St. John's Eve - pussycat auto-da-fé?

The ritual torture of cats was an element of popular festivities throughout the Medieval and Early Modern period, possibly with roots in pagan practice.  One particularly bad time for puss was the Eve of the Feast of St. John.  Here is Robert Darnton (as quoted in Wikipedia):

Cats also figured in the cycle of Saint John the Baptist, which took place on June 24, at the time of summer solstice. Crowds made bonfires, jumped over them, danced around them, and threw into them objects with magical power, hoping to avoid disaster and obtain good fortune during the rest of the year.   A favorite object was cats — cats tied up in bags, cats suspended from ropes, or cats burned at the stake. Parisians liked to incinerate cats by the sackful, while the Courimauds (or "cour à miaud" or cat chasers) of Saint Chamond preferred to chase a flaming cat through the streets. In parts of Burgundy and Lorraine they danced around a kind of burning May pole with a cat tied to it. In the Metz region they burned a dozen cats at a time in a basket on top of a bonfire. The ceremony took place with great pomp in Metz itself, until it was abolished in 1765. ... Although the practice varied from place to place, the ingredients were everywhere the same: a "feu de joie" (bonfire), cats, and an aura of hilarious witch-hunting. Wherever the scent of burning felines could be found, a smile was sure to follow.......  Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre (1984) p.87-88.

There can be no doubt that such practices did indeed persist into the Age of Enlightenment, but did 18th-century Parisians really "incinerate cats by the sackful"?

Enlightenment cats

More 18th-century cats: it has to be said that the works of the High Enlightenment were arid reading for cat lovers!


The Encyclopédie

The authors of the Encyclopédie  were savants and men of science who approached their subject with seriousness. In the Article CHAT (Myth) Diderot, with Herodotus in hand, inquired into the place of cats in mythology, particularly that of Egypt. In this great and strange civilisation  the cat was worshipped "in its natural form, or in the form of a man with a cat's head". To kill a cat, even by accident, was a crime that was "severely punished".

This brief treatment was the final article in the section on "cats" which takes up four-and-a-half columns in all.  Consideration begins with CHAT s.n. felis, catus (Hist.nat.) by Louis Dubenton, completed by Jaucourt.  Gabriel François Venel  then devoted two columns to CHAT (Matière médicale).  Finally there were three anonymous lines on the use of cats fur by furiers "principally" for sleeves.

According to Dubenton, although cats are domesticated, they belong  to the category of animals that are "wild and ferocious" such as lions, tigers, leopards and .....bears. ( Jaucourt in QUADRUPEDE also likened cats and bears, on the basis of the shape of their heads and similarities in dentition).Daubenton insists on their natural savagery:. "There are wild cats [..] and there is reason to believe they would all be wild if they had not been tamed".

Paradis de Moncrif

Born in Paris in 1687, Paradis de Moncrif, author of Les Chats, was ten years older that Voltaire, who was a familiar correspondent. His career represents the archetypal “man of letters” of the earlier 18th century.  Lacking any independent fortune  – d'Alembert characterised his family as "poor but respectable" -  he was wholly dependent on aristocratic good will.  His most important patron was the comte d’Argenson  who employed him as secretary and later secured him a valuable sinecure as inspecteur des postes, which brought in an annual income of 6,000 livres. Added to this was an apartment in the upper floors of the Tuileries palace.  Powerful sponsors allow him to acquire literary respectability: he figured on the list of royal censors and in 1733 was admitted to the Académie française.   Most crucial of all in the 1740s he secured the envied position of “reader” to the Queen, allowing him to become something of a fixture in Court society; he was nicknamed “le fauteuil” so much was he an indispensible part of the furniture.  By all accounts Moncrif managing to “play the dévot” in the queen’s circle whilst still keeping up relations with d'Argenson and madame de Pompadour.  

Pastel portrait by Quentin La Tour , 1733, sold at Sotheby's in 2007
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2007/old-master-drawings-l07040/lot.137.html

Moncrif's cats (cont.)

Quite apart from arcane details of cat history, Moncrif's Les Chats preserves for us many splendid  titbits concerning contemporary pet cats and their aristocratic and literary lady owners.

Letters Six & Seven: Ménine, cat of the duchesse de Lesdiguières

Paule-Françoise de Gondi (1655-1716) duchesse de Lesdiguières, was a wealthy young widow and the niece of Cardinal de Retz. There is a portrait by Antoine Pezey (with an engraving by Drévet) which shows her with her beloved cat  Ménine  on her lap.  Ménine, it may be noted, was not an angora but an ordinary grey cat with yellow/gold eyes. Her death in 1684 at the age of eight was commemorated in a sonnet composed by no less a personnage than François-Séraphin Régnier-Desmarais, the perpetual secretary of the Académie française.   Moncrif reproduces this "famous sonnet" which centers on the slightly improbably theme of the little she-cat's fierce chastity.

Moncrif's cats

Rest assured, Madame:  one day the merit of Cats will be generally recognised.  In a nation as enlightened as ours, prejudice cannot hold out for much longer against so reasonable a sentiment.  You can be confident that soon, in society, at the theatre, on promenades, at balls, even in the Academies, Cats will be received, indeed sought after.  It is impossible not to feel that one possesses in a Cat a friend who is excellent company, an admirable actor, born astrologer, perfect musician, and the embodiment of every talent and grace.  But we cannot yet determine precisely when this golden age will arrive;  for reason has to destroy the work of prejudice and the progress of reason is not always rapid....

François-Augustin Paradis de Moncrif's Les Chats (1727) had the indubitable distinction of being Western Europe’s very first book devoted to cats. The work was published in1727 by Gabriel François Quillau and was adorned with eight fine engravings b  the comte de Caylus after drawings by  Coypel . (A second edition with a Rotterdam imprint followed in 1728).  Moncrif characterised his approach as “gravement frivole”; his burlesque praises of the feline race were elegantly written and backed by extensive reading. But, if Moncrif thought to impress, he committed a grave error of judgment.  Les Chats might have sold well, but his literary enemies chose not to get the joke; the work proved an irresistible source for the  “catty” witticisms which plagued him throughout his subsequent long career.  As the marquis d’Argenson commented, the ridicule was unfortunate; Moncrif’s only mistake was to have published as a book what was really only a society amusement.

Watteau, The Sick Cat

LE CHAT MALADE

Iris idolatre Minet,
Quoique de tous les Chats Minet soit le plus traitre;
Des traits de ressemblance on produit cet effet;
Elle est folle d'un petit Maitre

Vous voyez avec joye un amant au trepas,
Tandis que pour un Chat vous prodiguez vos larmes;
Ce contraste bizarre Iris ne me plait pas,
Et je suis indigné de vos sottes allarmes;
Mais je ris quand je vois ce fou de médecin
Soigner cet animal et perfide et malin;
S'il n'appliquoit qu'aux Chats sa science incertain,
Quel bonheur pour l'espece humaine!

Tableau de l'humaine folie
Iris idolatre son Chat
Le Médicin encor plus fat
Croit le rappeler à la vie.

This etching by the Genevan artist Jean Étienne Liotard, dating from 1731, is a copy of a lost painting by Watteau.  It was one of the many engravings prepared for the posthumous Recueil Jullienne.  The Goncourt brothers characterised it as "one of those rare engravings that catch one's attention and retain it - that intrigues one's thoughts!"

The King, the Cat and the Commode

In contrast to Louis XV,  Louis XVI did not like cats, nor indeed pet animals of any kind. I suspect he was uncomfortable with the effusive affection and playful reverence lavished by bored courtiers on cats and lapdogs.  A couple of anecdotes come down to us about Louis's unfortunate experiences with the various felines which roamed unchecked in the corridors and apartments of Versailles.

The first episode involved the beloved pet of the comtesse de Maurepas, who, like Louis XV's cat, gloried in the name of Brillant.  Louis XVI managed  to kill this cat while taking careless potshots at  caterwauling moggies on the roofs of Versailles. (In a slightly less probable version, he delivered it a mortal blow with a hammer).   One may balk at the idea of shooting cats for sport but, as the sympathetic duc de Lévi noted, Louis's character was most revealed by his clumsy but sincere attempts  to make amends to Brillant's bereaved mistress. His discomfiture contrasts with the ironic enjoyment of the comte de Maurepas who treated the cat's demise with mock solemnity and derived great amusement from embellishing the story of Louis's misdemeanour. 

Louis XV, cat-lover

Pet cats became widespread for the first time in France in the early 18th-century.  The fashionable cat of  the French Court and aristocracy was the now almost defunct "angora",  a longhaired breed which was said to have originated in Ankara in Turkey.   The first specimen was introduced into France in 1620 by Nicholas Fabri de Peiresc, who acquired it  in Rome from the explorer Pietro della Valle, Pellegrino. Angoras were known as "French cats" in England well into the 19th century. They could come in different colours but were characteristically white.  Many courtiers owned them at Versailles, including Queen Marie Leszczyńska  and Marie Antoinette who boasted no less than six. (The story is that they were carried off to exile in the New World by Captain Clough and became the progenitors of the American Maine Coon.)

Jean-Jacques Bachelier 1761 Angora cat chasing a bird (private collection)
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Jacques_Bachelier_(Un_chat_Angola).jpg

Louis XV owned both cats and dogs. He was attracted to cats at an early age.  The Marquis de Calvière, a  royal page, recalled that, at the age of twelve, Louis possessed a female cat called Charlotte who had a litter of four kittens.  The young king handled them so much that three out of four died within twenty-four hours.
Diary entry of 1st June 1722, reproduced in Goncourt, Portraits intimes (1880), https://archive.org/stream/portraitsintimes00gonc#page/32/mode/2up


Louis XV's cat is made to dance

As an adult, Louis had a particular affection for angora cat called Brillant, who would come to wake him every morning.  This cat  habitually sat on the mantlepiece during  Royal Council sessions in the  cabinet du Conseil , which was one of the most luxurious rooms in Versailles. Saint-Simon spoke of Brillant as the King's "colleague".  The cat was the particular charge of Louis Quentin, the marquis de Champcenetz, Louis's premier valet de chambre.  In this anecdote, recounted in the memoirs  of Jean-Nicolas Dufort de Cheverny, the royal pages, with  Champcenetz as their ringleader, managed to incur the displeasure of the usually easy-going Louis by tormenting his favourite cat.

The king had a white angora tomcat, of prodigious fatness, very gentle and very friendly;  he used to sleep in the cabinet du Conseil on a cushion of crimson damas in the middle of the mantlepiece.  The King  always returned to the petits appartements at half-past-midnight.  It was not yet  midnight, and Champcenetz said to us, "Did you know that I can make a cat dance for minutes on end?"  We laughed and laid bets.  Champcenetz then pulled out a flask from his pocket, stroked the cat and poured eau de mille fleurs all over its paws.  The cat went back to sleep and we thought that we had won our bet.  But suddenly feeling the effect of the esprit-de-vin, it jumped to the ground, emitting explosive noises; it ran across the King's table, growling, staggering and making balletic leaps.  We were all laughing, when the King suddenly appeared out of nowhere;  everyone resumed his position, his proper demeanour and serious expression.  The King asked what had amused us. "Nothing, Sire, we were just telling a funny story," said Champcenetz.  At that moment the wretched cat recommenced its dancing, running around like a madman.  The King watched it:  "Gentlemen, he said, what is going on here?  Champcenetz, what have you done to my cat?  I want to know".  The question was direct;  Champcenetz hesitated for a moment then recounted briefly what had happened, whilst the cat continued its dance moves.  He told the tale smiling, watching the King's eyes to see how he would take it; but the King scowled.  "Gentlemen, he said, I will take this no further; but if you wish to amuse yourselves in future, I trust that it will not be at the expense of my cat".  This was said so dryly that no-one after that ever tried to make the cat dance.  It happened only that once.

Dufort de Cheverny, Jean-Nicolas, Mémoires sur les règnes de Louis XV et Louis XVI et sur la Révolution  Vol. 1(1886) p.124-5  http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5839019n/f155.item

 "Eau de mille fleurs" seems to have been a particularly vile concoction made from liquid cow dung mixed with white wine and then distilled.  See:
Olivier Lafont, "L'eau de mille-fleurs qui fit danser le chat du roi"  Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie 1999  Vol.87(323) pp. 343-346
http://www.persee.fr/doc/pharm_0035-2349_1999_num_87_323_4973#pharm_0035-2349_1999_num_87_323_T1_0346_0000

Madame Helvétius's cats

Jean Jacques Bachelier, White angora cat chasing a butterfly
Musée Lambinet.

As a cat-lover I have a soft spot for Madame Helvétius, who counted among her considerable menagerie, as well as numerous chickens, pigeons and canaries, "twenty Angoras". The cats were apparently bedecked in fur-lined sateen jackets from September to June, though it seems unlikely Madame could have wrestled more than a few favourites into this costume: if only we had a picture! The names of some of them - Aza, Le Noir, Courtois, Musette, Pompon  - are recorded: Ben Franklin complained lightheartedly to Cabanis that Madame was an ingrate for not granting him one of her nights, which she always spent solely in the company of Pompon (or "Poupon" as Franklin has it).  (p.61)