mous thing of all was that my old attorney who, in his time, would
believe in the innocence of the Queen of England, to whom I had
confessed everything to the last detail, who had assured me that there
was no reason to whip a Cat, and to whom, to prove my innocence, I
avowed that I did not even know the meaning of the words, "criminal
conversation" (he told me that the crime was so called precisely because
one spoke so little while committing it), this attorney, bribed by
Captain Puck, defended me so badly that my case appeared to be lost.
Under these circumstances I went on the stand myself.

"My Lords," I said, "I am an English Cat and I am innocent. What would
be said of the justice of old England if...."

Hardly had I pronounced these words than I was interrupted by a murmur
of voices, so strongly had the public been influenced by the
_Cat-Chronicle_ and by Puck's friends.

"She questions the justice of old England which has created the jury!"
cried some one.

"She wishes to explain to you, My Lords," cried my adversary's
abominable lawyer, "that she went on the rooftop with a French Cat in
order to convert him to the Anglican faith, when, as a matter of fact,
she went there to learn how to say, _Mon petit homme_, in French, to her
husband, to listen to the abominable principles of papism, and to learn
to disregard the laws and customs of old England!"

Such piffle always drives an English audience wild. Therefore the words
of Puck's attorney were received with tumultuous applause. I was
condemned at the age of twenty-six months, when I could prove that I
still was ignorant of the very meaning of the word, Tom. But from all
this I gathered that it was on account of such practices that Albion
was called Old England.

I fell into a deep miscathropy which was caused less by my divorce than
by the death of my dear Brisquet, whom Puck had had killed by a mob,
fearing his vengeance. Also nothing made me more furious than to hear
the loyalty of English Cats spoken of.

You see, O! French Animals, that in familiarizing ourselves with men, we
borrow from them all their vices and bad institutions. Let us return to
the wild life where we obey only our instincts, and where we do not find
customs in conflict with the sacred wishes of Nature. At this moment I
am writing a treatise on the abuse of the working classes of animals, in
order to get them to pledge themselves to refrain from turning spits, to
refuse to allow the