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.

These wild beasts were sometimes employed in the combats, and were pitted
against bulls and dogs in the presence of the King and his court. It was
after one of these combats that Charles IX., excited by the sanguinary
spectacle, wished to enter the arena alone in order to attack a lion which
had torn some of his best dogs to pieces, and it was only with great
difficulty that the audacious sovereign was dissuaded from his foolish
purpose. Henry III. had no disposition to imitate his brother's example;
for dreaming one night that his lions we