The Cat of the Revenge

I am a Spanish cat of noble birth.

Saved from the sinkingTrinidad

at Trafalgar, on HMS Revenge I met

a naked lady named Jeanette

who’d leapt down from the burning deck

when French Achille went to heck.*

They dressed her in a shirt and trews.

We snuggled, never mind the news.

She took me with her to Toulon

(a city in the east of the Gulf of Lion).

I'm quite at home here in Occitanie

No one cares about where I’m from.

As things turned out, I live in state—

with such fine wine, the cat food's great!

*This part of the story is, or may be, true. See Noël Mostert,The Line upon a Wind: The Great War at Sea, 1793–1815 (New York: Norton, 2008), 506: "The woman's name was Jeanette and she was eventually reunited with her sailor husband." But the tale about being taken to France is wishful thinking on the part of the cat, which had grown old as the beloved mascot of the Revenge and was sick and tired of eating ship's biscuit (kibbles not yet having been invented).

Friday, October 16, 2026