A rancid smell, an earthy cellar light, strangled yelps. These are the first impressions that strike visitors when they cross the threshold of the Gustave ratodrome, a few steps from Porte Maillot, to the west of Paris. “When you have nothing better to do, go take a walk over there.recommended a journalist from the daily La Liberté in September 1938. It is neither for the sight nor for the smell, both as sad as the other, but for curiosity.”
The scene is curious, indeed. In the center of the room, a mesh arena about two meters in diameter where a fox terrier, its snout lacerated, pursues a handful of rodents. Some go to the Gustave ratodrome to train their animals to hunt. Others, simply to have a good time and it is not uncommon for bets to be held there. The poets Jacques Prévert and Raymond Queneau, it seems, have their habits there. “You will see the rats bite the noses of the dogs and the dogs break the kidneys of the ratscontinues the journalist from the Parisian daily. It’s bleeding and it’s screaming, on both sides. On Sundays, Mr. Gustave makes a profit.”
“Tide Rat”
Founded in 1907 by a certain Gustave Xhrouet, the Neuilly-sur-Seine ratodrome (Hauts-de-Seine) appealed to the Parisian plebs. In the atmosphere of a clandestine boxing match, rats are confronted with dogs, in order to train the latter to hunt rodents. The goal? Riding Paris of “pests” which, since the end of the 19the century, worry the health authorities of the City of Light. The municipality of the capital has tried everything to stem this scourge. Sanitation services distribute a bounty for each rat tail brought into their offices. In 1901, the Paris City Hall even sponsored a rodent control competition rewarding the most efficient hunter. In vain.
In this particularly musophobic context, Parisian racetracks train hundreds of dogs to hunt rodents.
“When we think of the countless devastations of these animals, of the diseases they spread, we cannot without fear think of the consequences of the development of this scourgeadded the socialist newspaper Le Populaire de Paris in August 1923. (…) So, if you have a little fox terrier, teach him to hunt rats. No other defense is as good as this.” It was with this in mind that the first ratodromes were established in the Paris region, of which Gustave Xhrouet was one of the pioneers.
Son of bakers working in Batignolles (17th century)e district of Paris), the Belgian Gustave Nicknamed “the terror of rats”, it is regularly requested by both public and private authorities.
“Employed in turn by the Seine prefecture, doctors, the Pasteur Institute, factory directors, the Touring Club, for twenty years he has been killing more than a hundred rats a day and training thousands of rat dogs”lists L’Intransigeant, another Parisian daily, on September 8, 1920. During the terrible siege of Paris, imposed by German troops in 1870-1871, Gustave Xhrouet, then a teenager, sold his catches for 10 cents each, so that the hungry inhabitants would have something to eat…
Useful entertainment or spectacle to be avoided?
In this particularly musophobic context, the ratodromes train hundreds of fox terriers, Great Danes and German shepherds to hunt rodents. But these shows are not to everyone’s taste, admits columnist Lucien Lorin in the illustrated supplement of Le Petit Journal, in June 1934: “Like a ferocious beast, the dog threw itself on its enemies, crushing them in its mouth, shaking them, splashing blood on the spectators closest to the cage, getting scratched, bitten, tearing its lips, tearing off its ears. (…) But, as ugly as she was to look at, she was no more so than all the so-called human beings who stretched out, on the other side of the fence, their muzzles sweating with malice and their eyes shining with bloody hysteria.”
Disgusted by the violence of the spectacle and the voyeurism of the spectators, the editor of the Parisian daily goes so far as to assert that certain competitions sometimes pit rodents against human beings! “Besides, the rules of the game were complicatedhe adds. The man could have caught the rats with his hands or crushed them with his feet, so his hands and feet were tied and the size of the cage was restricted so that he would not have to run after the animals. And we left him only his teeth as weapons.”
From the beginning of the 20th centurye century, voices were raised to contest not only the morbid entertainment offered by ratodromes, but also the gratuitous cruelty inflicted on animals within their enclosures. After all, since the law of July 2, 1850, known as the Grammont law, which punishes mistreatment of domestic animals, entertainment harmful to animals has been prohibited.
However, the health authorities half-heartedly tolerate the activity of ratodromes for its health benefits… Taken to task by the Society for the Protection of Animals (SPA), Gustave Xhrouet defends himself against the accusations brought against him, believing rather “rendering a service to the community by eliminating pests” and passing the blame on to medical institutes whose laboratories are teeming with guinea pigs.
In any case, the controversy does not seem to discourage the curious, many of whom still frequent the arenas of the Neuilly ratodrome. It was not until after the Second World War that animal fighting was prohibited by the legislature.
Decree No. 87-223 of March 26, 1987 (relating to the use of animals in public shows and games) definitively prohibits “the participation of animals in games and attractions which could give rise to mistreatment, in fairs, funfairs and other places open to the public”even if it paradoxically authorizes bullfights and cockfights, by virtue of local traditions. Still unloved today, the rat still coexists with the people of Paris: the number of rodents present in the capital is estimated at between 3 and 4 million, which makes around 1.5 per inhabitant.
