38 WILD ANIMALS. 



Among the wild beasts slain by the unerring darts of Commodus, 

 ■when that dissolute emperor himself descended to become a 

 gladiator, were a hundred Hons ; and various other periods could 

 be mentioned when these noble animals were butchered for the 

 sport of the Roman people, and in such numbers on occasions 

 that it is a question if the whole world could produce as many at 

 the present day. 



One of their laws refers to this animal, for in a note to Gibbon's 

 history he states : " The African lions, when pressed by hunger, 

 infested the open villages and cultivated country, and they in- 

 fested them with impunity. The royal beast was reserved for 

 the pleasures of the emperor and the capital ; and the unfortunate 

 peasant who killed one of them, though in his own defence, 

 incurred a very heavy penalty. This extraordinary game-law was 

 mitigated by Honorius, and finally repealed by Justinian." 



In Europe, during the middle ages, lions were considered 

 appurtenances of royalty ; in fact, in France from the time of ' 

 Chilperic (a.d. 561) there were always lions in the possession 

 of the kings. Lacroix ^ states that in 1333, Philippe de Valois 

 bought a barn in the Rue Froidmantel, near the Chateau du 

 Louvre, where he established a menagerie for his lions, bears, 

 leopards, and other wild beasts. This royal menagerie still existed 

 in the reigns of Charles VII. and Francis I. Charles V. and his 

 successors had an establishment of lions in the quadrangle of the 

 Grand Hotel de St. Paul, on the very spot which was subsequently 

 the site of the Rue des Leons St. Paul. 



" These wild beasts were sometimes employed in the combats, 

 and were pitted against bulls and dogs in the presence of the king 

 and his court. It was after one of these combats that Charles IX., 

 excited by the sanguinary spectacle, wished to enter the arena 

 alone, in order to attack a lion which had torn some of his best 

 dogs to pieces, and it was only with great difficulty ' that the 

 audacious sovereign was dissuaded from his foolish purpose. 

 Henry III. had no disposition to imitate his brother's example ; 

 for dreaming one night that his lions were devouring him, he had 

 them all killed the next day." 



5 "Manners, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages," 1874. 



