The Story of a Cat

everal days passed in painful expectation; but the cat, like General Marlborough, did not come back. The despair of Madame de la Grenouillère was sincere, profound, and silent,—all the more intense because it was suppressed. She continually pictured to herself the charming ways of Moumouth, his natural goodness, his superior intelligence. No animal had ever displayed to her so many brilliant qualities; not one of her previous favorites had ever caused her such bitter regrets.

Generous in her misfortune, she did not reproach Mother Michel; on the contrary, the Countess sought to comfort that poor woman, who had given herself up wholly to grief. The Countess said to her one night:—

"What can you do against an irresistible calamity? The wisdom of man consists not in struggling with unhappiness, but in submitting himself to the will of Heaven."

"I am of your opinion," replied Mother Michel. "If I believed, like you, in the death of Moumouth, I would resign myself without a murmur. But I have the idea that he still lives; I picture him running through the streets, the victim of ill treatment, with saucepans, may be"—

"Go to, Mother Michel, you deceive yourself; Moumouth is dead, otherwise he would have come back to us."

"Something tells me that he is still in this world, and if Madame the Countess wishes to have tidings of him, she has only to address herself"—

"To whom?"

"To our neighbor, Madame Bradamor, that celebrated fortune-teller, who predicts the future, removes freckles, reads in the Book of Destinies, and charms away the toothache."

"Fie, Mother Michel! how can you, a sensible woman, have any confidence in the juggling of an adventuress?"

"But, madame, I am not alone; the most distinguished people go to Madame Bradamor; she is more learned and less dear than her rivals, and asks only ten crowns to make you behold the devil Astaroth."

"Enough, for pity’s sake!" responded the Countess, dryly.

Mother Michel remained silent; but she had made up her mind, and, the first time she had a moment of liberty, she ran to the house of the necromancer.

The fortune-teller occupied a spacious apartment richly furnished, for she gained a great deal of money by cheating the public. Her consultation-room was draped with hangings of black velvet sprinkled with gilt stars; upon a square table, in the centre of the chamber, stood painted tin obelisks, jars of electricity, retorts, and divers mathematical instruments, of whose uses the pretended sorceress was quite ignorant, but which she had placed there in order to impose on the weak-minded persons who came to consult her.

She at first showed some embarrassment on beholding Mother Michel; however, after having closed a glass door which communicated with the other apartments, she returned to salute her new client, and said in a solemn tone:—

"What is your desire?"

"To question the present, the past, and the future."

"I am the very one to satisfy you," replied Madame Bradamor; "but what you demand is very difficult, and will cost you three crowns."

"There they are; I give them to you with all my heart."

Madame Bradamor, full of regret that she had not insisted on having more, pocketed the money, and began in these terms:—

"What is the date of your birth?"

"The 24th of May, 1698."

"What are the initials of your name and the first letter of the place in which you were born?"

"A, R, M, N, L, S."

Madame Michel was named Anastasie Ravegot; the widow, since twelve years, of François Michel, in life inspector of butter in the Paris markets; she was born in Noisy-le-Sec.

"What is your favorite flower?"

"The Jerusalem artichoke."

After these customary questions, the fortune-teller examined some coffee-grounds poured into a saucer, and said:—

"Phaldarus, the genie of things unknown, informs me that you are in search of a being very dear to you."

Mother Michel bounded in her chair with surprise.

Madame Bradamor continued: "This being is not a man; it is a quadruped—either a dog or a cat. Ariel, spirit celestial, reveals to me that it is a cat."

Mother Michel was more and more impressed; without giving her time to recover herself, the fortune-teller took a pack of cards, shuffled them, cut them three times, then disposed them in a systematic order on the table, and said gravely:—

"Your cat is the knave of clubs; let us see what happens to him. One, two, three, four; ten of spades! He is a wanderer, he has a passion for travel, he sets out at night to see the curiosities of Paris. One, two, three, four; the queen of spades! It is a woman who manufactures ermine fur out of cat-skin. One, two, three, four; the knave of spades! It is a rag-picker. One, two, three, four; the king of spades! It is a restaurant-keeper. The falling together of these three persons alarms me. One, two, three, four,—clubs! One, two, three, four,—clubs again! One, two, three, four,—always clubs. Your cat would bring money to these three persons: the rag-picker wishes to kill him in order to sell the skin to the furrier, and the body to the restaurant-keeper, who will serve it up to his customers as stewed rabbit. Will the cat be able to resist his persecutors. One, two, three, four; seven of spades! It is all over, madame; your cat no longer exists!"

"They have eaten him, the cannibals!" cried Mother Michel, sinking back, and she fancied she heard a plaintive miau, the last agonized cry of Moumouth. But it was not an illusion; a cat had miaued, and was still miauing in the next chamber. Suddenly a pane of glass in the door described was shivered to atoms, and Moumouth in person tumbled at the feet of Mother Michel.

From the top of a wardrobe he had perceived his affectionate guardian; he had called to her several times, and as she did not answer him, he had thrown himself, in his desperation, against the glass door, through which he had broken a passage.

"My cat was with you!" said Mother Michel; "you have stolen him! My mistress is powerful; my mistress is the Countess Yolande de la Grenouillère; she will have you chastised as you deserve to be!"

While making these threats Mother Michel placed Moumouth under her arm, and prepared to depart. Madame Bradamor stopped her, saying:—

"Do not ruin me, I conjure you! I have not stolen your cat!"

"How is it in your house, then?"

"I have it from a little boy named Faribole; he got this cat for me, which I have long desired to have, on account of his supernatural shape and appearance, to figure in my cabalistic conjurations. This is the truth, the whole truth. I beg of you that your mistress will not disturb me."

"Madame the Countess will act as she thinks proper," responded Mother Michel, haughtily; and she vanished with her cat.

She made but one step from the house of Madame Bradamor to that of Madame de la Grenouillère; one would have said that Mother Michel had on the seven-league boots of little Tom Thumb. She did not linger in the parlor, when she arrived out of breath and unable to speak a word, but carried Moumouth straight to the Countess.

On recognizing the animal, the Countess gave so loud a cry of joy that it was heard as far as the Place de la Carrousel.

Lustucru assisted at this touching scene. At the sight of the cat he was so dumbfounded that his reason wavered for a moment. He imagined that the cat, so many times saved, was a fantastic being, capable of speaking, like the beasts in the fairy-tales, and he said to himself with a shiver: "I am lost! Moumouth is going to denounce me!"

s soon as Madame de la Grenouillère learned how Moumouth had been recovered, she ordered young Faribole to be brought before her.

"I’ll go and look him up," said Father Lustucru, with alacrity. He was very anxious to warn his accomplice, and sought an excuse to steal off.

"No, remain! You have admitted him to the mansion, you shall see him turned away, and will learn to bestow your confidence more wisely in future."

Lustucru remained, and, recovering from his first stupor, resolved to boldly deny everything, if Faribole should dare to accuse him.

Introduced into the parlor, Faribole did not wait to be interrogated.

"Madame the Countess," said he, "the presence of your cat tells me why you have called me; but I am less guilty than I appear; permit me to explain."

"It is useless," replied Madame de la Grenouillère; "your justification is impossible."

The steward, believing it best to play a bold game, said with irony:—

"I am curious to know what unlikely story this rogue has to tell," and in accenting these words slowly he gave Faribole a glance which signified: "If you accuse me, woe to you!’"

Without allowing himself to be confused, Faribole commenced in these terms:—

"It is necessary to avow it, madame; I entered into your service with the intention of stealing your cat; the fortune-teller wished to have him, to make him play the part of the devil Astaroth; and she had seduced me by the promise of a crown of six livres and a pair of shoes. They treated me so well, and Moumouth appeared to me so charming, that I renounced my wicked plans; I never, no, never would have put them into execution, if I had not found it was necessary to get Moumouth out of the way in order to rescue him from the attacks of an enemy all the more terrible because he was hidden."

"Of whom does he wish to speak?" demanded Lustucru.

"Of you! of you who have said to me, ’Kill Moumouth, or I chase you from the house!’"

"I, I have said that! what an impudent falsehood! Ah, Madame the Countess, you know me well enough not to hesitate between the declarations of this fellow and my flat denial."

"Faribole," said the Countess severely, "your charge is grave; can you bring any proof to support it?"

"Proof, alas! no, madame; but I am ready to swear to you"—

"Enough," interrupted the Countess; "do not add calumny to the theft of the cat, but deliver me of your presence."

The miserable Faribole wished to protest, but at a sign from Madame de la Grenouillère, Lustucru seized him by the arm, led him through the door without further ceremony, and treated him in so rough a manner on the staircase as to quite relieve him of any idea of asking for his personal effects.

However, the iniquities of the steward were not to remain long unpunished; that same day, Mother Michel, in arranging the closet in the antechamber, was very much astonished at finding the bodies of several dead rats and mice; she was wondering what had caused their death, when she recognized the famous hash that the cat had refused to eat, and which had been left there by mistake. Two mice were dead in the plate itself, so powerful and subtile was the poison!

This discovery tore away the veil which covered the past of Lustucru. Mother Michel, divining that the charges of Faribole were well founded, hastened to inform Madame de la Grenouillère, who recommended her to keep silent, and sent for the steward.

"Have you still the ’Death to Rats?’" she asked him.

"Yes, madame, I think I have a little left."

"Some should be placed in the antechamber; you have not thought of that before?"

"Never, madame; I did not know there were rats in that part of the house."

"Very well; you can retire."

Madame de la Grenouillère wrote to a celebrated chemist, who, after having analyzed the hash, declared that it contained a prodigious quantity of poison.

The crime of Lustucru was then evident; but other proofs were not long in rising against him. The adventure of Groquemouche and Guignolet was talked about among the boatmen; Faribole heard the story from one of them, and discovered a person who had seen Lustucru throw Moumouth from the bridge of Notre Dame.

The steward, confounded, did not wait to be discharged; he fled, and, to escape the vengeance of Madame de la Grenouillère, embarked as cook on board of a merchant vessel bound for Oceanica.

It was afterward learned that this ship had been wrecked upon the Sandwich Islands, and that the savages had eaten Lustucru. History records that at the moment of expiring he pronounced but a single word, the name of Moumouth!

What was it that brought this name to the lips of the guilty man? Was it remorse? or was it the last explosion of an unforgiving hatred? This is what history has neglected to inform us.

The health of Madame de la Grenouillère had been altered by the heavy shocks she had experienced in losing her favorite animals. The tenderness and graces of Moumouth would perhaps have been sufficient to attach her to life; but the respectable lady had reached an age when sorrows press very heavily. Mother Michel had the grief, one morning, to find the Countess dead in her bed; her face was so calm and bore so plainly the impress of all her lovable qualities, that one would have believed she slept. She was nearly in her seventy-ninth year.

By her will, which she had deposited with her lawyer, she had left to Moumouth and Mother Michel an income of two thousand livres, to revert, in case of the death of either, to the survivor.

Mother Michel took up her residence near her sister, provided handsomely for all the children, and selected for her own retreat a pretty cottage situated in Low-Breton upon the banks of the river among the green trees.

Faribole, received again into the service of Madame de la Grenouillère, conducted himself so well that his transient error was forgotten. He would have been able to distinguish himself in the kitchen, but he preferred to serve the State, and enlisted at the age of sixteen in an infantry regiment. He took part in the expedition against Majorca under the command of Marshal Richelieu, and was named corporal after the capture of Port-Mahon, June the 29th, 1756. When he obtained his discharge, he returned to live near Mother Michel, for whom he had an affection truly filial. To the agitations of their existence succeeded calm and happy days, embellished by the constantly increasing graces of Moumouth.

Our cat henceforth was without an enemy; he won, on the contrary, the esteem and affection of all who knew him. His adventures had made him quite famous. Besides the ballad,—of which, unfortunately, only two couplets have been preserved,—the poets of the period wrote in his honor a large number of verses that have not come down to us. He received visits from the most distinguished men of the time, even from the King himself, who once, on his way to the Chateau of Bellevue, dropped in for a moment on Moumouth.

A grand lady of the court condescended to choose for Moumouth a very gentle and very pretty companion, whom he accepted with gratitude. In seeing himself a father Moumouth’s happiness was at its highest, as was also that of Mother Michel, who felt that she lived again in the posterity of her cat.

You wish to know what finally became of Moumouth? He died,—but it was not until after a long and joyous career. His eyes, in closing, looked with sweet satisfaction upon groups of weeping children and grandchildren. His mortal remains were not treated like those of ordinary cats. Mother Michel had built for him a magnificent mausoleum of white marble. Following a custom then adopted at the burial of all illustrious personages, they engraved upon the tomb of Moumouth an epitaph in Latin, composed by a learned professor of the University of Paris.