I
have just been reading about some sewer rats, Louise Michel's rats----"
"Who is she?" asked Miss Laura.
"A celebrated Frenchwoman, my dear child, 'the priestess of pity and
vengeance,' Mr. Stead calls her. You are too young to know about her,
but I remember reading of her in 1872, during the Commune troubles in
France. She is an anarchist, and she used to wear a uniform, and
shoulder a rifle, and help to build barricades. She was arrested and
sent as a convict to one of the French penal colonies. She has a most
wonderful love for animals in her heart, and when she went home she took
four cats with her. She was put into prison again in France and took the
cats with her. Rats came about her cell and she petted them and taught
her cats to be kind to them. Before she got the cats thoroughly drilled
one of them bit a rat's paw. Louise nursed the rat till it got well,
then let it down by a string from her window. It went back to its sewer,
and, I suppose, told the other rats how kind Louise had been to it, for
after that they came to her cell without fear. Mother rats brought their
young ones and placed them at her feet, as if to ask her protection for
them.
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