Chartreux

Chartreux

     The Chartreux is an old French breed, dating from the 1300s or even earlier. It also used to be called as Chartreuse, Carthusian, Monastery Cat, Blue Cat of France; also known as a 'smiling cat'.
      It is a strong, heavily built, broad-headed, short-haired, blue-coated, orange-eyed cat with rather finely boned legs.
      It is characterized as friendly, good-natured, accommodating, playful, self-assured, hardy, uncomplaining, quiet, devoted, gentle and placid, characteristically lazy, but savage hunter. It likes children and dogs.
      Further reading for Chartreux lovers:
Chartreux Cat by Jean Simonnet. I do recommend this book, it is exceedingly interesting and written by a human, who truly knows and genuinely loves Chartreux Cats!

And now The True Puss in Boots Story.

       This summer I got acquainted with a Chartreux. Mademoiselle Puss, the name of my new friend, resides in Paris, she came down here for the vacation. She was so kind as to tell me the old family story about her famous great-great-grandfather Puss in Boots (le Chat Botté in French). Here is her story, retold in the first person.
      "I used to be an ordinairy mill cat (although I owned a household of five people). The female human of the household had died and was soon followed by the master human (for whom I had great respect). The youngest of the remaining three, Jean, inherited the right to be my personal servant and together we left (the other humans weren't as fortunate: all they got was some kind of old mill and a donkey, a rather useless animal). My human was ambitious and wanted to get a position in the government and since I didn't have anything better to do I decided to help him. I figured that marriage to the future monarch was a good way to get power, but royal heirs/heiresses don't go for just anyone. What he needed here was an image.
        First, some tribute to the King and heiress. A couple of pheasants or rabbits would do. Acquiring the quarry wasn't hard but I needed a little something to draw attention. An idea struck me.
       "Give me your boots," I told my human, "and your hat."

        Soon I was off to the King, wearing the boots and hat. I had lived among humans long enough to learn their language and the King was amazed that Marquis de Carabas (I made up the name) has trained cats. And so for several weeks I brought the King rabbits, pheasants, foxes and anything else I could catch (I caught the fox in a trap and admitedly had a lot of trouble killing it).
       I was getting impatient when at last the King did what I expected him to and decided to give a surprise visit to "my Marquis" (I got the information out of a footman). There were several problems, the first one being clothing: all the former miller's son had was a tunic, pants, a pair of boots (that I used regularly) and a hat (also worn by me) but my plan covered this too (never do anything you're not a hundred percent sure you can pull off).
       According to my plan, Jean was going to hide his clothes and go for a swim in a river while I stopped the King's carriage and told him that de Carabas's clothing had just been stolen and that the Marquis was wondering whether the King would be kind enough to lend him a suit. It worked brilliantly. Soon my human was making small talk with the King himself about attacking the neighboring country and killing or enslaving all its inhabitants and all that other nonsense Kings usually talk about.
        "So," the King said suddenly, "show me this province of yours."
        The province! I had forgotten it! I just knew that some trivial, minor detail would bring us down! But wait... An idea struck me. I winked to my human and hissed into his ear: "Just say that every thing you see around here belongs to you." He nodded and I jumped outside. I, like most cats, knew the history of the province. It had belonged to a certain Baron Ogère but the man had died in war, leaving no heirs and now the land belonged to no one. To everybody I met I told that by high order of the King himself this land belonged to Marquis de Carabas but the Marquis had been away in England. The King was coming to the province and he mustn't find out about de Carabas's years abroad so, and this was important, no celebration must be held! The governors were harder to overcome but I gave them each a wink, a nudge and a hint (if you get my meaning).
        My human married the princess and later became King and I lived happily ever after (my human didn't, he ran away from a revolt, took up sailing, got stranded in what is now South America and was killed in a freak accident involving a stick, a prawn and a small but rather angry armadillo. Strange but true)."
       This is the true story. If you'd like to read its fancy variant you can find it in human collections of fairy tales: Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault.

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