Commentary of M JC Hermans's history, below.
http://chiensdeau.free.fr/BarbetenBresse/articles.php?pg=art217.The only Barbet JC Hermans ever had was born in 1983, not 1981 as he claims :ULYSSIA. That is just a small detail, but important when one pretends to have restarted the breed.
The only work he did on the Barbet was to stop dogs from reproducing and not confirm the ones from owners who refused to do what he said.
The dogs that were at the basis of the revival of the barbet were partly mme Pêtre’s HERCULE, HERA, HOURRI, GABIAN; those of Mme Bisconte PRINCE/LYNX, SERIE NOIRE and 3 poodles: one black, one white and an unknown that he ordered Mrs Bisconte to use (he never mentions her by name in the article that he wrote about himself in the 3rd person, that I also translated ), when he claims to have been the only one to have rediscovered the barbet.
It’s also a bit surprising that he doesn’t mention ULYSSIA’s sister UMIDE, kept by Mrs Bisconte and who gave in 4th generation: CH F HALBRAN des Champs Galants and in 6th generation CH F R’MOHICAN de l’étang de Fontmerle.
Don’t be misled by the fact that what he wrote at the time about the barbet being so rare, my father who is 94 this year remembers seeing some after WW2 and the different SCC presidents, even if they weren’t registered LOF dogs knew they still were around.
Thanks to HERCULE, that Mr Georgii bought from Mme Pêtre in 1992, and then DOUMA, GABIAN, that he used for reproduction and that is when the real research and selection work was done on the barbet. Although, it is true that ULYSSIA that JCH used to be mated by a big standard poodle produced 2 interesting dogs: ESTURGEONNE and ERON NOIR, but he didn’t overseer the mating after that, as ESTURGEONNE was acquired by R Milliat and the 1st litter was supervised by JCH with BLACKY who was probacly a poodle confirmed as “Titre Initial” as a barbet the rest that happened, happened under the sole responsability of the breeders: Milliat, Carpentier, Mermet, Mansuy, Claudin and myself.
Unfortunately behind all that, there were few barbets (PRINCE/LYNX, with unknown origins), and many poodles (3)
And by reproducing amongst each other , that stabilized the physical characteristics of the poodle rather than those of the barbet.
Meanwhile, what was Georgii doing? JCH was in an all out war with him, but he was working on the breed.
If the dogs of the” Bisconte bloodline” (rather than JCH’s) are a bit different from Georgii’s, mixing the 2 lines is giving extremely promising results.
That is what JCH is fighting against at the moment and behind the scene, but eventually everyone will have to admit that mixing the 2 lines was and had always been the best solution, everyone will have to admit that Jean Claude Hermans wasted 25 years of the barbet’s existence for not admitting and recognizing what the good was in Mrs Pêtre’s breeding.
Written by Madame Françoise Loiseau and translated by yours truly.