"Le Chat Noir," once so familiar above restaurants and bakeries. The English "Cat and Fiddle," that most common sign-board for rural inns, is said to have been borrowed, not from the venerable nursery rhyme, but from the French "Chat Fidèle," which was equally—and more deservedly—popular with Gallic landlords. So numerous were cat signs in London two hundred years ago, that the "Spectator" tells a pleasant story of a man who, being made ill and faint by the proximity of a live cat, suffered a corresponding degree of discomfort when passing under the swinging boards on which Pussy was repeatedly painted.
Yet for all the frequency with which we encounter the cat in every phase of English life, for all the maxims and proverbs and familiar superstitions with which her name is linked, there is little to show that she won more than tolerance in the "free, fair homes" of that benighted land. If she sneezed on a wedding-day, she brought luck to the bride. If she jumped on a corpse, she presaged misfortune. If she washed her face, or turned her tail to the fire, men knew that rain was coming.
"Scratch but thine ear, Then boldly tell what weather's drawing near."
wrote Lord Westmorland, who had ample leisure in which to observe the habits of his cat during the long imprisonment which she shared.
