WHICH IS SATISFACTORY TO EVERYBODY BUT THE
GUILTY.
As soon as Madame de la Grenouillere 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.
[Illustration: Faribole Explains.]
"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 Grenouillere; "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."
[Illustration: Faribole is treated Roughly on the Staircase.]
The miserable Faribole wished to protest, but at a sign from Madame de la
Grenouillere, 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 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."
[Illustration: A Celebrated Chemist analyzes the Hash.]
Madame de la Grenouillere 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.
[Illustration: 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 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!
[Illustration: Lustucru 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.
[Illustration: 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 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.
[Illustration: Moumouth and his Family.]