Much better than these is the sonnet on the cat of the Duchess of Lesdiguieres, with its admirable line: 

  Chatte pour tout le monde, et pour les chats tigresse.

A fugitive epistle by Scarron, delightfully turned, is too long to be quoted here, nor can I pause to cite the rondeau which the Duchess of Maine addressed to her favourite.  But she supplemented it as follows: 

My pretty puss, my solace and delight, To celebrate thy loveliness aright I ought to call to life the bard who sung Of Lesbia’s sparrow with so sweet a tongue; But ’tis in vain to summon here to me So famous a dead personage as he, And you must take contentedly to-day This poor rondeau that Cupid wafts your way.

When this cat died the Duchess was too much affected to write its epitaph herself, and accordingly it was done for her, in the following style, by La Mothe le Vayer, the author of the Dialogues: 

  Puss passer-by, within this simple tomb
    Lies one whose life fell Atropos hath shred;
  The happiest cat on earth hath heard her doom,
    And sleeps for ever in a marble bed. 
  Alas! what long delicious days I’ve seen! 
    O cats of Egypt, my illustrious sires,
  You who on altars, bound with garlands green,
    Have melted hearts, and kindled fond desires,—­
  Hymns in your praise were paid, and offerings too,
    But I’m not jealous of those rights divine. 
  Since Ludovisa loved me, close and true,
    Your ancient glory was less proud than mine. 
  To live a simple pussy by her side
  Was nobler far than to be deified.

To these and other tributes Moncrif adds idyls and romances of his own, while regretting that it never occurred to Theocritus to write a bergerie de chats.  He tells stories of blameless pussies beloved by Fontanelle and La Fontaine, and quotes Marot in praise of “the green-eyed Venus.”  But he tears himself away at last from all these historical reminiscences, and in his eleventh letter he deals with cats as they are.  We hasten as lightly as possible over a story of the disinterestedness of a feline Heloise, which is too pathetic for a nineteenth-century ear.  But we may repeat the touching anecdote of Bayle’s friend, Mlle. Dupuy.  This lady excelled to a surprising degree in playing the harp, and she attributed her excellence in this accomplishment to her cat, whose critical taste was only equalled by his close attention to Mlle. Dupuy’s performance.  She felt that she owed so much to this cat, under whose care her reputation for skill on the harp had become universal, that when she died she left him, in her will, one agreeable house in town and another in the country.  To this bequest she added a revenue sufficient to supply all the requirements of a well-bred tom-cat, and at the same time she left pensions to certain persons whose duty it should be to wait upon him.  Her ignoble family contested the will, and there was a long suit.  Moncrif gives a handsome double-plate illustration of this incident.  Mlle. Dupuy, sadly wasted by illness, is seen in bed, with her cat in her arms, dictating her will to the family lawyer in a periwig; her physician is also present.