In another time when strange things happened, Madame Dodu lived alone in the village because she had neither father nor mother, husband nor child. Yet she was comfortable and content until the rainy days when her bones ached and her fingers were too stiff to knit.
"This weather is unmanageable," she said to herself one such day. "When it changes itself, I shall go out on the heath and gather fat-cabbage weeds because their brew is the best medicine for aching bones and stifl fingers."
When the rain stopped, she took her little basket and set out for the heath. She climbed the stile over the hedgerow and made her way into the country.
It was a long walk but she finally reached the heath.
She searched through clumps of heather and gorse and slowly filled her basket with the stringy weeds.
Then as she reached a wind-torn, stunted tree, she saw a little kitten crouched beneath it. He was black with white whiskers and his drenched coat shone like wet coal.
"You poor little one!" exclaimed Madame. "How did you get so far from the village?"
She picked him up and tucked him under her shawl, then set out for home with her basket of fat-cabbage.
The kitten snuggled close to her and softly purred.
Once home, Madame dried him off, then poured milk into a cracked bowl. The kitten hungrily lapped it.
"Now I must find out where you belong," she said.
She took him up again and went into the street to search for the kitten's owner. She knocked at the first door and when a woman answered, Madame held up the kitten and asked, "Does he belong to you? I found him on the heath."
But the woman gave the kitten a cold eye.
"It is black," she said. "Black cats are unlucky."
She shut the door before Madame Dodu could add,
"But his whiskers are white."
So it went until she approached the mayor's house where Bruno, his big dog, came running up. He was strong and fierce, which was natural because mastiffs had been the dogs of St. Malo corsairs in the old days.
Bruno growled and barked and jumped as he tried to snatch the kitten from Madame's arms. Her screams brought the master out with his cane. He thumped the dog and commanded him inside.
Madame Dodu went on. At the next house, the man who opened the door said, "Why would we want a kit-ten? I have already drowned five."
Madame hurried away from there. Perhaps this little black creature was one who had escaped from the water.
Since the kitten didn't seem to belong to anyone, Madame took him back to her own house.
"You shall be my cat," she promised him, "and keep me company. I shall call you Raoul after my uncle who always wore black after his poor wife drowned in the millpond. His whiskers turned white, too, after the tragedy."
So Raoul lived with Madame Dodu. She always walked him herself and went in the opposite direction of Bruno's house.
Raoul grew and grew into a big handsome cat. And now he went out alone. Hearing a big broubaba in the street one day, Madame rushed out to see Bruno growling and leaping at the foot of an oak tree. Up in its highest branches crouched a terrified Raoul. At Madame's call, the dog's master came out and gave the dog a caning. Madame coaxed her cat down from the tree.
Another time Bruno chased Raoul up on the roof of a neighbor's house and it was three hours before the cat would descend.
"I will only let you out at night," Madame Dodu de-cided. "Bruno is chained up then."
So every night Madame opened the door for the cat to go out. And every morning Raoul mewled at it for entrance. Then Madame poured his morning milk into the cracked bowl. When he had finished it, he purred himself to sleep by the fireplace.
There was more rain that spring, so Madame Dodu set out again for the heath to gather more fat-cabbage weeds. She wandered about until she came to the stunted tree where she had found Raoul. She was astonished to see a tiny black coffin resting there. On it were set a tiny gold crown and scepter.
"The fairies must be planning a funeral," said Ma-dame, so she hurried away in fear of incurring their dis-pleasure.
But back in her home when she sat in the rocking chair with her knitting, she felt the need to tell someone about the strange sight. Of course there was no one to tell but Raoul.
"Raoul," she addressed him, "I saw the strangest thing on the heath today. It was a tiny black coffin topped with a tiny gold crown and scepter."
Hardly had she finished speaking than a great change came over the cat. He leaped to his paws with every black hair standing on end and every white whisker twitching.
"Hourra!" he screeched. "Father is dead, so I am now king of the cats."
Before Madame could get over the shock of his words, Raoul bounded to the fireplace and disappeared up the chimney. Madame was left in a crisis of nerves.
She trembled all over as she dropped her knitting into her lap.
"Hélas!" she cried. "My poor cat is bewitched. I shall never see him again."
She didn't sleep a wink that night. Next morning she was surprised to hear Raoul mewling at the door as usual. When she opened it, he quietly entered and went to the kitchen for his milk. Then he curled up by the fireplace and purred himself to sleep.
Madame Dodu felt better.
"Perhaps I fell asleep over my knitting yesterday and dreamed that you called yourself the king of the cats and flew up the chimney," she said to him.
That night she went to bed contented that her cat wasn't bewitched after all. But at midnight she was awakened by a great uproar below her window. She ran to it and looked down.
There in the moonlight a great multitude of cats had gathered in a circle, yowling and screeching and squall-ing. And in the middle of the cirele sat Raoul with a tiny gold crown on his head and a tiny gold scepter in his paw.
Madame Dodu didn't know whether to scream or faint or go back to bed. She did the last but rolled and tossed all night long.
Yet next morning there was Raoul mewling at the door, so she opened it for him. There was no crown on his head nor scepter in his paw.
"I must have had a nightmare last night," she said to him.
After he had drunk his milk, Raoul didn't purr himself to sleep by the fireplace. He went to the door and clawed at it.
"You shouldn't go out," Madame warned. "Bruno may catch you."
But Raoul kept clawing at the door so frantically that she feared he might splinter it. So she let him out and sat down with her knitting.
Soon she heard another uproar of howling and yowl-
ing and yelping in back of her house. She ran to the kitchen door and looked out, expecting to see Raoul up in the apple tree with Bruno below.
Instead there was the same circle of cats spitting and clawing the air as they yowled. Inside the circle instead of Raoul was the great dog Bruno, howling and yelping and whining for mercy.
Madame Dodu seized her broom and ran out just as the cats with bared claws were closing in on the hapless dog.
"Shou, shou," she cried, swinging the broom at them.
The cats went scampering off in every direction, but Raoul meekly came to her and rubbed his black fur against her skirt. A chastened Bruno crept off to his own house, draggle-tailed and whining.
And from then on, Raoul, king of the cats, was free to roam the streets at any hour because whenever Bruno saw a cat, the big mastiff slunk away with his tail between his legs.

* * * * *

Yvette dropped her crochet hook into her lap and leaned forward.
"Why did Raoul stay with Madame Dodu after he became king of the cats?" she asked.
"My little pigeon," said her godmother, "a king of cats prefers a cracked bowl of milk to a golden goblet filled with wine."