CHAPTER V 



CONCERNING SOME HISTORIC CATS 



IT is quite common for writers on the cat to say, 

 "The story of Thdophile Gautier's cats is too 

 familiar to need comment." On the contrary, I do 

 not believe it is familiar to the average reader, and 

 that only those who know Gautier's " Menagerie In- 

 time" in the original, recall the particulars of his 

 "White and Black Dynasties." For this reason they 

 shall be repeated in these pages. I use Mrs. Cashel- 

 Hoey's translation, partly in a selfish desire to save 

 myself time and labor, but principally because she 

 has preserved so successfully the sympathetic and 

 appreciative spirit of M. Gautier himself. 



" D)masties of cats, as numerous as those of the 

 Egyptian kings, succeeded each other in my dwell- 

 ing," says he. " One after another they were swept 

 away by accident, by flight, by death. All were 

 loved and regretted : but life is made up of oblivion, 

 and the memory of cats dies out like the memory of 

 men." After making mention of an old gray cat 

 who always took his part against his parents, and 

 used to bite Madame Gautier's legs when she pre- 

 sumed to reprove her son, he passes on at once to the 



go 



