THE TAMERS.
The tamer’s performance is certainly one of those exhibitions which
give the most valuable evidence of the superiority of man over
animals.
Some morose spirits have put forth the lion’s claims to royalty in
rivalry to the supremacy of Adam. In the [p134] menagerie the two
candidates meet each other. The lion has formidable jaws and claws;
the man has only a pair of boots and a whip. Yet it is the lion that
obeys! The great feline’s spring through a paper hoop settles the
disputed question in favour of humanity. One leaves the theatre with
uplifted head and heart swollen with pride.
And besides this philosophic satisfaction, a visit to a menagerie
is one of the most delightful amusements you can choose. You enter
a dark booth, impregnated with a strong odour of carrion. At first
the eyes can scarcely distinguish the strange sphinx-like forms
extended behind the iron bars of the cages, crouching in dreamy,
sleepy attitudes. Suddenly the gas-burner is lighted. Two keepers
enter, covered with blood like the headsman’s assistants; they bear
a handbarrow laden with great quarters of horseflesh; a third person
accompanies them carrying a hook.
“The animals are now to be fed,” he cries in a showman’s voice. “The
supper consists of more than 600 lbs. of meat. Those persons who
wish to see the food distributed are begged to stand a little to the
right.”
You follow the hook, the barrow, and the people.
[Illustration]
Apparently some whisper of rebellion has passed through the
menagerie, but just now resting and sleepy. A howl is raised, which
echoes every note of the desert. The keepers add to the animals’
excitement by holding out the empty hook; the lions savagely throw
themselves upon it, not seeing that they are deceived. With the
gestures of a cat, they glide their paws between the bars to seize
their prey, and crush their muzzles and their manes against them. As
they pant with rage, their breath rises in clouds of smoke, [p135]
scattering the sawdust of their litter. They roar and dribble with
hunger. At last the meat is within their reach, and they drag the
huge pieces towards their jaws, too large to pass through the bars
at first, there is a moment’s struggle, and then the great lumps are
triumphantly drawn in. When the booty is held, before rending it, the
beasts lie down upon it, with little spasmodic rattles—the expression
of satisfaction after rage. [p136]
By the side of the lions the wolf is dancing, uttering lamentable
howls. The tigers prowl to and fro in their agitation like phantoms
with lapiz gleams in their eyes. The bear waits for his piece of
bread in silence. And as the growls of enjoyment slowly, gradually
subside, the menagerie resumes its usual quiet aspect, and the beasts
lie drowsily on their sawdust beds, lazily licking their jaws with
sighs of repletion.
This is the time selected by the tamers to enter the dens.
The women go in with bare arms and necks; the men hesitate between a
gentleman’s evening-dress and the red uniform of the Horse Guards.
As the emotions of the audience must be gradually and skilfully
roused, the performance usually opens by the exercises with the white
bear. An attendant with a hook slips back the protecting partition.
The tamer receives the creature, whip in hand.
“Come in, Pierrot.” (Every white bear has been called Pierrot ever
since the North Pole was invented.) “Come, you lazy fellow, jump!
Show yourself off! That’s right! Once more! A bar for Pierrot!
Well! I am waiting for you! Higher, Pierrot, higher!” (_The strange
creature sways its serpent-like neck and gives a sudden spring._)
“Very well done! Now, Pierrot, we are going to see if you are a
coward. Ready! Fire!” (_The tamer fires a pistol. The bear moves its
head uneasily._) “That will do, my friend; you can go. Ladies and
gentlemen, there is only one thing which Pierrot cannot endure, that
is the smell of powder.” [p137]
Now it is the turn of Sarah the hyena, which comes in with its
hobbling step and the suspicious glances of the birds of darkness. It
smells the master’s boots, and takes a piece of sugar in its teeth.
It soon retires into a corner, whilst Mignonne the panther appears.
Mignonne performs with all the grace of a ballet-dancer. She passes
from right to left, over the back of the tamer; allows him to raise
her from the ground by the ears, and kisses her master’s throat near
the nape of the neck.
But this is all child’s play, trifles to commence with; the
appearance of the lion is the event of the evening that we are all
waiting for.
He enters with all the dignity of the leading performer, almost
openly impatient to show himself. His mate follows him. The couple
must have been worth seeing in their African solitude in their wild
courtship.
Now it is accepted slavery. Rebellion and hope are both over. The
lion looks at his master; he seems to say—“What do you want me to do?
Show my claws? Here they are then. Feign to be dead? Would to God
I were really so! You lie down upon me as though I were a bed; you
invite Aïda to come and share your rest. Sleep side by side. When I
was free I tore a black-maned lion to pieces for prowling round our
den. And now do as you like, whether in darkness or in light. Fire
your pistol, your barrel of sparks. I do not dread fire now any more
than I feared a battle before my loins were broken in the snare in
which I was caught for you.”
Since it is absolutely necessary to raise some laughter and vary this
tragic monologue, the lion-tamer calls his usual [p138] buffoon, a
poor little Savoyard bear, the delight of nurses and children.
The proximity of the lion is unendurable to the bear. It is willing
to dance, to say yes or no, to carry arms, but it shrinks from an
interview with the desert king, who has a fancy for receiving it with
a loud roar. But we have plenty of time to observe its caution and to
ascertain its tastes.
The tamer, already impatient at its delay, calls and scolds it.
“Come in, then, your highness; come in, my little friend. You are
always the first after all the others. Look a little more lively
then, a little more amiable. You are in society. We have been looking
forward to your visit. Here is your comrade Sultan, who wishes for
nothing better than to play with you a little.” (_Here the tamer
takes the bear by the ear and drags it towards the lion, who paws the
ground with threatening claws._) “Eh, but what is the matter then?
Your highness beginning to tremble? Don’t be frightened, my good
fellow. See how well behaved Sultan is; he is always smiling.”
[Illustration]
I sincerely pity those persons who are not amused by this comical
bear. I, who thoroughly appreciate the delicacy of its performance,
can assert that I have never passed a menagerie without entering
the office. This is why I am now on such good terms with all the
lion-tamers—Bidel, Pezon, Nouma-Hava, and Co. It is already two or
three years since I made the acquaintance of Pezon. It was at the
wedding of one of his daughters with a young man whose name I cannot
recollect, but who had already received his [p139] baptism of blood
in the cages. The marriage-dinner was held at Saint Mandé, in the
Salon des Familles. All the tamers in the kingdom, male and female,
had been invited to this festival. They had not felt it a duty—and I
secretly regretted the fact—to wear either their trunk-hose or their
riding-boots, but were all in evening dress and lavender kid gloves.
We sat down, thirty to dinner, including myself. On my right was a
very dark man with a moustache like that of Victor Emmanuel; he has
since been eaten in a fair in the south of France. I can affirm that
this lion-tamer, as well as his comrades, had an excellent appetite,
and I should not have cared to find myself between his teeth. [p140]
Neither leg of bear nor _chaud-froid_ of lion was served at the
wedding feast, but the wine flowed abundantly, and, at dessert, all
tongues were liberated.
I had, therefore, an excellent opportunity of proving that these
powerful men are in domestic life the most amiable of mankind. I
never received so many fraternal embraces in my life as at this
wedding, where the guests followed the example of Homer’s heroes and
heroines, whose last representatives they certainly are.
Judge for yourself:
Besides a bag of gold crowns that glittered brilliantly in the
sunshine, the youthful bride entered the new menagerie—I beg pardon,
the new home—with a dowry of four lions. A friend of the family had
offered her a small panther from Java as a wedding present.
Her godfather had given her two rattlesnakes, and the bridegroom’s
brother had added to these gifts an adult rabbit without any hair, a
curiosity never met with before.
. . . You, who seek for some means of securing eternal youth in your
limbs, should devote a little time to lion-taming, the foam of their
rage must be the real fountain of eternal youth.
Look at Jean-Baptiste Pezon: he is more than sixty-three years old,
and yet one would say that roots, knotty oak roots, started from his
boots and fastened him to the ground, enabling him to stand so firmly
on his sturdy hips. And not one single grey hair is to be found in
the curious black tresses which fall to his shoulders, worn in the
same fashion as that of his contemporary Cladel, whom Jean-Baptiste
somewhat resembles. Yet the mask of the lion-tamer is cast in quite
[p141] a different mould from that of the literary man. At most
Cladel has the appearance of a shepherd; whilst Pezon looks like a
wolf-driver.
[Illustration]
In fact Jean-Baptiste commenced his life of adventure in that
capacity. Born in Lozère, he worked in the mines during his
childhood, and was there initiated in rude muscular labour at a very
early age: but he cherished the dream of [p142] leading a wandering
life. He longed for unlimited space before his sturdy legs, the
heavens for roof over his head. He therefore quitted his subterranean
employment and became a plough-boy. For some years he was celebrated
through all the country side as a tamer of savage animals; dangerous
cows, horses, and bulls were submissive in his hands, and he forced
the beasts to obey him as much by his audacity as by his strength.
He was also a hunter. One day he snared a living wolf, and it
suddenly occurred to him to leave his servile employment and travel
through the world with this strange companion. The wolf learnt to
“carry arms,” to walk on its hind legs, and to carry a wooden bowl
round to the audience. When enough money had been acquired by these
collections, Jean-Baptiste obtained another wolf, then a bear, and
a bull, which he harnessed to his cart; and with this equipage he
made—to quote his own words—“the tour of France and the great powers.”
A little later the tamer bought his first lion at Bordeaux. It
was an animal with a superb mane, but his hind quarters had been
injured by the trap that caught him. At three o’clock in the morning
Jean-Baptiste appeared on board the vessel belonging to the captain
from whom he had bought the lion, to take possession of his new
acquisition.
“But how will you take it away?” asked the sailor, slipping his two
hundred louis into his pocket. “You have not brought a cage?”
“I have a collar and a chain,” replied Pezon.
He shackled the beast like a small Savoyard bear, and led him home
with a leash. [p143]
Now Pezon owns at least thirty lions—as many adults as cubs. He
has built a good house at Montreuil, and is thinking of giving his
farewell performance.
[Illustration]
The success of M. Bidel, Pezon’s comrade and rival, was even more
rapidly attained. At fifty years old he had reached the summit
of wealth and honour. His visiting card, now lying before me,
recapitulates the series of lucky events which have placed the tamer
in this unique position much better than I could do:
FRANÇOIS BIDEL,
CHEVALIER DE LA VALEUR CIVILE ITALIENNE,
PRÉSIDENT DE L’UNION MUTUELLE,
DIRECTEUR D’UN GRAND ÉTABLISSEMENT ZOOLOGIQUE.
And in the left corner of the card, where you would put your address,
the single word _Propriétaire_ (house-owner).
Do not smile at this; Bidel has the right to be proud of his villa at
Asnières. To him, after so many years spent in [p144] moving round
the world, the word _propriétaire_ signifies the anchor dropped, the
harbour won. It is a genuine certificate of _bourgeoisie_.
[Illustration]
Bidel is not only one of the richest _bourgeois_ of Asnières; he
might be called the lord of the manor. Behind his gilded iron gate,
ornamented with lions’ heads, with the porter’s lodge to the left,
the stables to the right, and a fine expanse of turf, the red and
white villa looks like a small castle. The dining-room is decorated
with panels, on which Rosa Bonheur has painted some lions; but this
is the only detail which could [p145] lead any one to suppose—unless
previously warned—that he was visiting the house of a tamer of wild
beasts.
[Illustration]
I am sure, good people, that you would picture to yourselves a Bidel
ending his life in a room encumbered with the spoils of the lion
of Nemæa and Indian tigers. But you are far from the truth. Do you
not know that an ironical law governs all the wishes of man, the
wishes of lion-tamers as well as our own? It is called the law of
contrasts. In virtue of this rule M. François Bidel has furnished his
drawing-room in the purest Louis XV., and the ceiling, panels, and
seats are covered with pastoral designs of shepherds; idylls and love
flourish in all the four corners of the pretty room.
Mdlle. Bidel’s piano is the sole object bearing a different date.
Perhaps you may have seen this charming young girl with her mother
in the ticket office on the day of some great performance. She has
just enough romanichel blood in her [p146] veins to give a slightly
exotic brilliancy to her brunette beauty. Naturally, this pretty girl
is an heiress. Her education and accomplishments are perfect, and she
has passed her examinations at the Hôtel de Ville.
“Of course our daughter has no intention of teaching,” Madame Bidel
observed to me casually, “but her success was a satisfaction for her
father.”
All this comfort and luxury have not been won without some dangerous
encounters with the lions. Bidel, like Pezon, has passed under the
mill of their claws, and they can both show the scars of serious
wounds to those sceptics who may be inclined to deny the risk of
their performances.
A number of chimerical stories are current about the lion-tamer’s
secret. Here is one of them: that it is usual to mix narcotics with
the animals’ food, or even to teach them those bad habits which led
the celebrated Charlot to a premature death.
The truth is that a certain number—a very small percentage—of the
wild beasts in a menagerie are considerably stupefied. Guy de
Maupassant told me that in Rouen a tamer having lost his keeper,
engaged a willing man from the port, to whom he confided the duty of
cleaning the cages. On the morrow, when he went into the menagerie,
the master paused aghast. His new servant had quietly entered the
cage as though it were a stall, and was giving the lion some heavy
blows with his broom handle to clean between his paws.
At the Folies Bergère a lioness was at one time exhibited by Colonel
Bone, who was taking her round the world. This animal was so savage
that it was necessary to chain her into [p147] the cage with an iron
collar. When the colonel merely passed near the den she would fling
herself against the bars with such fury that the whole car trembled.
But one day one of the managers of the theatre was inspecting the
side scenes and witnessed the following incident: the colonel’s
servant was installed in the cage, quietly painting a background
of savannah on a canvas stretched over the floor. The lioness was
unchained and watched him as a dog watches a fisherman, stealthily
licking the green paint from time to time; the result being an attack
of colic which nearly sent her to roar in another world.
[Illustration]
I, who now address you, have entered a black-maned lion’s cage quite
recently. Oh! do not exclaim at my heroism. A great many people have
visited this captive king of the desert; first, Tartarin, then all
the Marseillais, then Mademoiselle Roselia Rousseil, who on a similar
occasion dedicated a poem to Bidel, entitled, _La Mort du Lion, ou le
Dompteur_ [p148] _par Amour_ (_The Lion’s Death; or, The Tamer by
Love_), which commenced with these lines:
C’est un vaillant dompteur, jamais il ne recule.
Son corps semble pétri par les dieux; l’on croit voir
La grâce d’Apollon dans la force d’Hercule.
Pour moi, j’aime surtout son grand œil doux si noir.[7]
I did not visit the lion in order to write verses to him. I merely
wished to be introduced to him because I knew that I should have to
mention him to you. It was a scruple of professional honesty on my
part.
Here is a true account of the interview without any embellishment.
The lion-tamer, with whom I had a short previous conference, answered
for the safety of the attempt.
“You must wait,” he said, “in the entrance to the door until I call
you.”
He then entered the cage in a familiar way, and as the lion was
asleep, he pulled it by the ears. When the beast, who at first
grumbled a little, was sitting up and seemed composed again, my
companion called to me:
“Come in, now!”
I went in cautiously at the back, taking two steps forward, so that
I might still be nearer to the door than to the lion. I must own
that the desert king did not honour me by even turning his head. He
was talking to his tamer. The two gentlemen left me standing, and I
looked rather like a bootmaker waiting for orders from a nobleman.
[p149]
Man is a coward. The lion’s contempt gave me courage. I advanced a
step so that I could touch the leg of the beast.
[Illustration]
“Oh!” I said, “how silky it is!”
It was not silky at all, it was abominably harsh.
Since then I have reflected upon the feeling which could have induced
me to utter this falsehood, and the result of this self-examination
is so humiliating that I will confide it [p150] to you as a penance.
In fact “how silky it is” was prompted by an instinct of base
flattery—a courtier’s compliment—the toadyism of a coward who felt
himself nearer to the lion than to the door.
The boldest individuals, who put their heads two or three times a day
into the lion’s mouth, have told me that the best way to withdraw it
from the gulf is, first of all, not to open the acquaintanceship with
this experiment; and, secondly, to perform it with great nerve.
Nerve, that is the great secret of the lion-tamer, the sole cause
of his authority over his beasts. When he has studied a subject for
some time, endeavouring to master its character—and amongst the
higher animals the character is very individual, very accentuated—one
morning the man quietly walks into the cage. He must astonish the
beast and over-awe him at once. As to the training, it consists—and
here I quote the words of an expert in such matters—_in commanding
the lion to perform the exercises which please him_; that is to say,
to make him execute from fear of the whip those leaps which he would
naturally take in his wild state.
There is one fact which no one would suspect—that it is easier
to train an adult lion taken in a snare than an animal born in a
menagerie. The lion of the booth is in the same position as sporting
dogs which play much with children; they are soon spoilt for work.
Pezon possesses five or six lions which he has brought up by hand. As
a rule they live with the staff of the menagerie on terms of perfect
familiarity, but this frequently leads to tragic accidents. [p151]
Lions, even lions in a fair, will devour a man in fine style.
[Illustration]
Can I say that the fear of such an accident is ever sufficiently
strong to make me pause on the threshold of a menagerie? No. I
cherish, and, like me, you also cherish, the hope that some day
perhaps we may see a lion-tamer eaten. This contingency sometimes
occurs, in fact more often than is usually supposed. For instance,
without leaving the Pezon menagerie, it is not a year since the
proprietor narrowly escaped being devoured by his bear Groom at
Chalons-sur-Marne. He would have perished if his son Adrian Pezon had
not thrown himself, sabre in hand, between the two combatants and
killed the bear on the spot.[8]
This act of heroism has been celebrated by the poet Constant Robert
in some remarkable Alexandrines, which deserve to be handed down to
posterity:— [p152]
L’assistance appelait au secours, et l’horreur
Qui s’empara soudain de chaque spectateur
Ne saurait se décrire! On était dans l’attente,
Sans pouvoir l’éviter, d’une mort imminente!
Lorsqu’au moment critique, intrépide, haletant,
Un lion apparaît sous les traits d’un enfant!
Son fils et son élève! . . . Adrien! Oui, lui-même![9]
As to Bidel, every one recollects that in July, 1886, at the fair de
Neuilly, a lion mangled all one side of his neck.
Two of my friends were amongst the spectators of this duel—the
painter, Edouard Detaille, and my dear comrade Paul Hervieu.
When Detaille reached home, on the same evening, he made a rapid
sketch of the conflict between the man and the lion whilst the
impression was still fresh in his memory. He has kindly authorized
me to reproduce it here. The effect is of a cat playing with a bird.
Bidel’s coat was torn into fine shreds by the scratching of the claws
from the collar to the waist, showing the flesh underneath. On his
side, Paul Hervieu was good enough to send me the valuable notes
which you are about to read. He addressed them to me in the form of a
letter, which has been published in the _Monde Illustre_.
“The accident took place on one evening in July, 1886, at the
Neuilly fair. The weather was heavy and stormy, and the lion-tamer
had one foot bandaged for gout.
[Illustration: HYPNOTISM IN A WILD BEASTS’ CAGE.] [p153]
“However, the performance was nearly over, and it seemed as though
everything would soon be safely ended, in spite of the unusually
refractory voice and attitudes of Sultan, a fine dark-maned lion
(for the lionesses, although I believe they are all _blonde_ like
Eve, can choose between dark-or light-coloured manes amongst their
large-headed lords).
“Suddenly Bidel fell, having caught himself in his blunt two-pronged
iron spear, and in some way tripped over it. Every one present
uttered a brief cry. Then, a deadly silence fell upon the huge
tent—a silence so intense that the hissing of the gas-lights could
be heard.
“I shall never forget the man’s face at the moment he lost his
balance. I still see his starting eyes, the white balls vividly
contrasting with his features, congested by gout and by his previous
efforts. It was the expression of one who feels that he is lost, who
is sinking into an abyss. Now the tamer was lying upon the floor of
the cage like an inert mass, without a gesture or a cry for help.
He never attempted to raise himself, probably through some tactic
dictated by his experience, but apparently he had the time to do it
in, for the lion still remained crouched a few yards away.
[Illustration]
“Perhaps, my dear Le Roux, you have some wish that I should define
the nature of the emotion which seizes an eye-witness under these
circumstances? This emotion is certainly multiform. Thus, for my
own part, you may feel sure that I was distressed, horrified—that I
regretted being present on that fatal evening. . . . On the other
hand, if you do not object, I will tell you that I was accompanied
by a friend, a kind of inseparable, who is very curious about rare
sensations.
“Now this friend has since confessed to me that whilst the lion
remained immovable he was conscious of one idea . . . . how
can I express it? . . . . In short, it was like a ferocious
wish that something unexpected should happen, like a monstrous
impatience. . . . .
“And, in excuse for my friend, I try to convince myself that he
was not alone in feeling an abominable and vague desire; to me
it seemed to have imprinted a fugitive expression upon all the
blanched faces that rise before me even now: for instance, that of a
small, freckled, red-haired woman [p154] clinging to her husband’s
arm, who gnawed her lower lip and mercilessly climbed upon my
feet—mercilessly, at all events, for my feet.
[Illustration]
“At last the lion raised himself upon his four paws, and without
advancing, gazed at his inert master with extreme distrust of the
mass armed with a whip, ‘who was saying nothing worth hearing.’
One second passed in this way, or one century, I could not be
sure which. Then Sultan made, towards what he began to consider a
possible prey, two small furtive steps . . . . two cat-like steps,
prudent and stealthy . . . . and again, two little steps. Then he
laid one of his heavy paws upon his tamer’s shoulder, still not
maliciously, rather as a caution, as we should place one hand upon a
sheet of paper in danger of blowing away.
“In thus interpreting the ideas passing ‘through the darkness a lion
has for soul,’ to quote a line from Victor Hugo, I have at least
the satisfaction of knowing that my impressions harmonize with the
picture that Edouard Detaille seized with the eye of a great painter.
“But oh, my dear Hugues Le Roux, no pencil of the illustrious artist
can depict, all the resources of the pen are powerless to describe,
the frightful tumult which, in the hitherto silent theatre, greeted
this first act after the gloomy prologue—an infernal din, the noise
of falling chairs, of shouts, of screams! . . . .
“If I ventured to write an essay on the physiology of modern wild
beasts [p155] in the course of the reflections which I should be
forced to devote to the accidents of the show, I should not fail to
mention these axioms:—
[Illustration]
“1. A female spectator never faints until there is nothing more to
see . . . .
“2. The audience in the second places is only waiting for an
opportunity to rush into the first seats . . . .
“And, in fact, without a moment’s interval, all the barriers were
scaled. Round the cage women were eagerly pushing men aside in their
efforts to get a better view. And shrieks!—but the shrieks!
“When the clamour first arose Sultan turned his head towards
the multitude, [p156] which he looked at with really sublime
tranquillity for an amateur, as my friend pointed out to me. No
doubt it was the vivid light and the movement of the crowd which
made the lion wink—yes, his eyes twinkled. And in itself that gave
a shadow of indulgence to his strength. But now he returned to his
captive, tormenting, teasing, mumbling, rather than biting him.
It was like the play of a pupil who emancipates himself, but is
yet conscious of his fault. But then it was lion’s play! Sultan
moved in small jumps, all four paws together, turning his hind
quarters to the gallery, tossing his jaws, full of no one knew
what . . . . perhaps a human head!
[Illustration]
“Here I can guarantee, my dear Le Roux, that those who at first
shared my friend’s infamous and fortunately indefinite wish, must,
like him, have found themselves almost fainting before such a
realization of carnage. . . . It was frightful and senseless. One
felt scarcely alive, and no longer heard oneself howl. Suddenly the
lion relinquished his prey and steadily watched the back of the
cage, behind which he must have caught the sound of some noise only
perceptible to a feline ear in the tumult of this bloody orgie. In
the midst of the excitement the door was abruptly opened and two men
appeared, presenting like bayonets two simple iron bars. [p157]
“When he saw them Sultan timidly drew back like a guilty schoolboy
who has failed in respect towards his master, and who is recalled to
his duty by the entrance of the monitors. He was already in retreat,
backing into the neighbouring cage, spurred on by the vibrations of
the partition which the men were handling.
“Already, too, Bidel had been raised, and his first energetic
movement was to rush towards the lion, who, now separated from his
enemy, watched him through the railing, rather jeeringly moving
his head from right to left. A thunder of ‘Bravos’ and shouts of
‘Enough! enough!’ stopped the lion-tamer, who had one half of his
neck laid open. From his forehead, just between the eyes, a red
strip hung down. The linen showed everywhere beneath the holes in
the cloth. The skin on his knees was bare, yet intact.
“After this scene, whilst the wounded man received the first
dressing to his wounds in his travelling-van, the general attention
was drawn towards Sultan, who had returned to the society of his
comrade Nero, the _blonde_ lion, who was languidly stretched out,
digesting his daily rations of meat and blows. But the dark-haired
lion did not lie down; he restlessly prowled up and down in
suppressed excitement, his haughty nostrils sniffing the scent of
blood in the air. His tail lashed his sides alternately. And each
time that he passed Nero’s jaws, the latter soothingly licked a
purple curdled spot, which the taster of human blood still retained
upon one of his great toes.
“At this moment a harsh voice in the crowd murmured close to my ear—
“‘_Moâ, j’étais pértisan du lione!_’ (‘I was for the lion.’)
“Turning round, I found myself facing an emaciated being, tall as
a pole, beardless, wrinkled, without any visible marks of age,
and very dirty. In the nervous state in which I found myself, a
superstitious influence at first led me to believe that I had met
the Englishman who makes it his profession to follow lion-tamers
about the world until there is not a joint of them left.
“But now I believe that the speaker had no connection with the
legendary lord. And the _lione_ of which he was _pértisan_ must
have been the most respectable acquaintance that he could hang on
to. I have, in fact, met this individual again in the bookmakers’
corner of the racecourse at Longchamps, and this was his trade:
imagine a start of six horses; he would go up to six greenhorns, and
successively murmur in their ears, as quickly as possible, the name
of a different winner to each man. After the race he went up to the
individual whom luck had favoured and claimed a reward.
“Let us, then, my dear Hugues Le Roux, distrust all the new
acquaintances we may meet, even under the patronage of a lion, and
let us rely upon old friendships, such as I feel for you.
“PAUL HERVIEU.” [p158]
I have quoted, almost as it was written, this letter from an artist,
who, like the lion possesses a good eye and velvet paws, first,
because I felt sure that it would interest you deeply; secondly,
because it delighted me; and thirdly, because it is a good proof that
there was some danger in approaching the lion, whom I interviewed in
his cage for your satisfaction. I do not wish to pose before you as
a Tarasconese hero, but I do not wish either that you should take me
for the pantaloon of Italian comedy.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[7] He is a valiant tamer, he never recedes.
His shape combines the gods,in it one seems to see
Apollo’s divine grace, with the strength of Hercules.
But, above all, his soft, dark eyes, are dear to me.
[8] In this summer of 1889 another son, Edmond Pezon, has been twice
injured by the lion Brutus.
[9] The audience screamed for help; the great terror
Which seized the heart of every spectator
No words can picture. Breathless all present wait,
Helpless to rescue the man from impending fate,
When, at the vital moment, fearless, yet panting,
A lion appeared, in guise of a stripling,
His son and his pupil! Yes, Adrian himself!
[p159] [Illustration]