who presided silently and courteously for hours over these tedious meetings. Indeed, Saint Simon, then fuming with indignation at the recent appointment of new Councillors, proposed the adoption of the kitten as a permanent member of the august assembly;—a jest which seems to have been considered by himself and others as exceedingly bitter and well-timed.
It is to François Augustin Paradis de Moncrif that we owe our intimate acquaintance with the most distinguished cats of this period. Scotch by descent, Parisian by birth, courtier by taste and training, poet, dramatist, littérateur, and faithful lover of the fair feline race, Moncrif, in happy mood, conceived the idea of writing a series of letters in praise of cats. No one was better fitted for the task; no one could have accomplished it more gracefully. In his pages, the names of pussies, long since dead, live sweetly embalmed in verse. Here may we read of Marmalain, the beautiful cat of Mme. la Duchesse du Maine, who inscribed to her favourite a spirited rondeau, full of tender flattery, and the fond conceits hallowed by true affection. When Marmalain died, his noble mistress was too profoundly dejected to compose a fitting epitaph; so to M. La Mothe le Vayer was assigned that honour, and his touching lines have been sympathetically translated by Mr. Edmund Gosse.
