The Story of a Cat Part 10

This discovery tore away the veil which covered the past of l.u.s.tucru.

Mother Michel, divining that the charges of Faribole were well founded, hastened to inform Madame de la Grenouillere, 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Celebrated Chemist a.n.a.lyzes the Hash.]

Madame de la Grenouillere wrote to a celebrated chemist, who, after having a.n.a.lyzed the hash, declared that it contained a prodigious quant.i.ty of poison.

The crime of l.u.s.tucru 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 l.u.s.tucru throw Moumouth from the bridge of Notre Dame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Fate of the Steward.]

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

It was afterward learned that this s.h.i.+p had been wrecked upon the Sandwich Islands, and that the savages had eaten l.u.s.tucru. History records that at the moment of expiring he p.r.o.nounced but a single word, the name of Moumouth!

[Ill.u.s.tration: l.u.s.tucru flies.]

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 Grenouillere 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mother Michel's Cottage.]

Faribole, received again into the service of Madame de la Grenouillere, 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 grat.i.tude. 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 ill.u.s.trious personages, they engraved upon the tomb of Moumouth an epitaph in Latin, composed by a learned professor of the University of Paris.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Moumouth and his Family.]