Allegro vivo. "Mi-a-ou" was written for Dolly's second birthday in June 1894. The title does not refer to a pet cat, as has often been supposed, but to Dolly's attempts to pronounce the name of her elder brother Raoul, who later became one of Fauré's favourite pupils. The young Dolly called her brother Messieu Aoul, which Fauré took as the original title for the piece. In his finished manuscript the title is shortened to "Miaou" (without hyphens). The Fauré scholar Robert Orledge writes that the title "Mi-a-ou", like that of the "Kitty-valse" later in the suite, is the responsibility of Fauré's publisher, Hamelle.