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.

"Dynasties of cats, as numerous as those of the Egyptian kings,
succeeded each other in my dwelling," 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 presumed to reprove her son, he passes on at
once to the romantic period, and the commemoration of Childebrand.

"This name at once reveals a deep design of flouting Boileau, whom I did
not like then, but have since become reconciled to. Has not Nicholas
said:--

"'O le plaisant projet d'un poete ignorant
Que de tant de heros va choisir Childebrant!'


"Now I considered Childebrand a very fine name indeed, Merovingian,
mediaeval, and Gothic, and vastly preferable to Agamemnon, Achilles,
Ulysses, or any Greek name whatsoever. Romanticism was the fashion of my
early days: I have no doubt the people of classical times called their
cats Hector, Ajax, or Patroclus. Childebrand was a splendid cat of
common kind, tawny and striped with black, like the hose of Saltabadil
in 'Le Rois' Amuse.' With his large, green, almond-shaped eyes, and his