There are many ways to measure a civilisation, but one of the more reliable methods is to examine what it does with cats. Cleopatra had Egypt, the Nile, Roman generals losing their minds in her general direction, and a place in history so large that Elizabeth Taylor needed four hours and several costume changes to do justice to it. But even she might have paused before Choupette and wondered whether power had become considerably more comfortable in the modern age. Cleopatra had to rule, negotiate and survive imperial politics. Choupette merely had to be fluffy, aloof and photogenic, and still ended up with maids, private flights, brand deals, inheritance rumours and a luxury ecosystem that would make ancient royalty look overworked.
The ancient Egyptians understood the feline instinct better than most. Cats were useful because they protected grain stores from rodents and snakes, but usefulness alone does not explain reverence. In Egyptian imagination, the cat came to occupy that strange space between domestic intimacy and divine symbolism. Bastet, the goddess associated with protection, fertility and the home, was represented in feline form, while cat mummies and cat imagery became part of the religious and cultural landscape. Long before Instagram discovered that cats were content machines, Egypt had already grasped the central truth: a cat does not need to do much to be treated like a superior being.
