, as all had cats designated RIEX, which denoted "experimental breeding", a hybrid with either British, Persian, Russian blue, or non-registered ancestors. In a letter from Mme. Vivat, Chatalauze Cattery, dated December 2, 1970 (after she had received two letters from Helen), Mme. Vivat said "But I vow to you the assimilation British/Chartreux rises so far back (before the official fusion in 1967) that the notion of "cross breeding" had not come to me as an idea of this talk. For us, one or the other, it is the same but for taste, I would search for the true Chartreux!" In 1967 Fife and GCCF changed the standard without consulting Chartreux breeders. This standard listed permitted outcrosses as Blue Persian, Blue-cream Shorthair, and Cream Shorthair. In 1972, after breeders protested this, Fife decided to return to the Chartreux standard of 1936, so by the time Helen became seriously involved in bringing the cats to America there were no 5-generation pedigrees of unadulterated Chartreux-to-Chartreux cats in France. She did the best she could by selecting 5 cats from Mme. Bastide, one from Mme. Dartois, and one from Mme. Vivat (the latter cat Tristan de Chantelauze was sired by a British Shorthair, Ch. I. Bonaventura Beau Brummel, and developed into a cat which resembled a British Shorthair, so Helen sold him to a British Shorthair breeder in California; he was subsequently registered as an Exotic Shorthair or European, depending on the registering body.) Seeking further information on the cross-breeding to British cats, I consulted Grace Pond's "The Observers Book of Cats" (1959), in which she states "There are few blue British in Europe, but the French have a breed called the Chartreux. They are very like British Blues, which may cause some confusion. Their standard calls for a coat of any shade of grey or grayish blue, with a head not quite so round and with a powerful jaw." Also from Grace Pond, in "The Complete Cat Encyclopedia" (1972), "The 1939/45 period saw the decline and near-extinction of these lovely cats, and after the war there was a great shortage in Britain of male British Blues. The consequence was that foreign-type cats were used in the breeding programs. This was almost the death-blow to the desired bone structure; for what we are really looking for in the breed is a blue cat with short, almost plush-like hair, but with a near-long hair type. "It was in the middle-to-late 1950's (this happened much earlier) that the problem was squarely tackled, when some far-sighted breeders began sending their British blue Queens to selected Blue Long-Hair males. This was not a new procedure, but was necessary at that time, to recover "bone". As a matter of curiosity, I (Jessie) did a brief research as to the crossing with blue Persian males and came across the following ... remember now that we are talking about British Shorthair cats:
These are just three examples of blue British Shorthair cats and Persian crosses, about which Grace Pond speaks. The long coats come to us from both the British blues carrying long coats in the pedigrees and the local or feral blue cats which were used with the Chartreux. I might mention that I found some interesting crosses during this research. Ch. Jezreel Jomo back in the fourth generation has a Russian Blue bred to a Blue-Cream Persian; he has a Tortie and White Shorthair and another Blue Persian. Alan Edwards, GCCF Judge, has been working with me on pedigree chasing, and he indicated that the Fendale Cattery imported a Best in Show winning Chartreux kitten, Minou Ducoin Vert, from Belgium, but I have not yet located a pedigree on this cat. Fendale became a register GCCF Catter in 1960. There is still a lot of research to be done to locate the Chartreux which were sent to England.
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