SOME CATS OF FRANCE 201 



" There came a day when my father left us for a 

 long journey, and all the animals shared our grief 

 at his departure. Time after time his dogs trotted 

 a little way along the road he had taken to Paris, 

 howling piteously for their master. The most 

 desolate creature in the house was Moquo. He 

 trusted no one ; but, for a while, would steal to the 

 hearth, looking wistfully and furtively at my fa- 

 ther's vacant place. Then, losing hope, he fled 

 to the woods, to resume the wild and wretched life 

 of his infancy ; and, though we tried, we never 

 could entice him back to the home where he no 

 longer had a friend." 



The faithful annalist is one who records with 

 equal grace the life of court and cottage. Not like 

 the gay old historians of the past who told of nothing 

 but kings and the doings of kings, of battles and 

 the glory of empire ; nor like their modern descend- 

 ants whose joyless work is confined to blue books 

 and statistics, who devote pages to the amendments 

 of some insignificant bill worrying its way through 

 Parliament, but apologize to their readers for a 

 chance allusion to the Queen. Rather should the 

 chronicler pass con amore from high to low, and 

 gladly back again ; leaving the " suave and puissant " 

 beasts of Baudelaire's fireside for their poor cousin 

 of the woods, and returning with pleasure to the 

 courtliest records of cat or kittendom ever penned 



