Neither leg of bear nor chaud-froid of lion was served at the wedding feast, but the wine flowed abundantly, and, at dessert, all tongues were liberated.
I had, therefore, an excellent opportunity of proving that these powerful men are in domestic life the most amiable of mankind. I never received so many fraternal embraces in my life as at this wedding, where the guests followed the example of Homer’s heroes and heroines, whose last representatives they certainly are.
Judge for yourself:
Besides a bag of gold crowns that glittered brilliantly in the sunshine, the youthful bride entered the new menagerie—I beg pardon, the new home—with a dowry of four lions. A friend of the family had offered her a small panther from Java as a wedding present.
Her godfather had given her two rattlesnakes, and the bridegroom’s brother had added to these gifts an adult rabbit without any hair, a curiosity never met with before.
. . . You, who seek for some means of securing eternal youth in your limbs, should devote a little time to lion-taming, the foam of their rage must be the real fountain of eternal youth.
Look at Jean-Baptiste Pezon: he is more than sixty-three years old, and yet one would say that roots, knotty oak roots, started from his boots and fastened him to the ground, enabling him to stand so firmly on his sturdy hips. And not one single grey hair is to be found in the curious black tresses which fall to his shoulders, worn in the same fashion as that of his contemporary Cladel, whom Jean-Baptiste somewhat resembles. Yet the mask of the lion-tamer is cast in quite [p141] a different mould from that of the literary man. At most Cladel has the appearance of a shepherd; whilst Pezon looks like a wolf-driver.
In fact Jean-Baptiste commenced his life of adventure in that capacity. Born in Lozère, he worked in the mines during his childhood, and was there initiated in rude muscular labour at a very early age: but he cherished the dream of [p142] leading a wandering life. He longed for unlimited space before his sturdy legs, the heavens for roof over his head. He therefore quitted his subterranean employment and became a plough-boy. For some years he was celebrated through all the country side as a tamer of savage animals; dangerous cows, horses, and bulls were submissive in his hands, and he forced the beasts to obey him as much by his audacity as by his strength. He was also a hunter. One day he snared a living wolf, and it suddenly occurred to him to leave his servile employment and travel through the world with this strange companion. The wolf learnt to “carry arms,” to walk on its hind legs, and to carry a wooden bowl round to the audience. When enough money had been acquired by these collections, Jean-Baptiste obtained another wolf, then a bear, and a bull, which he harnessed to his cart; and with this equipage he made—to quote his own words—“the tour of France and the great powers.”
A little later the tamer bought his first lion at Bordeaux. It was an animal with a superb mane, but his hind quarters had been injured by the trap that caught him. At three o’clock in the morning Jean-Baptiste appeared on board the vessel belonging to the captain from whom he had bought the lion, to take possession of his new acquisition.