BECOLLECTIONS OF A LION TAMER 155 



acquired enough to stock a travelling wild beast show. 

 Fortune seemed to smile upon him at last, and this 

 venture was in a fair way to become a success, when his 

 life was cut short in this sudden fashion. 



My mother strove her utmost, for the sake of her 

 little ones, to carry on the business ; but what can a woman 

 do alone at the head of a menagerie ? how can she cope 

 with coarse, rough grooms, and foul-tongued stable-men ? 

 She soon married again, a painter from Nantes, and 

 for two years we lived very happily together, till he, 

 too, died suddenly, and we were left a second time 

 fatherless. 



Thinking she was doing the best for us, she took a 

 third husband, an Italian, named Fai'mali ; hot-tempered 

 and fretful, he was a real household tyrant. For some 

 years I had the good fortune to escape from his ill- 

 humours, being brought up by an uncle near Mayence, 

 and educated by the monks ; but, my education finished, 

 I was obliged to return to my parents and travel about 

 with the show, and then my miseries began. The ill- 

 treatment I received at the hands of my step-father ! the 

 blows, the cuffs he bestowed on me ! The chief cause of 

 his displeasure was jealousy ; having been early accus- 

 tomed to go freely in and out among the animals I had 

 lost all fear. I had served my apprenticeship amongst 

 them, beginning w T ith the wolf and ending with the lion, 

 and passing through all the progressive stages — each less 

 amiable than the preceding — of jackal, leopard, hyena 

 and panther. I had learnt to look upon them all as 

 friends, and where another would see a menace in 

 quivering lips, curling over jaws bristling with white and 

 shining teeth, I saw nothing but a smile of welcome. 



Being then fearless, young, slight and active, I inte- 

 rested and attracted the public more than my step-father 

 did, hence his ill-humour with me. When I appeared on 

 the scene rounds of applause greeted me, to be repeated 

 when I withdrew, the sounds following even into the 



