“A stew is a Hare cut up and cooked in a pan. A great man once said that our flesh is delicious, and our blood the sweetest of all animals; but he adds that we seem to be aware of our danger, as we sleep with our eyes open.” At this reply the audience became so quiet, that one might have heard the grass growing.
“Nothing can ever make me believe,” cried the old Hare, much moved by the recollection of that incident in his life, “that Hares were created to be cooked, and that man cannot employ himself better than by eating animals in many respects superior to him. I owe my life to the misery that reduced me to skin and bone, and to the timely word of my mistress who pleaded for my life, that I might still display my accomplishments. ‘Ah!’ said my master, striking his forehead and looking dramatic, as Frenchmen always do in joy or sorrow, ‘I have an idea’—that was for him a sort of miracle. From that day I became a public character, and the saviour of the family.”
CHAPTER III.
Public and political life.—His master becomes his charge.—Glory nothing but a wreath of smoke.
“I SOON discovered my destiny. It was not the Tuileries! My master had made a little house of four boards, which he set up in the Champs Elysées, and there, beneath the blue sky, I, a denizen of the forest of Rambouillet, was exhibited in public at the cost of my proper pride, natural modesty, and health. I well remember my master’s words just before I made my début.
“ ‘Bless Heaven!’ he said, ‘that after profiting by your more than ordinary education, you have fallen into the hands of such a master. I have trained you and fed you for nothing. The moment has now arrived for you to prove to the world your noble sense of gratitude. When I caught you, you were rustic and uninstructed. The airs and graces which you have acquired were taught you for your amusement. Now they will enable us to enter upon a glorious and lucrative career. It has always been understood that men, sooner or later, reap the fruits of their disinterestedness. Remember that from this day our interests become one. You are about to appear before a people, the most polished, proud, and difficult to please, and all that is required of you is to please everybody. Be careful never to mention King Charles, and all will go well, as crime and injustice have been abolished. Do your part, and I will relieve you of the task of receiving the money. We shall never make millions; but the poor manage to live upon less.’
“ ‘Ah me!’ I said to myself, ‘what a modest speech! My master is a bold tyrant; to hear him, one would think that I had voluntarily relinquished my liberty, and besought him to snatch me away from all that was dear to me in life.’ For all that, my début was a most brilliant affair; I became the rage of Paris. During three years I beat the roll-call for the Ecole Polytechnique, Louis Phillipe, La Fayette, Lafitte, for nineteen ministers, and for Napoleon the Great. I learned—go on writing, my dear Magpie—to fire cannon.
“For a long time, by great good luck, I never mistook one name for another, and never once abused the trust of those depending on me. My master praised my probity, and declared me incorruptible.
