A certain poor miller had only his mill, his ass and his cat to bequeath to his three sons when he died. The children shared out their patrimony and did not bother to call in the lawyers; if they had done so, they would have been stripped quite bare, of course. The eldest took the mill, the second the ass and the youngest had to make do with the cat.
He felt himself very ill used.
‘My brothers can earn an honest living with their inheritance, but once I’ve eaten my cat and made a muff with his pelt, I shall have to die of hunger.’
The cat overheard him but decided to pretend he had not done so; he addressed his master gravely.
‘Master, don’t fret; give me a bag and a pair of boots to protect my little feet from the thorny undergrowth and you’ll see that your father hasn’t provided for you so badly, after all.’
Although the cat’s master could not really believe his cat would support him, he had seen him play so many cunning tricks when he went to catch rats and mice – he would hang upside down by his feet; or hide himself in the meal and play at being dead – that he felt a faint hope his cat might think up some helpful scheme.
When the cat had got what he asked for, he put on his handsome boots and slung the bag round his neck, keeping hold of the draw-strings with his two front paws. He went to a warren where he knew there were a great many rabbits. He put some bran and a selection of juicy weeds at the bottom of the bag and then stretched out quite still, like a corpse, and waited for some ingenuous young rabbit to come and investigate the bag and its appetizing contents.
No sooner had he lain down than a silly bunny jumped into the bag. Instantly, the cat pulled the draw-strings tight and killed the rabbit without mercy.
Proudly bearing his prey, he went to the king and asked to speak to him. He was taken to his majesty’s private apartment. As soon as he got inside the door, he made the king a tremendous bow and said:
‘Sire, may I present you with a delicious young rabbit that my master, the Marquis of Carabas, ordered me to offer to you, with his humblest compliments.’
Without his master’s knowledge or consent, the cat had decided the miller’s son should adopt the name of the Marquis of Carabas.
‘Tell your master that I thank him with all my heart,’ said the king.
The next day, the cat hid himself in a cornfield, with his open bag, and two partridges flew into it. He pulled the strings and caught them both. Then he went to present them to the king, just as he had done with the rabbit. The king accepted the partridges with great glee and rewarded the cat with a handsome tip.
The cat kept on taking his master’s game to the king for two or three months. One day, he learned that the king planned to take a drive along the riverside with his beautiful daughter. He said to his master:
‘If you take my advice, your fortune is made. You just go for a swim in the river at a spot I’ll show to you and leave the rest to me.’
The Marquis of Carabas obediently went off to swim, although he could not think why the cat should want him to. While he was bathing, the king drove by and the cat cried out with all its might:
‘Help! Help! The Marquis of Carabas is drowning!’
The king put his head out of his carriage window when he heard this commotion and recognized the cat who had brought him so much game. He ordered his servants to hurry and save the Marquis of Carabas.
While they were pulling the marquis out of the river, the cat went to the king’s carriage and told him how robbers had stolen his master’s clothes while he swam in the river even though he’d shouted ‘Stop thief!’ at the top of his voice. In fact, the cunning cat had hidden the miller’s son’s wretched clothes under a stone.
The king ordered the master of his wardrobe to hurry back to the palace and bring a selection of his own finest garments for the Marquis of Carabas to wear. When the young man put them on, he looked very handsome and the king’s daughter thought: ‘What an attractive young man!’ The Marquis of Carabas treated her with respect mingled with tenderness and she fell madly in love.
The king invited the Marquis of Carabas to join him in his carriage and continue the drive in style. The cat was delighted to see his scheme begin to succeed and busily ran ahead of the procession. He came to a band of peasants who were mowing a meadow and said:
‘Good people, if you don’t tell the king that this meadow belongs to the Marquis of Carabas, I’ll make mincemeat of every one of you.’
As soon as he saw the mowers, the king asked them who owned the hayfield. They had been so intimidated by the cat that they dutifully chorused:
‘It belongs to the Marquis of Carabas.’
‘You have a fine estate,’ remarked the king to the marquis.
‘The field crops abundantly every year,’ improvised the marquis.
The cat was still racing ahead of the party and came to a band of harvesters. He said to them:
‘Good harvesters, if you don’t say that all these cornfields belong to the Marquis of Carabas, I’ll make mincemeat of every one of you.’
The king passed by a little later and wanted to know who owned the rolling cornfield.
‘The Marquis of Carabas possesses them all,’ said the harvesters.
The king expressed his increasing admiration of the marquis’s estates. The cat ran before the carriage and made the same threats to everyone he met on the way; the king was perfectly astonished at the young man’s great possessions.
At last the cat arrived at a castle. In this castle, lived an ogre. This ogre was extraordinarily rich; he was the true owner of all the land through which the king had travelled. The cat had taken good care to find out all he could about this ogre and now he asked the servant who answered the door if he could speak to him; he said he couldn’t pass so close by the castle without paying his respects to such an important man as its owner.
The ogre made him as welcome as an ogre can.
‘I’m told you can transform yourself into all sorts of animals,’ said the cat. ‘That you can change yourself into a lion, for example; or even an elephant.’
‘Quite right,’ replied the ogre. ‘Just to show you, I’ll turn myself into a lion.’
When he found himself face to face with a lion, even our cat was so scared that he jumped up on to the roof and balanced there precariously because his boots weren’t made for walking on tiles.
As soon as the ogre had become himself again, the cat clambered down and confessed how terrified he had been.
‘But gossip also has it – though I can scarcely believe it – that you also have the power to take the shapes of the very smallest animals. They say you can even shrink down as small as a rat, or a mouse. But I must admit, even if it seems rude, that I think that’s quite impossible.’
‘Impossible?’ said the ogre. ‘Just you see!’ He changed into a mouse and began to scamper around on the floor. The cat no sooner saw him than he jumped on him and gobbled him up.
Meanwhile, the king saw the ogre’s fine castle as he drove by and decided to pay it a visit. The cat heard the sound of carriage wheels on the drawbridge, ran outside and greeted the king.
‘Welcome, your majesty, to the castle of the Marquis of Carabas.’
‘What, sir? Does this fine castle also belong to you? I’ve never seen anything more splendid than this courtyard and the battlements that surround it; may we be permitted to view the interior?’
The marquis gave his hand to the young princess and followed the king. They entered a grand room where they found a banquet ready prepared; the ogre had invited all his friends to a dinner party, but none of the guests dared enter the castle when they saw the king had arrived. The king was delighted with the good qualities of the Marquis of Carabas and his daughter was beside herself about them. There was also the young man’s immense wealth to be taken into account. After his fifth or sixth glass of wine, the king said:
‘Say the word, my fine fellow, and you shall become my son-in-law.’
The marquis bowed very low, immediately accepted the honour the king bestowed on him and married the princess that very day. The cat was made a great lord and gave up hunting mice, except for pleasure.
A great inheritance may be a fine thing; but hard work and ingenuity will take a young man further than his father’s money.
If a miller’s son can so quickly win the heart of a princess, that is because clothes, bearing and youth speedily inspire affection; and the means to achieve them are not always entirely commendable.