The fireside sphinx/Persecution
CHAPTER III
PERSECUTION
"Beware of old black cats with evil faces."
THE aggressiveness of our fore-fathers puzzles and repels us. It is the quality which, of all others, is least comprehensible to the unconcern which we call tolerance, and to the sensitiveness which we call humanity. How, we ask ourselves, could men have felt cock-sure of things about which they knew nothing; and why should they have deemed it essential to beat their convictions into other men's brains? The speed and sincerity with which principles were translated into action five hundred years ago kept all Christendom in commotion. People did not then shrug their shoulders and say, "'T is a pity Neighbour Hearne standeth apart from Church;" or "'T is passing strange Dame Gurton should be so maliciously disposed." By no means! They saw to it that Hearne either went to church, or stood his trial for heresy; and they brought the sour old woman to a more amiable frame of mind, or to the witch's stake. Neither did they observe with scholarly composure that the adoption of the cat by the black race of sorcerers was a "curious custom, worthy of research." They said, "Like master, like servant;" and tossed poor Pussy into the terrible bonfire which blazed for her on the Eve of Saint John.
Now and then a student, gentle and profound, as one Balthazar Bekker of fragrant memory, asserted the innocence of the cat,—perhaps he had a kitten of his own,—and declared the dog to be more deeply versed than she in the unholy arts of necromancy. But the people knew better than this. The frank integrity of the dog was unmistakable. One wag of his honest tail disarmed suspicion. Blunder he might, and fall perchance from grace; but the subtle witchery of the cat was far beyond his canine comprehension.
Moreover the weight of evidence was always against the cat. At the trial of Rebecca Walther, a woman of Neuchatel who was strangled as a sorceress in 1647, it was proven that a neighbour's dog, trotting soberly along the road, fell dead in the dust, when the witch came to her doorway, and fixed her cold malignant eye upon him. Who ever heard of a cat dying of such delicate susceptibility? Perronon Méguin, another witch of the same town, did indeed contrive to kill an enemy's cat by smearing it with a poisonous ointment; but this was a natural and laborious method, akin to bootjacks and blunderbusses. People, unaided by Satan, have done as much.
Finally, as proof indubitable of Pussy's guilt, we have the report of the learned jurist, Kessner, who collected the records of countless witch-trials, and published them for the enlightenment of the curious, and the edification of the devout. In the evidence offered at these trials, it was shown that, whereas the Arch-Fiend appeared to his followers but sixty times as a cavalier, and but two hundred and fifteen times as a he-goat, he took more than nine hundred times the congenial form of a black cat;—reason enough for giving this accursed animal a wide and cautious berth.
So it came to pass that Pussy entered upon long years of persecution, and her annals are so freighted with misery that, to one who loves her dearly, the mere recital of her pain is beyond measure grievous. There is still to be seen a receipt for two hundred "sols parisis," dated 1575, and signed by Lucas Pommoreux,—abhorred forever be his name!—who for three years had supplied "all the cats needed for the fire on Saint John's day." "To toss a few cats into the flames on the festival of Saint John was considered an encouragement to morality," observes M. de Méril; and an old French song celebrates with pitiless gayety the fate
"D'un chat qui, d'une course breve,
Monta au feu Saint Jean de Grève."
The custom continued in force, losing none of its popularity, until 1604, when the gracious child, afterwards Louis the Thirteenth, interceded at court for the lives of these poor animals, and obtained from Henry the Fourth an edict which ended the barbarous sport.
What incited the villagers of France to build these sacrificial fires was the widespread belief that all cats attended the great Witches' Sabbath on Saint John's Eve. Fontenelle told Moncrif—that courtly chronicler of high-born pussies—that, when he was a little boy, not even a kitten was to be seen on this night of mystery. The whole feline population was abroad—or so he conceived—intent on deeds of mischief. In Picardy the burning of cats took place on the first Sunday of Lent, and was part of the "Bihourdi," a festival so old that nobody is sure of its origin. Lanterns and torches were carried through the village streets, bonfires were lit, fiddlers scraped their bows, and—crowning relish of the entertainment—cats, fastened to long poles, were dropped into the heart of the flames, while the children danced merrily, hand in hand, laughing and screaming with delight. The Flemish peasants, more stolid and unimaginative, carried their cats in bags to the top of steeple or belfry, and dropped the poor creatures from this cruel height. A statute of 1618 forbids the inhabitants of Ypres the pleasure of hurling a cat from their tower on the second Wednesday in Lent, as had been their honoured custom for years.
To Brussels is due the unenviable distinction of having produced the first cat organ, in 1549. This triumph of ingenuity was designed to lend merriment to the street pageant in honour of Philip the Second, and is described by Juan Cristoval, a Spaniard in attendance upon the King.
"The organ," says Cristoval, "was carried on a car, with a great bear for the musician. In place of pipes, it had twenty cats separately confined. in narrow cases, from which they could not stir. Their tails were tied to cords attached to the keyboard of the organ. When the bear pounded the keys, the cords were jerked, and this pulled the tails of the cats, and made them mew in bass or treble notes, according to the nature of the airs."
Such an invention could have afforded, at best, but doubtful entertainment; yet the cat organ was so widely appreciated that German humourists undertook to alter and improve it; and after a time a choice variety of instruments were constructed, in all of which cats were induced by some well applied torture to furnish forth the necessary music. The same ingenuity was revealed in forcing Pussy to play other prominent but reluctant parts in public celebrations or rejoicings, especially when these were of a religious character; for then the people naturally felt that the cruelty which so pleased their hearts was sanctified and devout,—at once a protest against the shortcomings of their neighbours, and an illustration of their own superior piety. In an entertaining old book called "Twenty Lookes over all the Round-heads in the World," which was published in England in 1643, we find related with honest pride an incident designed to show the zeal of the London populace for the principles of the Reformation.
"In the Reigne of Queene Mary (at which time Popery was much exalted), then were the Roundheads"—i. e., the monks and friars—"so odious to the people, that in derision of them was a Cat taken on a Sabbath day, with her head shorne as a Fryer's, and the likenesse of a vestment cast over her, with her feet tied together, and a round piece of paper like a singing Cake between them; and thus was she hanged on a gallows in Cheapside, neere to the Crosse, in the Parish of Saint Mathew. Which Cat, being taken down, was carried to the Bishop of London, and by him sent to Doctor Pendleton (who was then preaching at Paul's Cross), commanding it to be shown to the Congregation. The Round-head Fryers cannot abide to heare of this Cat."
It would seem as though the friars might have been less ashamed of such a cruel and ribald jest than the perpetrators thereof; but, to the robust temper of the time, buffoonery dishonoured its victims. Whatever was made ridiculous was made contemptible; and the poor cat, swinging in its priestly vestments, offered an argument against Popery as simple as it was sound.
A still more forcible demonstration of the popular humour lent vivacity to the rejoicings with which London celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. In the Hatton correspondence there is a lively account of all the pageants, speeches, and "mighty bonfires" which, on this august occasion, gladdened loyal hearts; and particular mention is made of the burning of a "most costly Pope," constructed of wicker-work, and carried with mock solemnity through the streets, accompanied by two "divells." The interior of this Pope was filled with live cats; "which cats," says the writer gleefully, "squalled in a most hideous manner as soon as they felt the fire;"—to the delight of the spectators, who jokingly pretended that it was the language of the Pope and the devils which they heard. The cat organ of the Brussels fête fades into mere humanity alongside of playfulness like this.
Why, we ask ourselves, should the cat have been ever the chosen victim of such savage sport? All animals can suffer; most animals can cry out in their pain. The pleasure derived from torturing a cat could have been no keener than that which might have been yielded by the suffering of any other beast. What was it then that lent such peculiar appropriateness and piquancy to the sacrifice of this gentle little creature, unless her association with witchcraft and the powers of evil placed her beyond mercy's pale? Not only was there no pity for her in the world; but superstition had so claimed her for its prey that foul murder dogged her steps from innocent kittenhood, however softly and warily she might tread. Bucolic England, thick-skulled and heavy-witted, roasted her alive in its brick ovens, simply because such a holocaust was believed, none knew why, to bring good luck to the house. Scotland, more imaginative and more sinister, spitted her before a slow fire, as a means of divining the future. It was thought that the witch cats of the neighbourhood would come to their comrade's aid,—which does credit to their kindness of heart,—and would answer any questions to obtain her release.
Strange and gruesome remedies for rheumatism, and ague, and all the ills that village flesh is heir to, were extracted from Pussy's brains and bones; and countless means were devised by which she might afford the rural population such entertainment as it was best fitted to enjoy. Scottish peasants amused themselves by hanging her up in a small cask or firkin, half full of soot, at which men and boys struck vigorous blows, striving to escape before the soot fell on them. This primitive game might have been played just as effectively without the assistance of the cat; but it would have been flavourless had it lacked what Montaigne so admirably calls "the tart, sweet pleasure of inflicting pain."
In England, a cat tucked into a leathern bottle was a favourite target for archery.—"Hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me," says Benedick blithely; and cat-worrying was for centuries as much a recognized sport as cock-fighting, or bull and badger baiting. It is hard to forgive Christopher North for his apparent enjoyment of this most cruel of amusements, which he describes with a zest that does him infinite shame. In cock-fights and dog-fights there is fair play, and the combatants are enamoured of the strife; but the desperate courage of a cat at bay can ill excuse the brutality which matches it against an animal of many times its strength. That a good sportsman like Wilson should have relished such a spectacle, puts us out of conceit with humanity.
In tracing the long and bitter persecution of the cat, there are two points to be especially considered. Its sinister reputation—obtained. Heaven knows how,—as the accomplice of witches, and the chosen emissary of the Fiend; and the evil character it won for itself—again. Heaven knows how,—as an animal equally perfidious and malign. In zoölogical mythology, and in the folk-lore of every land, it figures darkly, and without esteem. A Hindoo fable represents the cat as living with pretended austerity on the banks of the Ganges. The fame of the new Saint's piety, of his long prayers and rigorous fasts, inspires the little birds and mice with such confidence that they gather around him daily, and are daily devoured. From Alexandria we have the story, retold by Æsop and La Fontaine, of the cat bride who leaps from her husband's embraces after a scudding mouse. In an Alsatian legend, a cat comes again and again as a nightmare to torment a young joiner. He wakens once to find her stealing into his room through a hole in the chimney-place; whereupon he stops up the hole, and nails one of her paws to the floor. The next morning reveals to him a beautiful young woman, whom, with the customary fatuity of youth, he promptly marries. But, after a year of wedded life, the hole is by some luckless chance uncovered, and the unfaithful wife disappears, never to be seen again.
Every country adds its quota of dispraise. The story of the nightmare cat appears with variations in the folk-lore of Germany, Austria, and France. Italy tells the fable of the cock who wants to be Pope. His friend, the cat, offers to accompany the foolish bird to Rome, and eats him up comfortably on the first day's journey. In a Bavarian tale, the cat marries the mouse, and sups, without a shadow of remorse, on her small bridegroom. Now and then the picture is brightened by some unexpected touch of fidelity or gratitude, as in the Afanassieff, where a peasant girl gives the witch's cat a piece of ham, and is helped by him generously in return. There is also a grisly Tuscan legend of a servant maid who unwittingly disturbs the procession of ghosts, on the terrible "Night of the Dead." When the phantoms have swept noiselessly past, she finds, to her horror, that she has a human hand in her basket. By the advice of a wise woman, she keeps this hand a year, and on the following Feast of All Souls she ventures once again to stand in the road at midnight, with the open basket at her feet, and a black cat clasped tightly in her arms. "Take back your hand, my masters!" she pleads; and one of the ghosts plucks it from the basket, whispering grimly, "Were it not for the thing you carry, you should walk this night by my side."
The protection afforded by the cat in such an instance was, after all, involuntary, and by no means lessened her disrepute. One does not lightly love a guardian so uncanny. It is probable also that the sailors' wives of Scarborough, who filched their neighbours' black kittens to insure their husbands' safe return from sea, regarded these stolen prizes with more respect than affection. Even in instances where the animal has manifested its own too rare regard, there is often a subtle horror associated with its faithfulness. We remember apprehensively the cat that loved the poisoner, Wainewright, that would not leave his side, and that was the sole witness of his sudden death.
From Lyons comes a dreadful story of crime and retribution. Towards the close of the last century, a woman was found murdered in her home, her throat brutally cut, her oaken chest rifled of its scanty treasures. She had lived alone, with no other companion than a great brindled cat, and this cat was now discovered by the neighbours huddled on a cornice of the cupboard, his glaring eyes fixed full upon his dead mistress. No persuasion nor artifice could move him from his post. For two whole days and nights he crouched there like a panther tense for the spring. On the third morning, a man, suspected of the murder, was brought into the room, when suddenly, and with horrible fury, the creature hurled himself upon the assassin, biting and tearing him savagely. Confession and execution followed; but of the cat's fate we know nothing. Two hundred years earlier, his shrift would have been a short one. Not even his avenging rage could have saved him from sharing the murderer's grave.
Innocence was no protection for an outcast of his fated race. Among the famous French trials of the seventeenth century is one of a woman who had strangled in cold blood several little children left by their mothers to her care. For this hideous crime she was condemned to be hung in an iron cage over a slow fire, in company with fourteen cats that had killed nobody, but that added to the horror of the spectacle by clawing fiercely at the murderess in the throes of their own death agony.
The page of Pussy's martyrdom has been long in turning. It has been no pleasure, Heaven knows, to linger over it; but when we think of the strange and bitter vicissitudes through which she has passed,—this creature so small and helpless, so timid and so brave, we come to a better understanding of her complex, subtle, and, to many minds, unlovely character. Self-sufificing by nature, she has learned distrust through centuries of suffering. To see a cat run across a street is to understand that her race has for generation after generation been hunted as cruelly as the hare. She scurries by swiftly and fearfully, as did that poor ancestress of hers whom the Puritan soldiers chased derisively around the nave of Lichfield Cathedral, until Prince Rupert interrupted their pious sport. She knows not now precisely what she dreads,—the coast being clear, and no boys nor dogs in sight; she knew not three hundred years ago why she was held responsible for theological errors in which she had no share. Catholicism, Anglicanism, Puritanism,—all were alike indifferent to her; yet, as we have seen, she bore the burden of man's devout distaste for his neighbour's creed. Perhaps the last authentic instance of feline persecution for conscience' sake was the case of the "ecclesiastical cat" that George Borrow met and rescued in Wales.
The Vicar of Llangollen, a most unpopular character in a stronghold of sturdy dissent, had returned to England, leaving behind him his black cat; and the antagonism formerly felt for the clergyman had been transferred to the clerical pet. No householder would give it food or shelter; and, if it slunk trembling through the village streets, the children pelted it with stones and clots of mud. "There never was a cat so ill-treated as that poor Church of England animal," says Borrow indignantly; "and altogether on account of the opinions which it was supposed to have imbibed in the house of its late master; for I never could learn that the dissenters of Llangollen were in the habit of persecuting other cats. The cat was a Church of England cat, and that was enough." Finally he was obliged to carry away this unconscious and reluctant martyr, and to seek for it an asylum in another village, where it was charitably received by a young woman, who, being herself an Anglican, was all the more ready to aid an oppressed scion of the Establishment.
It is a touch of comedy with which to ring down the curtain on Pussy's tragic past.
