a profane and sanguinary vestige of Paganism, and, no doubt, this led to the cessation of combats between man and beast.  They continued, however, to pit wild or savage animals against one another, and to train dogs to fight with lions, tigers, bears, and bulls; otherwise it would be difficult to explain the restoration by King Chilperic (A.D. 577) of the circuses and arenas at Paris and Soissons.  The remains of one of these circuses was not long ago discovered in Paris whilst they were engaged in laying the foundations for a new street, on the west side of the hill of St. Genevieve, a short distance from the old palace of the Caesars, known by the name of the Thermes of Julian.

Gregory of Tours states that Chilperic revived the ancient games of the circus, but that Gaul had ceased to be famous for good athletes and race-horses, although animal combats continued to take place for the amusement of the kings.  One day King Pepin halted, with the principal officers of his army, at the Abbey of Ferrieres, and witnessed a fight between a lion and a bull.  The bull was of enormous size and extraordinary strength, but nevertheless the lion overcame him; whereupon Pepin, who was surnamed the Short, turned to his officers, who used to joke him about his short stature, and said to them, “Make the lion loose his hold of the bull, or kill him.”  No one dared to undertake so perilous a task, and some said aloud that the man who would measure his strength with a lion must be mad.  Upon this, Pepin sprang into the arena sword in hand, and with two blows cut off the heads of the lion and the bull.  “What do you think of that?” he said to his astonished officers.  “Am I not fit to be your master?  Size cannot compare with courage.  Remember what little David did to the Giant Goliath.”

Eight hundred years later there were occasional animal combats at the court of Francis I.  “A fine lady,” says Brantome, “went to see the King’s lions, in company with a gentleman who much admired her.  She suddenly let her glove drop, and it fell into the lions’ den.  ‘I beg of you,’ she said, in the calmest way, to her admirer, ’to go amongst the lions and bring me back my glove.’  The gentleman made no remark, but, without even drawing his sword, went into the den and gave himself up silently to death to please the lady.  The lions did not move, and he was able to leave their den without a scratch and return the lady her missing glove.  ’Here is your glove, madam,’ he coldly said to her who evidently valued his life at so small a price; ’see if you can find any one else who would do the same as I have done for you.’  So saying he left her, and never afterwards looked at or even spoke to her.”

It has been imagined that the kings of France only kept lions as living symbols of royalty.  In 1333 Philippe de Valois bought a barn in the Rue Froidmantel, near the Chateau du Louvre, where he established a menagerie for his lions, bears, leopards, and other wild beasts.  This royal menagerie still existed in the reigns of Charles VIII. and Francis I. Charles V. and his successors had an establishment of lions in the quadrangle of the Grand Hotel de St. Paul, on the very spot which was subsequently the site of the Rue des Lions St. Paul.