  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. 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.” 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 oeil 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. “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. 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. 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. “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. “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:— “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! “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. FOOTNOTES 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. [p159]
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