"This name at once reveals a deep design of flouting Boileau, whom I did
not like then, but have since become reconciled to. Has not Nicholas
said:--
"'O le plaisant projet d'un poete ignorant
Que de tant de heros va choisir Childebrant!'
"Now I considered Childebrand a very fine name indeed, Merovingian,
mediaeval, and Gothic, and vastly preferable to Agamemnon, Achilles,
Ulysses, or any Greek name whatsoever. Romanticism was the fashion of my
early days: I have no doubt the people of classical times called their
cats Hector, Ajax, or Patroclus. Childebrand was a splendid cat of
common kind, tawny and striped with black, like the hose of Saltabadil
in 'Le Rois' Amuse.' With his large, green, almond-shaped eyes, and his
symmetrical stripes, there was something tigerlike about him that
pleased me. Childebrand had the honor of figuring in some verses that I
wrote to 'flout' Boileau:--
"Puis je te decrirai ce tableau de Rembrandt
Que me fait tant plaisir: et mon chat Childebrand,
Sur mes genoux pose selon son habitude,
Levant sur moi la tete avec inquietude,
Suivra les mouvements de mon doigt qui dans l'air
Esquisse mon recit pour le rendre plus clair.
"Childebrand was brought in there to make a good rhyme for Rembrandt,
the piece being a kind of confession of the romantic faith made to a
friend, who was then as enthusiastic as myself about Victor Hugo, Sainte
Beuve, and Alfred de Musset.
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