100 Cats Who Changed Civilization (13 page)

MYSOUFF II

THE CAT WHO ATE THE CANARIES

French novelist Alexandre Dumas, the author of such classics as
The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask
, and
The Count of Monte Cristo
, was famous for his high living and bizarre exploits. So when his cat, Mysouff II, displeased him, he was given a punishment perfectly in keeping with his owner’s imaginative nature. Luckily for him, it was too imaginative to execute.

Mysouff II was actually the second cat in this feline dynasty. The original Mysouff had been at Dumas’ side when he was just starting out as a writer. Every day the feline would see his master off to work, and every evening he met Dumas at the corner to escort him home. The cat would unerringly meet him at the same spot, even if he arrived before or after his usual time.

After the passing of this faithful original came Mysouff II, a black and white shorthaired feline who was discovered in the basement of Dumas’ home by a cook. By then the author had become rich and famous, and he lived in luxury. Mysouff II also enjoyed plenty of pampering—until he found a way to mess up a good thing. Among Dumas’ many, many indulgences was a collection of monkeys and another of exotic birds that lived on the property. One day the cat found his way into the
aviary and proceeded to consume the entire flock.

Dumas was horrified, but also somewhat amused. He decided to put the offending feline on trial for the crime. The next Sunday he argued the case before a handpicked “jury” of friends. During the trial someone pointed out an extenuating circumstance: The aviary door had been opened by one of the monkeys, and the feline had simply taken advantage of the situation.

Since the simians were clearly implicated as accomplices, Dumas decided that poor Mysouff II should spend the next five years imprisoned with them. But fate spared him from incarceration. Shortly after the cat started serving his sentence, the author suffered a huge financial setback. A round of belt tightening followed, and the expensive monkeys and their cage were put on the auction block. Mysouff II not only got to stay, but also won early parole.

JEOFFREY

THE WORLD’S MOST GODLY CAT

Pity poor Christopher Smart. An English poet born in 1722, Smart began writing award-winning verses during his years as a student at Cambridge University. Sadly, he was also drinking excessively, running up debts, and hiding from creditors. After graduating, he edited and wrote for various London publications, sometimes adopting bizarre pseudonyms such as Mary Midnight. Around 1751, he experienced a religious conversion, which coincided more or less with a descent into madness. He began accosting passersby in London’s Hyde Park, demanding that they immediately get down on their knees and pray with him. His odd behavior landed him in a mental asylum from 1756 to 1758.

But perhaps Smart wasn’t as irrational as he seemed. While confined at the asylum, he produced some of his best work, including a collection of poems called
A Song of David
. He also authored the exceedingly strange
Jubilante Agno
, a collection of free verse celebrating and cataloging the world’s divine architecture. In it he praises—often in excruciating detail—every single blessing he feels God has bestowed upon him. Not surprisingly, the massive work includes a loving tribute to Smart’s cat. He lists the feline’s attributes in a
section appropriately called
For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffrey
, stating that he is a wonder of creation: “For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery. For he knows that God is his Saviour. For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest. For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.”

Though Smart emerged from the asylum with his poetic reputation enhanced, the same couldn’t be said of his financial or personal affairs. His wife and children were forced to abandon him to avoid poverty, and he died penniless in 1771. Interestingly, his idiosyncratic
Jubilante Agno
wasn’t published until 1939. But when it was, his ode to Jeoffrey became an instant favorite with cat lovers worldwide. Apparently more than a few readers saw their own felines in Smart’s loving description of his pet.

OTHER FELINES OF
DISTINCTION

MINOU: Pet of famous French writer and iconoclast George Sand. They were so close that Sand and the cat supposedly shared breakfast from the same bowl
.

TAKI: Pet of Raymond Chandler, father of the hard-boiled detective novel genre and creator of the archetypical gumshoe Philip Marlowe. Chandler read the first drafts of his mysteries to the cat, whom he referred to as his “feline secretary.”

PUDLENKA: The pet of Czech playwright Karel Capek. He felt that the female, who arrived on his doorstep shortly after the poisoning death of his previous cat, had been sent to avenge the loss. The female bore twenty-six kittens in her lifetime. Her successor, Pudlenka 2, had twenty-one
.

BOSCH AND TOMMY: Two cats, always fighting, who helped keep Anne Frank company while she and her family hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Bosch is an ethnic slur applied to Germans; Tommy is slang for a British soldier
.

HINSE: A particularly bad-tempered pet of novelist Sir Walter Scott who regularly attacked his master’s many hunting dogs. This pastime proved his undoing in 1826, when he was killed by a bloodhound named Nimrod
.

PEPPER

THE FIRST FELINE MOVIE STAR

At the dawn of the twentieth century, when the first “flickers” started playing at packed nickelodeons worldwide, it seemed as if almost anyone could step in front of a camera and become a star. All they needed were pluck, luck, and, perhaps, a slightly larger than normal ego. Those were the days when former Shakespearian actors, vaudeville hacks, and even theater stagehands all made fortunes in Hollywood. Even a bedraggled alley cat saw her name up in lights.

Her name was Pepper. According to her press clippings, she was “discovered” by famous comedy director Max Sennet. One day, while the creator of the Keystone Cops was shooting a picture, he noticed that a gray cat had sneaked onto the set through a loose floorboard. Far from causing a scene, she actually shot one. The unflappable feline walked out among the actors as if on cue, emoting as if she’d done it all her life. Sennet, impressed, decided he had a star on his hands. He instantly christened the cat Pepper and put her to work.

Her career spanned the late 1910s to the late 1920s. As it turned out, she was much more than a furry, purring prop. Capable of learning complicated tricks, she convincingly played checkers onscreen with comedian Ben Turpin. Over the years she
contributed to a long list of comedy shorts with titles such as
The Kitchen Lady, Never Too Old
, and
Rip and Stitch: Tailors
.

She also worked with a truly stellar list of costars. Pepper shared billing with talents ranging from the Keystone Cops to Charlie Chaplin to Fatty Arbuckle. She was even able to restrain her instincts when paired with another of Sennet’s furry actors, Frederich the Mouse.

But her favorite costar was a Great Dane named Teddy, who was arguably America’s first canine movie hero. Pepper worked with Teddy (a.k.a. Keystone Teddy, America’s Best Friend, and Teddy the Wonder Dog) in several of Max Sennet’s comedies. The two became inseparable—so much so that when Teddy died in the late ’20s, his four-legged friend went into deep mourning. The feline fatale threw in the towel shortly thereafter, retiring from acting to enjoy, one hopes, a well-earned rest on a sunny window ledge.

KASPAR

THE WORLD’S LUCKIEST
BLACK CAT