My Life with the Big Cats

The wonderful autobiography of French circus artist Alfred Court."e;I am a lion tamer by profession."e;My work has brought me great joy, and it has brought me also, many times, close to great danger. For there remains within every wild beast, no matter how thorough his training, a savage spirit that cannot be broken. I have found this to be true through all my experience, and I have worked with many different kinds of animals, from Siberian tigers to black leopards, from Bengal tigers to polar bears, from blackmaned lions to the bears of Himalaya. Of the many animals I have trained I could not select a single one about which I could say, "e;This animal is tame,"e; for the savage spirit remains, waiting its chance. And it is just this unconquerable spirit in the animals I work with that has provided me with both my greatest joys and my greatest dangers. Yet despite the tensions of my professional life, I would trade neither my joys nor my dangers for the life of any other man."e;It is strange for me to remember now that I was thirty-five years old before I ever set foot inside a lion's cage...."e; (From the Author's Prologue)