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# Louis XVI could not abide cats and was mortally afraid of them
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/liudovik-xvi-ne-vynosil-koshek-i-strashno-boialsia-ikh/
- Published: 2025-07-14T06:50:56.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:29:27.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Monarchies, Paris, People, Humour

> Louis XVI could not abide cats and was mortally afraid of them. Once, during a brilliant reception at Versailles, a cat somehow slipped into the hall; Louis, beside himself, leapt from his seat, seized a heavy candelabrum and killed the animal on the spot. On another occasion, hammer in hand, he pursued a cat across the roof of his palace, fell upon it and very nearly tumbled over the edge, but was caught in time by a roofer who happened to be working there. In the notes of the king who perished on the guillotine, he himself recounts his exploits in the extermination of cats.

*Sbornik russkoy i inostrannoy literatury \[Collection of Russian and Foreign Literature\], 1914*