: ); 
 
 iii
 
 THE SECRET CABINET OF HISTORY
 
 'Tis all a Chequer-l)oard of Nights and Days 
 "Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: 
 
 Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays. 
 And one by one back in the Closet lays. 
 
 The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes, 
 But Right or Loft, as strikes the Player, goes; 
 
 And He that toss'd Thee down into the Field, 
 He knows about it all— He knows — HE knows. 
 
 The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ. 
 Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit 
 
 Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, 
 Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. 
 
 Omar EHAvrAir.
 
 DOCTOR CABAN ES 
 
 THE 
 
 an m\m « eisiori 
 
 PEEPED INTO BY A DOCTOR 
 
 Translated by W. C. COSTELLO 
 and preceded by 
 
 A Letter of M. VICTORIEN SARDOU 
 
 Member of the French Academy 
 
 FIRST SERIES 
 
 PARIS 
 
 CHARLES OARRINGTON 
 
 13, Faubouko Montmartke 
 
 MDCCCXCVII
 
 EDITION DE LUXE. 
 
 Besides the ordinary edition of this book on van Gelder 
 
 azure hand-made paper, a few copies have been printed 
 
 on real Imperial Japan paper of the first quality, for 
 
 private subscribers. 
 
 Price 25s, eacli.
 
 313 
 
 GiMs 
 
 1691 
 
 
 P E E F A C E
 
 History is made up of the tad actions of extraordinary men. 
 All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our specie?, 
 all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religion?, 
 have heen extraordinary men, and nine-tenths of the ealamiliea 
 which have hefallcn the human race had no other origin than 
 the union of high intelligence with low desires. 
 
 JIacaulat.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Letter of M. Victorien Sardou, Member of the 
 Academie Franraise, to the author: 
 
 M. Victorien Sardou, having been asked to write a 
 Preface to our work, declined, but in such courteous 
 terms that it would have been highly indiscreet on our 
 part to have further insisted. But in compensation, the 
 illustrious Academician was kind enough to favour us 
 with a daintily erudite page, which had been suggested 
 to him by the perusal of our book. To those who are 
 aware of his special competency, in historical research 
 and know him as the magic evocator of the revolutionary 
 Epoch and of the Napoleonic Legend, the following letter 
 will have a far higher value than that of a common- 
 place presentation or sponsorship. 
 
 " My dear Doctor, 
 
 " I have received the proofs of the work that you 
 have been good enough to send me.
 
 VIII PREFACE 
 
 * It is with great interest and attention that I have 
 read them, which permits me to cursorily draw your 
 attention to two errors. 
 
 " If, on the morning of the 9th of Thermidor (27 July, 
 1794) Souberbielle dressed for the last time the wound 
 of Kobespierre — for the later dressing preceding the 
 execution was done by other persons at the Conciergerie — 
 it cannot therefore have been done, as you suppose, at 
 the H6tel-de-Ville, where he went only in the after- 
 noon, carried there by Cofifinhal and all his band. The 
 dressing alluded to, can only have been performed in 
 the house of Duplay, where he had passed all the 
 morning before the sitting of the Convention. And here 
 must have taken place the conversation related by 
 Souberbielle, and which, by the way, is extremely prob- 
 able. The narrator of this story, who heard it from 
 Souberbielle, seems to have made a mistake with regard 
 to the locality. 
 
 " There is another rectification, relating to the post- 
 mortem examination of the body of Talleyrand. Accord- 
 ing to your version, Micard, having placed the brain 
 in a glass jar, noticed later that tire said jar had, by 
 neglect, been omitted to be placed in the coffin. With- 
 out saying a word, he took it away, and when it was 
 night, cast it into a drain of the rue St. Honore, near 
 to the rue Richepanse, 'the same drain which forty- 
 four years previously had received the mortal remains 
 of what had been Eobespierre.'
 
 PREFACE IX 
 
 " The remains of Robespierre were not thrown either 
 into that drain or into any other. After the execution 
 of 10 Therraidor, on the Flnce de la Revolution, where 
 the guillotine had been re-erected for the occasion, the 
 bodies of Robespierre, of St. Just, Lebas, Henriot, etc., 
 were conveyed in a tumbril, along the rue du Rocher, 
 to the cemetery of the Errancis, situated at the summit 
 of that street, between Pare Monceau and the exterior 
 Boulevard, where they were thrown into the common 
 grave. 
 
 " And now that we are speaking of Talleyrand, allow 
 me to draw your attention, as supplemental to his 
 autopsy, to the phrenological study of his cranium, 
 published in 1838 by Messrs. Ch. Place and J, Florent, 
 in a memoir on his public and private life. 
 
 " They give the full result of their examination, made 
 in the presence of Dr. Cogny, of the apothecary Micard 
 and of other witnesses and, in a very complete note, a 
 particular appreciation of each cerebral organ. I spare 
 you these details, which can only interest the confirmed 
 adherents of a doctrine, which has already lost much 
 of its authority, and I limit myself to giving you a 
 summary of their conclusions : 
 
 ' Predominance of secretivity and of circumspection, — 
 total absence of veneration, — a strong dose of compa- 
 rison and of causality, — great self-esteem, — ivUl, — 
 etc., etc. 
 
 "In fine, not a shadow of ideality, nor of abnegation,
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 and nevertheless, benevolence and pJdloprogenitiveness. 
 
 • That all chimes in pretty well with what we know 
 of Talleyrand.— It remains, however, open to question 
 whether the same operators, ignoring this skull to have 
 heen that of Talleyrand, could, by means of the same 
 conclusions, have reconstituted his character. 
 
 "Accept my friendly greetings, 
 
 « V. SARDOU. »
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Paok 
 
 PREFACE Vn 
 
 A YOUTHFUL IJTOISCRETJON OF LOUIS XIV 1 
 
 THE FISTULA OF A GREAT KING 17 
 
 THE MALADIES OF LOUIS XV 29 
 
 THE SEMI-mPOTENCY OF LOUIS XVI 63 
 
 THE FIRST PREGNANCY OP MARIE-ANTOINETTE 81 
 
 LOUIS XVI IN PRIVATE LIFE 105 
 
 ONE OF THE JUDGES OF MARIE- ANTOINETTE : THE SURGEON 
 
 SOUBERBIELLE 125 
 
 WHAT WAS MARAT'S DISEASE 145 
 
 TALLEYRAND AND THE DOCTORS 155 
 
 THE ACCOUCHEMENT OP THE EMPRESS MARDE-LOUISE ... 179 
 
 THE ANCESTORS OF MARSHAL MAC-MAHON 191 
 
 QAMBETTA's EYE 227
 
 A 
 
 YOUTHFUL INDISCRETION 
 
 OP 
 
 LOUIS XIV.
 
 I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, 
 
 As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother. 
 
 Do not, as some ungracious pastor* do. 
 
 Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, 
 
 Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, 
 
 Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
 
 And recks not his own rede. 
 
 Haulet, Act I, Sc. III.
 
 A YOUTHFUL INDISCRETION OF LOUIS XIV. 
 
 It is usual to af&rm that great eaters and heavy 
 topers are but sorry champions in Cupid's Arena, 
 and that, despite the classical proverb : * Sine 
 Bacchus.... Venus friget." How then explain 
 that Louis XIY, Avho could on occasion perform 
 Gargantuan feats at table, should, contrary to that 
 edifying man, his father, the extremely virtuous 
 Louis Xin, have, still young, developed into one 
 of the most brilliant lovers of his Ejngdom? 
 
 He had barely attained his fifteenth year, when 
 his virginal robe suffered its first rent. A Maid (?) 
 of the bed-chamber, of Anne of Austria, a certain 
 Madame de Beauvais, undertook to sharpen the 
 wit of the young Prince. This illustrious dame, 
 for such she is justly entitled to be called, although 
 of mature age and blind of one eye, * was, it 
 
 * Madame, the Duchess of Orleans, sister-in-law of Louis XIV, 
 writes at date of 16th September, 1716: "La Beauvais was blind 
 of one eye ; she lived for several years after my arrival in France. 
 She was first to teach the King how to act when in company 
 with ladies. She was learned in the matter, having led a loose 
 life." {Correspondence of the Duchess of Orleans, p. 469). 
 
 The Queen was used to call her simply : Gateau. La Bruyere 
 
 3
 
 appears, of most scrupulous cleanliness, allied to 
 an ardent temperament little in accordance with 
 her years." Mais le Diable ne perd jamais ses 
 
 alludes to her, under the name of Ergaste {Des Biens de For- 
 tune, n". 28) addressed to the Baron de Beauvais, his son. One 
 of the " Clefs des caracteres " (Keys to character) contains this 
 note: "Her mother was in the confidence of the deceased Queen- 
 Mother, and it was noised about that she was the first who had 
 affirmed to the Queen, that the future King, who had hitherto seemed 
 indifferent to women, was certainly quite proper for marriage. 
 She was known as Gateau la Borgnesse (the one-eyed Catefiu)." — 
 The Princess Palatine (of Bavaria) writes in her Memoires: 
 * The Old Beauvais, first lady of the bed-chamber of the Queen- 
 Mother, possessed the secret of her clandestine marriage with 
 Cardinal Mazarin ; which obliged the Queen to put up with all the 
 insolences of this virago." 
 
 The Due de St. Simon, speaking in his Memoires of the 
 fortune obtained at Court by a certain La Vauguyon, says : * By 
 means of his ostensible and other hidden talents, useful in 
 gallantry, he managed to become an intimate of Madame de Beauvais, 
 first lady of the chamber of the Queen-Mother and admitted to 
 her most intimate confidence, and who was at that moment the 
 more courted that she was supposed to have been the favoured 
 recipient of the first .... amorous testimony of the future King." 
 
 This young prince soon confirmed the truth of the old Gallic 
 proverb : 
 
 "For Students or Monks there exist neither old nor ugly women." 
 
 In fact, he must not have been very difficult to please, if he 
 allowed himself to be captivated by the superannuated charms, 
 thus described in the Chansonnier de Maurepas {Bihl. Nat^^. 
 M.S. Fr. 12,617, p. 489). 
 
 In which we find: 
 
 " Si la Beauvais b a cent ans 
 
 Pourquoi ces jeunes dames 
 Pleines de jeunesse et d'appas, 
 Pourquoi ces jeunes dames 
 Ne b t-elles pas?" 
 
 In rather free translation :
 
 s 
 
 droits. * So was it that the very mature charms of 
 this venerable nymph overcame the natural pudicity 
 of this royal youth and thus ensnared him. 
 
 It was all the same, rather piquant to see this 
 hold warrior, full of juvenile ardour, surrender 
 ignominiously to a veteran of gallantry. 
 
 On quitting the hands of "La Beauvais", the 
 young King had nothing more to learn. He would 
 indeed have been able, upon occasion, in his turn 
 to give lessons. Is it therefore to be supposed 
 
 " If Dame Beauvais was still gay at one hundred years 
 Why should so much younger dames, 
 Full of youth and beauty, 
 Why should such younger dames not be gay also." 
 
 and at Note 2 of the next page we read the following racy com- 
 mentary : " Catherine, widow of Squire de Beauvais, first 
 
 lady of the bed-chamber of the Queen-Mother, was of much 
 lubricity of temperament, and generously paid her lovers. For, 
 being old, ugly and blind of one eye, it is certain that her 
 charms alone would not have allured them; it is positive, never- 
 theless, that ugly as she was, she took the virgin-manhood of 
 Louis XIV (The following lines, for decency's sake, we feel 
 obliged to leave in the French : * toiite affreuse qu'elle ctait, car 
 ce x>rince etant fort jeune, elle lui mit la main un jour dans 
 les chausses, Vayant trouve sexd a Vecart datis le Loiivre, pour 
 ainsi dire, elle le viola ....), or at all events, took him by sur- 
 prise, that she got from him all that she desired ; the first ardour 
 of youth having prevented this prince from reflecting on what he did." 
 (See Bibl Natl . M.S. Fr. 12,617, p. 425 and 12,618, p. 249). 
 
 Madame de Beauvais was not a woman to imagine the means 
 employed later by the devout marechale de Luxembourg, in order 
 to avoid temptation by employing only Holi/ Water for her most 
 intimate ablutions (See Memoir es de Bachautnont). 
 
 This adventure may be dated at about 1654. In the following 
 year {See J. Cousin, VHotel de Beauvais) Madame de Beauvais 
 had constructed for her in the finest part of the Kue Saint-Antoine, 
 the sumptuous residence described by Mr. Cousin. 
 
 * But the devil never loses his rights.
 
 6 
 
 that from his first introduction into life, he had 
 shewed himself to be already a roue of debauchery ? 
 Such was certainly the case if we are to believe 
 the scandalous tongue of Saint-Simon. ''All was 
 acceptable to him, " says this infernal old gossip, " as 
 long as it was woman: peasant-girls, gardeners' 
 daughters, ladies' maids, ladies of condition, as long 
 as they made pretence of being enamoured of him. " 
 
 His first little love affair,* it could not be called 
 passion at that age, was the niece of Cardinal 
 Mazarin, Olympia de Mancini. She was not beautiful, 
 but she was worse. Louis XIV gazed upon her 
 with those eyes, Avhich after inconsciently regarding 
 so many women, seem for the first time to discover 
 a woman. 
 
 But herself, too young to be moved by this early 
 love, the Italian girl, precociously calculating that 
 such flattering hopes had not sufficient weight, pre- 
 ferred to a royal amourette a solid marriage with 
 the Prince Eugene of Savoy, better known as the 
 Comte de Soissons. f It was therefore but a little 
 love-flutter of no consequence. 
 
 He was not more successful with Mademoiselle 
 
 * The familiarity of Louis XIV with Olympia de Mancini and 
 with other young girls of his intimacy, writes Mr. Cousin, in his 
 very interesting monography of the Hotel de Beauvais, was that 
 of a frank companionship without the shadow of an evil thought. 
 He had frankly declared, when dancing with the Princesse d'Ange, 
 that he did not care for little girls. With regard to higger ones, 
 he had not yet had occasion to consider them. This indifference 
 began to concern the Queen who began to fear that, in this 
 respect, lie might too closely resemble his father, Louis the Chaste. 
 
 f Lair, Louise de la ValUere et la Jeunesse de Louis XIV.
 
 de la Motte-Argencourt, although his homages to 
 this beauty had been much more pressing. At that 
 time he had attained his nineteenth year, and, as 
 Mademoiselle de Motteville expresses it "he spoke 
 like a youth amorous, hut no longer virtuous.^ In 
 the interval and since his adventure with Mademoiselle 
 de Beauvais, an event occurred, which through the 
 reticences of the narrator, still remains rather obscui'e. 
 
 This is how La Porte, the valet of the Prince, 
 relates the anecdote: 
 
 "On the day of Saint-John of that same year 
 1652, the King having dined with liis Eminence,* 
 and having remained mth him until seven in the 
 evening, sent word to me that he wished to take 
 his bath ; the bath having been prepared, he came, 
 looking quite sad, the reason of which I knew 
 without his having to tell me. The thing was so 
 terrible that it caused me the greatest trouble in 
 which I had ever been, and for five days I was 
 undecided what to do ; but considering that it was 
 for me a matter of honesty and of conscience to 
 enlighten him, and that he might in future avoid 
 similar accidents, I told His Majesty, who thanked 
 me, as having rendered him the greatest service; 
 but as I could not indicate the cause, not being 
 myself at all certain of the authorship, that was 
 ultimately the cause of my disgrace, as I shall 
 relate in time and place." f 
 
 * Cardinal Mazarin, Prime Minister. 
 
 t Memoires de La Forte, Paris, 1792, p. 290.
 
 8 
 
 What dreadful fact is here in question? We 
 are thrown hack upon conjecture; and the com- 
 mentaries on the relation of La Porte hy Yoliaire, 
 in his Siede de Louis XIV, do not further enlig:hten 
 us. The fact is that in the month of January 
 following, the King had a " scirrhous tumour of the 
 right breast and eruptions all oyer the body." 
 
 He was cured by means of a plaster invented by 
 Yallot for the Nuns of Sainte-Marie, who were mndi 
 siibjed to sweUmgs of the knees, on account of the 
 austerity of their lives and tlie nudity of their feet. 
 
 Two years later, the King was attacked by a 
 disease that gave much greater anxiety to his doctors. 
 
 It is amusing and necessary to read, in the 
 Journal de la Sante de Louis XIV, the account, 
 adorned with circumlocutions and adulations, of this 
 episode of the life of the monarch in order to 
 frame an idea of the alarms that the Purgons 
 and Diafoirus underwent * who surrounded him, 
 with regard to a malady which appeared singularly 
 strange to them from its novelty. This private 
 journal, written in turn by each of the three first 
 physicians of the King, records day by day the 
 slightest indispositions of their august patient, his 
 colics and eructations; keeps a register of his 
 dejections, the whole intermingled with extravagant 
 panegyrics, interspersed with clysters and bleedings. 
 In 1655, Dr. Vallot is the historiographer. The 
 
 * Two admirable representations of pedant ignorant doctors in 
 that rnaster-picco of Moliere: ' Le Malade Imatjwaire/ (Transl.)
 
 9 
 
 folloAving is a specimen of the rhapsodical style he 
 employed in his bulletins concerning the precious 
 health of the sovereign confided to his care: 
 
 "The greatest of monarchs not being exempt 
 from the attacks of those maladies and infirmities 
 which afflict hmnanity. His Majesty, in the prime 
 of his tender and flourishing youth, has felt the 
 effects of an evil so great and so extraordinary, 
 that I found myself in the utmost state of confusion, 
 and so overwhelmed, that I cannot believe that 
 any of the first physicians that have preceded me 
 have ever experienced more anxiety than I, nor 
 have I ever observed an accident more strange or 
 more considerable than that which has happened to 
 the King at the age of seventeen years." 
 
 This is not a bad beginning, but our wise colleague 
 knows how to husband his effects. Let us see 
 what follows : 
 
 ''The first four months of this year had been 
 happily passed without the slightest indisposition, 
 whatever. But in the first days of May, my exul- 
 tation was troubled. I then noted the signs of a 
 disorder that I did not expect and which seemed 
 to me the strangest in the world, never having 
 seen anything similar, neither in books nor in my 
 experience of so many maladies that I have observed 
 during the last twenty-eight years; and after hav- 
 ing anonymously consulted on the subject the most 
 celebrated physicians in Europe, I found myself no 
 wiser than at the outset. Finally, after an extra-
 
 10 
 
 ordinary astonisliment, amounting to stupefaction, 
 I so diligently applied myself to discover the cause 
 of this new and unknown malady, and the method 
 of its cure, that Grod gave me the grace to render 
 such a considerable service to the King and to his 
 State, that I have cause to thank God for His good- 
 ness towards the King and for my conduct, which 
 He thought fit to employ to deliver His Majesty of 
 an incommodity, that threatened to deprive him of 
 the power of ever having children and to remain 
 an infirmity for the remainder of his days." 
 
 What then was the nature of this malady which 
 had so greatly embarrassed Dr. Vallot? The sequel 
 of this narration will probably show. 
 
 "In the commencement of May, 1655," continues 
 Vallot, " shortly before starting for the campaign, I 
 was informed that the King's shirts were soiled by 
 a matter that led to infer that there was some- 
 thing wrong which required attention. The persons 
 who first gave me this information were but ill- 
 acquainted with the nature and quality of the evil, 
 supposing it at first to be some sort of pollution or 
 else venereal disease ; but after careful examination 
 I came to other conclusions, and was persuaded 
 that this accident was in fact of the greatest im- 
 portance .... I had indeed at that moment no 
 doubt whatever of the purity of his life, or of Ms 
 chastity. " 
 
 Worthy and simple doctor, how could he have
 
 11 
 
 such an assurance? Had he at least drawn his 
 information from proper sources ? He had simply 
 taken for granted the assertion of the young prince, 
 protesting his innocence, and who, by the way, had 
 never complained of " this discharge wliich came at 
 any moment without causing him either pain or 
 pleasure, " and ignoring whether it was " an ordi- 
 nary thing or not." But can there be the slight- 
 est doubt as to the nature of the evil, after reading 
 the following lines: 
 
 " The matter that was evacuated without pain 
 and without local irritation, was, as I have already 
 stated, of a consistency between that of white of 
 Qgg and that of pus, and adhered so strongly to 
 the linen that the stains required soap and hot 
 water to be effaced. The general colour was yellow- 
 ish-green, and it flowed more abundantly during the 
 night than during the day . . . ." 
 
 Did Yallot wish to diagnosticate from these 
 symptoms a case of blennorrhagic discharge? No 
 fear. If such was his intimate conviction, he took 
 special care to allow nothing to transpire. For 
 him, reasons of State were superior to every other 
 consideration. " These circumstances astonished me 
 very much," says he sententiously, " and seemed to point 
 out to me that an evil so extraordinary could pro- 
 ceed only from a weakness of the prostates and of 
 the spermatic vessels." 
 
 However it was now incumbent upon him to explain 
 to his sovereign the cause of his illness. But
 
 12 
 
 V allot bad, when necessary, a very inventive genius: 
 " Your Majesty," said he to the King, " is too fond of 
 riding and of gymnastics. You experience a weak- 
 ness in the organs of generation — You require to 
 he extremely careful of yourself. First of all, cease 
 riding for the present. With regard to the treat- 
 ment, that shall he my husiness; hut it will require 
 mature reflection. Bear in mind that this is the 
 first time that medical science has to record such 
 a case." 
 
 Patience is not always the virtue of kings, and 
 in Louis XIV less than in any other. He was in 
 haste to start for the campaign in Flanders, hut 
 did not refuse to ohey the prescriptions of the 
 Faculty. 
 
 The treatment would have to he intermittent, 
 hut he would submit to that easily; only nothing 
 further must he demanded of him. Of course the 
 first remedy to he applied was the inevitable blood- 
 letting, but according to order, preceded by a clyster 
 and followed by a purge. The same operations 
 were repeated at a few days interval, after which 
 recourse was had to "balms and emulsions." The 
 treatment was then for a short time interrupted, 
 the King being obliged to go to Soissons, where the 
 same remedies were continued with the adjunction 
 of pimpernel water. 
 
 Then comes the campaign in Flanders, during 
 Avhich the King is continually on horseback. Vallot 
 is in a dreadful state, and expresses his anxiety.
 
 IB 
 
 At last a moment of peace arrives and the first 
 physician to the King profits l)y the occasion to 
 drug his illustrious client to his heart's content. 
 "I began/ says he, " by administering my Martial 
 tablets, composed of Martial salt,* my stomachic 
 specific, prepared cray-fish stones, pearls and corals. " 
 Every morning the young King swallowed these 
 infernal tablets while still in bed, and unknown to 
 any one. 
 
 Between times, and that he might not lose the 
 habit, there were administered to him some refresh- 
 ing clysters and also plenty of pimpernel water. 
 
 On the 7th September 1655, Dr. Yallot presents 
 himself resolutely before the King, and adjures him 
 not to delay adopting a serious treatment, repre- 
 senting to him the terrible consequences that might 
 result from his further indifference, and detailing 
 all the infirmities to which he may be exposed, 
 claiming at the same time an undeniable testimony 
 of confidence. 
 
 The King, deeply touched, gave full power to 
 his physician to decide what should be done, and 
 agreed, to begin the cure, to take the waters of 
 Forges which were recommended to him by Vallot. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, Louis XIV left for Fontaine- 
 bleau, where each day mounted officers of the King's 
 Buttery brought him, every morning, the waters of 
 Forges prescribed, which he regularly took after 
 having been of course duly bled and purged. 
 
 * A preparation of iron. {Transl.)
 
 u 
 
 Commenced on the 18th September, the treat- 
 ment terminated on the 30th October, when an 
 access of tertian fever obliged the physician to 
 suspend it. 
 
 It may now be asked what was " this continual 
 flow of corrupt and putrid seminal matter'' ; this 
 evil "that it was necessary to keep secret".* It 
 is useless for Gui Patin to assure us that the King 
 is ''sober, chaste, healthy in all his body," or 
 again that he is ''a prince well constituted . . . who 
 hardly touches wine, who is not debauched nor has 
 he any part of him spoiled or affected" ; Yallot 
 may also add, going still further : " The evil pro- 
 ceeds from no virus that debauched young men 
 generally contract with shameless women, for at that 
 time the King had never yet lain with any girl or 
 woman," and in another passage: "This evil is 
 not the result of unclean and shameful pollutions, 
 for the King lived in a state of piu-e and unex^ 
 ampled chastity," our conviction is already formed 
 after reading the memoirs so circumstantiated of 
 Marie Elisabeth, of Saint-Simon, of the Corres- 
 jQondance de Madame, etc. 
 
 In fact, even during his reign, the pamphleteers 
 did not at all hesitate to allude, under the thinnest 
 of veils, to the numerous "peccadillos" of the 
 Eoi-Soleil. 
 
 * No one here, writes Gui Patin, knows the nature of the 
 King's malady. Gu^naut even was not agreed thereon with Vallot. 
 Inde ir<B et lacrimce. (Gui Patin, Letter 445 to Falconnet).
 
 15 
 
 In 1655, the year of the malady we are studying, 
 Benserade did not fear to represent the monarch 
 under the featui'es of a debauchee. And in the 
 Ballet des Plaisirs, danced hy His Majesty on 
 the 4ih of February, 1655, he addresses some 
 verses to the King in which he adjures him to be 
 more discriminate in the choice of the objects of 
 his favour, and while seeking pleasure, to avoid 
 debauchery. Not to run hither and tliither with- 
 out making a choice of any, courting the blonde 
 as well as the brune ; that would be a sad spec- 
 tacle. He ends the last verse by saying: "That, 
 Su'e, indeed is a very great evil ! " 
 
 Is not that last line rather significative? 
 
 Besides, the therapeutical means employed by 
 Vallot, strange as they seem, are in favour of the 
 hypothesis of a venereal disease. 
 
 At the beginning of the treatment, the first 
 physician administers antiphlogistics (blood-letting) 
 and purgatives. Later on he subjects his patient 
 dui'ing thi-ee weeks to tonics. 
 
 "His Majesty's usual beverage was a decoction 
 of scrapings of stags-horn and ivory in which I 
 had dissolved two or three grains of salts of 
 Mars." * 
 
 " Then he varies with other tablets, constituted 
 with his diaphoretic gold,! his prepared pearls and 
 
 • Sel de Mars, sulphate of iron. 
 
 t Or diaphoretiqiie, golden sulphide of antimony; depuratory,
 
 16 
 
 his specificum stomachmn." What is less intel- 
 ligible is " ablutions of the parts and of the chest 
 with essence of ants, '^ the spirit of cray-fish f 
 prepared according to my recipe and Peruvian 
 balsam. " 
 
 The rest is more rational. 
 
 " I also prepared fomentations of the same nature, 
 injections composed of sugared water, carabe salt § 
 much softened with balsam of Saturn ** which 
 succeeded very well; and to that I add a little 
 tincture of roseate honey ff. The opiate of rose 
 of Provins vitrioled, with the pearls and Magister 
 of cray-fish §§ stones, was also very successful/ 
 
 An astringent, injections of basic acetate of lead 
 (extract of Saturn), all this, does it not seem to 
 point rather to blennorrhoea, than to nocturnal 
 pollutions ? 
 
 Why, after all, should this haughty but not over 
 virtuous monarch have been exempted from human ail- 
 ments? He had been told, and he believed it, that 
 he was of divine essence; but immortality had also 
 been predicted to him, which did not prevent him 
 from paying the common tribute of humanity. 
 
 and aLove all, most excellent sudorific, formerly much employed 
 in cases of venereal disease. 
 
 * Essence of ants, formic acid. 
 
 t Esprit d'ccrevisses (spirit of cray-fish), carbonate of lime. 
 
 § Sel carabe, succinic acid. 
 
 ** Baume de Saturne, Accetate of lead with essence of tur- 
 pentine. 
 
 ft Teinture de miel rosat, mellitum rosatum. 
 
 §§ Magistery of essence of cray-fish, finely pulverized carbonate 
 of lime. {Transl.)
 
 THE 
 FISTULA 
 
 OP 
 
 A GREAT KINa.
 
 Diseases desperate grown 
 By desperate appliance are relieved, 
 Or not at all. 
 
 Hamlet, act iv, so. 3.
 
 THE FISTULA OF A GREAT KING. 
 
 We are in the month of January 1686. It is 
 hrnited about in Paris and at Versailles that the 
 King has taken to his bed. It appears that for 
 some days past he had suffered, without much 
 complaining, some sharp pains in the anal region, 
 but latterly these pains Ijad become so intolerable 
 that, on the advice of his medical attendants, he 
 was obliged to take to bed. All the Court is in 
 ,a turmoil. Messengers are anxiously awaited, in 
 order to obtain news. What can be this mysterious 
 disease of which people seem to be ashamed to talk ? 
 It is whispered that the King has hemorrhoids, a 
 vulgar affection and very common at that period. 
 Some attributed it to " the feathers with which the 
 chair-cushions were stuffed, instead of with horse- 
 hair as formerly." Others sought to find a cause 
 in ^ the great quantity of highly seasoned dishes 
 served at the royal table." 
 
 In reality, the King was incommoded by an abscess 
 on the margin of the anus.* 
 
 * In the year 1686, writes Dionis {Cours d" operations chiriir- 
 gicales, p. 418 — 419), the King complained of the presence of a 
 
 19
 
 20 
 
 The treatment seems here clearly indicated; a 
 liberating- incision should be effected without delay. 
 But as Dionis, who was a surgeon of judicious 
 mind, observes, " One does not always find among 
 the great that deference necessary for a cure." 
 
 A lady of the Court, Madame de la Daubiere, having 
 succeeded in getting accepted a plaster of her 
 composition, it was decided that the inventor of 
 the remedy should herself assist at its application, 
 she considering no doubt that no effect would be 
 produced unless this condition was fulfilled. Five 
 days after the application of the remedy, the King 
 requests that it be removed, it having only served 
 to exacerbate his sufferings. 
 
 More than twenty days after the appearance of 
 the tumour, it is at last decided to give issue to 
 the pus. But instead of opening the abscess with 
 the bistoury, recourse was had simply to cautery 
 with lunar caustic. 
 
 "This morning, at ten o'clock," writes Dangeau 
 in his journal, "the cautery stone was applied to 
 the King's tumour; it was left there for one hour 
 and a half, and the skin was then opened with 
 
 small tumour close to the anus on the side of the perineum; it 
 was neither inflamed nor very painful. It augmented little by 
 little, until having become ripe, it opened spontaneously, because 
 the King had refused to allow it to be incised by M. F^lix, 
 his first surgeon, who had proposed to do so. This little abscess 
 followed the ordinary course of those to which a sufBciently wide 
 aperture is not allowed for the introduction of proper remedies 
 down to the bottom of the cavity; only a small hole was made 
 in the skin through which the matter escaped; it continued to 
 suppurate and became fistulous.
 
 21 
 
 scissors, but the raw part was not touched. " They 
 contented themselves with splitting the eschar, and 
 when this dropped off, as Dionis says, there formed 
 a little orifice through which the pus escaped, and 
 which continued to suppurate. Soon the existence 
 of a fistula was established communicating with the 
 rectum. 
 
 When it was known that the King had a fistula, 
 every one had his or her remedy to propose for its 
 cure. At Court, a blind faith was shown in all 
 sorts of nostrums pretended to be infallible. 
 The King is told that the waters of Bareges are 
 excellent for his malady, and immediately four per- 
 sons also suffering from fistula are sought out and 
 sent to Bareges. M. Gervais, surgeon in ordinary 
 to His Majesty, makes injections of these waters 
 into their fistula during several days, and then 
 brings them back to Paris, without having obtained 
 the slightest amelioration. 
 
 A woman having come and declared that she had 
 obtained under similar circumstances much relief 
 from the waters of Bourbon, four fistulous patients 
 were sent to those waters, and they came back in 
 the same state as when they left. 
 
 A Jacobin monk writes directly to Louvois to 
 inform him of a marvellous water against fistula. 
 Another proposes an ointment, a third and a fourth 
 propose other remedies to the Minister. " Louvois, 
 who would spare nothing," says Dionis, "for a health 
 so precious as that of the King, caused several
 
 22 
 
 rooms to be furnished at the ' Surintendance/ 
 where he placed patients suffering from fistula, and 
 had them treated, in presence of M. Felix (the 
 first surgeon) by those who pretended to be able 
 to cure them. A whole year elapsed during all 
 these various experiments without a single one of 
 them being cured." 
 
 Surgeon Bessieres, one of the most noted prac- 
 titioners in the capital, was then called in, his 
 decision whatever it might be being accepted in 
 advance. "All the remedies in the world," pro- 
 nounced this surgeon, " will be of no avail without 
 operation." 
 
 The sentence was formal, and there remained but 
 to execute it. But opinions differed as to the mode 
 of execution. 
 
 The method mostly applied was that of ligature. 
 On the other hand a certain Lemoyne, a practi- 
 tioner widely known and reputed as a specialist for 
 the cure of fistula, preferred cauterisation;'* Felix 
 was more in favour of incision. 
 
 The King had the utmost confidence in his first 
 surgeon and was quite decided to accept incision. 
 
 * This method, says Dionis, consisted in the use of an escharo- 
 tic, i.e. of a corrosive unguent with ■which he covered a little 
 cone which he introduced into the opening of the ulcer, of which 
 it gradually consumed the circumference, being then every day 
 thrust deeper into the cavity, so as to enlarge the fistula, until 
 the bottom was laid bare. If there Avas callosity, it was eaten 
 up by the caustic, which served also to dry up the sink of cor- 
 ruption. Lemoyne eifected a great many cures and died rich. 
 
 Le Roi, loc. cit; p. 61—62.
 
 23 
 
 But he insisted first that the different methods 
 should be discussed in his presence and that the pre- 
 ference given to any method should he fully jus- 
 tified. Felix then had to explain that it did not cut 
 through the flesh until after a long time, that it 
 had to be tightened every day, which was not done 
 without causing pain ; that caustic took several 
 weeks to exert its action, causing severe pain ; 
 that incision was also very painful, but it had the 
 advantage of bringing about a radical and prompt 
 cure. The King, now convinced, accepted the surest 
 and most rapid treatment, that is to say by the 
 knife. 
 
 Felix, who had never yet performed this opera- 
 tion, but was acquainted Avith all that the ancient 
 authors had "written on the subject, requested, in 
 order to get his hand in, to be allowed to operate 
 on all the fistulous patients in the hospitals. He 
 condescended to operate himself, to the admiration 
 of all. ''The young surgeons," says the Abbe de 
 Choisy, " had redoubled their application Avhen they 
 saw their chief working instrument in hand the 
 same as another." "^ 
 
 In order to perform the operation of the incision 
 of fistula, Galen had invented an instrument of a 
 particular form, to which he gave the name of 
 Syringxtoma, from the name itself of fistula {Syrinx, 
 flute). It was a bistoury in the form of a crescent, 
 with a rounded handle, terminated by a long stylet 
 
 * Memoir es, edition Michaud, T. XXX, p. 620.
 
 u 
 
 or lance, pointed and flexible. Felix caused the 
 instrument of Galen to be notablj changed. He had 
 made a simple curved bistoury, with very narrow 
 blade, terminated like the Syringxtoma with a stylet, 
 but of annealed silver, and several inches long. 
 The edge of the blade was protected by a silver 
 sheath, made expressly so as to be introduced into 
 the fistula without wounding the parts. * 
 
 The instrument used by Felix for the King has 
 from that moment received the name of Bistouri 
 a la royale. f 
 
 Louis XIV was at Fontainebleau, when the 
 operation was decided on. The 15th November 1686, 
 he arrives at Yersailles. On Sunday the 17th, he 
 rides out; visits his reservoirs, sups in the evening 
 with the royal family, appearing all the time quite 
 tranquil and very gay. § 
 
 The next day, the 18th November, at day- 
 break, everything is being prepared for the grand 
 operation. The Cabinet of Bassans, so called from 
 being decorated with paintings by Bassan, formed 
 part of the saloon known as the Oeil-de-Bmuf. 
 The saloon in question was divided into two: the 
 part nearest to the bed-chamber (where the King 
 installed himself several years later in 1701) was 
 the King's chamber : the other part was the Cabinet 
 des Bassans. 
 
 * Le Eoi, Curiosites hist, sur Louis XIII, Louis XIV, et Loids 
 XV, p. 64. 
 
 t Le Roi, ibid., p. 66, 
 § Journal de Dangeau.
 
 25 
 
 All is ready for the operation. So as not to raise 
 suspicions, it was arranged that all those who would 
 have to assist at or participate in the operation should 
 enter the palace separately and by different doors. 
 
 Towards five o'clock the apothecaries enter the 
 King's chamher and proceed to prepare to admi- 
 nister to him the preparatory clyster. A little 
 before seven Louvois has been to fetch Madame de Main- 
 tenon in her apartment. They come in both together 
 and meet in the King's chamber with the King's 
 confessor, P6re La Chaise ; D'Aquin, his first phy- 
 sician; Felix, first surgeon; Fagon, Bessi^res and 
 a pupil of Felix, whom he used then to call his 
 garcon (lad or apprentice). 
 
 After having had the use of the instruments 
 explained to him by Felix, the KJlng declares him- 
 self ready. The patient is placed on the edge of the 
 bed, a bolster under his belly, his thighs spread out 
 and maintained wide apart by two of the apothecaries. 
 
 When Felix had finished the operation, a dressing 
 was applied of lint, covered with a liniment com- 
 posed of oil and a yolk of %^^, after which the 
 usual compresses and bandages were put on as at 
 the present day. The dressing done, the King 
 was "replaced upon his bed, and immediately the 
 door was opened to what is called the first entry, 
 that is to say to persons having the right to assist 
 at the first levee. The others did not enter because 
 there was no levee that morning. " * 
 
 * Mercure Galant, p. 329—330.
 
 26 
 
 As soon as the happy issue of the operation was 
 known, there was general joy. Too great astonish- 
 ment could not he expressed at the firmness and 
 heroism of the King. Monseigneur and Madame, * 
 who were in Paris; M. le Prince and M. le Due, 
 who were at Fontainehleau, f had been apprized. 
 All the courtiers hastened to Versailles. Each one 
 flattered himself Avith having his fistula; and those 
 who were really afflicted entreated the surgeons with 
 whom they Avere acquainted to perform on them 
 the " Operation dii Roi." 
 
 " There were indeed some coui'tiers who chose 
 Versailles as a place wherein to submit to the operation, 
 because the King inquired about everything connected 
 with their malady. Those who had the slightest 
 discharge or mere hemorrhoids did not hesitate to 
 submit their back-side to the surgeon for him to 
 make incisions. I saAv more than tliirty Avho wanted 
 the operation to be performed upon them and in 
 whom this folly was so great that they seemed 
 vexed Avhen they were assured that there was no 
 necessity for it." 
 
 In the first days following the operation, all went 
 on satisfactorily. The dressings were renewed re- 
 gularly, the patient did not suffer and the cure 
 seemed to be shortly at hand. 
 
 But whether it be that the diameter of the linten 
 
 * First Prince and Princess of the Llood. 
 t Second and third Princes of the blood. 
 § Dionis, cited by Franklin, " Les Chirurc/iens,'' Plon, 1893, 
 p. 141.
 
 27 
 
 drain was too hastily diminished, or for any other 
 reason, it was perceived on the fifteenth day, that 
 one part of the border had become cicatrized before 
 the lower part, and the fistula threatened to appear 
 again. On the 6th December it was endeavoured by 
 some slight scissor cuts to break down this too 
 rapid cicatrization, but without obtaining the de- 
 sired result. At last, on Monday 7th December, that 
 is to say twenty-one days after the first operation, 
 the new cicatrization Avas finally destroyed by means 
 of several incisions, opening out and exposing the 
 bottom of the fistula. * 
 
 These incisions to unbridle the contractions were 
 extremely painful, but the King underwent them 
 without a complaint. The cicatrization was rapid and, 
 on the 11th January 1687, fifty-four days after the 
 operation, the Iving could take his first walk in 
 the Orangery of Yersailles. 
 
 Louis XIY testified his gratitude to those Avho 
 had operated upon him, with what monarchs are 
 wont to be so prodigal of, when the money comes 
 out of the pockets of their subjects. 
 
 The first surgeon, Felix, was the most favoured. 
 Besides a gratification of 800,000 livres he received 
 as a present the property of the Moulineaux, four 
 years after he was granted titles of nobility and 
 authorized to sign himself simply Felix, instead 
 of Felix Tassy as heretofore. He was further 
 granted the title of armiger or squire. 
 
 * Le Eoi, loc. cit., p. 71—72.
 
 28 
 
 Daquin received 100,000 livres; Fagon, 80,000 
 livres; Bessi^res 40,000 livres and each of the 
 four apothecaries 12,000 livres. 
 
 We have dwelt with special interest on the 
 smallest details of this operation performed on 
 Louis XIV because it marks a new date in the 
 history of surg:ery. This operative method, then 
 employed for the first time, is still in use mi\\ 
 hut slight modifications to' the present day. It was 
 one of the first triumphs over the retrograde doc- 
 trines of the old school. 
 
 A new era noAV opened: the barber — made way 
 for the surgeon.
 
 THE 
 MALADIES 
 
 OF 
 
 LOUIS XV.
 
 
 Lusisti satis, edisli satis, atqne hilisti: tempiis 
 abire tibi est. 
 
 Thou hast amused thyself enough, hast eaten 
 and drunk enough; 'tis time for thee to depart. 
 
 Horace.
 
 THE MALADIES OF LOUIS XV. 
 
 '•' Louis XV is twelve years of age. He wears his 
 hat like the late King, and that is all that he 
 will ever have of Louis XIV. " "^ 
 
 The young King has also inherited from Ms 
 grand ancestor "the Bourhonian profile and that 
 sensual family lip in which mischief lurks. " From 
 his earliest years he manifested the hereditary ten- 
 dencies of his family for the pleasures of the table f 
 and for bodily exercise. "Louis XV was a most 
 extraordinary eater," says the chronicler Barbier. 
 But, however compliant the stomach may be, when 
 violence is done to it, why then it protests after 
 its own fashion. All the early indispositions of 
 Louis XV are caused, either by over-feeding, or by 
 the excessive fatigue of a long day's hunt. Almost 
 every month it is necessary to purge Mm in order 
 to get rid of the surplus. As a child, delicate 
 
 * De Goncourt, Portraits intimes du XVIII siecle. 
 
 t Wc learn from the Memoires du due de Luijnes that the 
 expenses of the royal table increased yearly in a most sensible 
 manner. Fixed at first at from 7 to 8000 livros per month, they 
 amounted to 20,000 in 1750: and in 1752 they came up to 
 30,000 livres. 
 
 31
 
 32 
 
 and ailing, he was not without giving serious 
 anxiety to those about him. With that, melancholy 
 to excess, shirking work, easily tired, he showed 
 already the making of the man who is destined for 
 that worst of trades, that of King, and who will 
 perform his part therein Avith the worst possible 
 grace. * In foreign Courts people began to whisper 
 about tills Kingling of twelve years old, a majesty 
 bored to death and already tired of life on coming 
 into the world. 
 
 In order to dissipate these impressions, the Prime 
 Minister Dubois wrote to the French diplomatic 
 agents abroad : " Be assured that aU you may hear 
 maliciously prated about the weakness of the King's 
 temperament and about his melancholy, is entirely 
 false. His health is perfect. He becomes stronger 
 every day, and there is not one of his days, in 
 which, after the morning passed in study, he does 
 not devote himself to some new recreation in the 
 afternoon; among a great number of young lords 
 that surround His Majesty there is not one having 
 
 more gaiety " Of course one knows how much 
 
 to believe of these official denials. 
 
 A little later, the young King is tormented by 
 a strange ailment, which in his candid ignorance 
 greatly alarms him: it is virility which for the 
 first time troubles him. *" The King has had a 
 very queer ailment," says Matliieu Marais in his 
 flying notes. "He found himself man. — Thinking 
 
 * Dc Goncourt, Joe. cit., p. 4.
 
 33 
 
 himself seriously ill he spoke on the subject 
 to one of his valets Avho assured him that it was 
 on the contrary a sign of health. He then spoke 
 about it to his first siu'geon Marechal, who an- 
 swered liim that such an evil never afflicted any 
 one, and that if he had his age he would not 
 complain of it. It was called in joke, the King's 
 evil." * 
 
 The first real malady of Louis XV dates from 
 1726. Until then he had sometimes been bled, 
 either in the arm or in the foot, for slight indis- 
 positions, presenting no symptom of gravity. 
 
 The 31st July 1726, the King awakes with 
 severe head-ache and cough. Rumours of poisoning 
 begin to circulate. On the 1st of August he is 
 seized with sliivering, and in the afternoon the head- 
 ache and sore-throat augmenting, the King takes 
 to his bed. The physicians, assembled around his 
 bed, propose blood-letting ; against this Marechal most 
 energetically protests, but, on the intervention of 
 Helvetius, who declares, that "if it were his own 
 son he would bleed him on the instant,'' the 
 Faculty represented by Dumoulin, Sylva, Camille 
 and Falconnet, decide that a vein shall be lanced. 
 The next morning, when the Abbe Frejus, who 
 became later on Cardinal de Fleury, came to inform 
 the King that they intended to bleed him again 
 in the foot: ''What," said the King, changing 
 
 * Journal de Mathien, Paris, T. I.
 
 u 
 
 colour, " am I then in danger?" — " No, " replied Mon- 
 sieur de Frejus, '*' there is no longer anything to fear, 
 but it is to hasten the cure of Your Majesty. " — 
 " Very well ! " said the King, " let me then be bled ! '' 
 On the day following, as the symptoms remained 
 unchanged, the doctors began to lose their wits. 
 After the bleeding two glasses of manna with 
 one grain of emetic in each, had been administered 
 to the august patient, after which a clyster into 
 the composition of which entered tobacco * . . . 
 But now let us hear Saint-Simon, Avho had his 
 grandes and petites entrees, and who will introduce 
 us after him into the royal bed-chamber. 
 
 " I found it very empty, " tells us this loquacious 
 chronicler. " Monsieur the Duke of Orleans, sitting 
 at a corner of the chimney, was very lonely and 
 sad. I went close to him for a moment, and then 
 approached the bed-side of the King. At this 
 moment Boulduc, one of his apothecaries, was 
 presenting something to take to the King. The 
 Duchess of La Ferte, who, in virtue of being sis- 
 ter to the Duchess of Ventadour, who was god- 
 mother to the King, had all her entrees, was lean- 
 ing over the shoulders of Boulduc, and, turning 
 round to see Avho approached, she perceived me, 
 and immediately addressing me in a voice neither 
 loud nor low, said: 'He is poisoned, he is 
 
 * What an extraordinary constitution His Majesty must have 
 possessed to have resisted the nostrums of so many doctors ! 
 
 (Transl)
 
 35 
 
 ipoisoned.' — 'Hold your tongue, Madam,' I answered, 
 ■*that is horrible.' She commenced again and so 
 Uoud that I was afraid the King might hear her. 
 Boulduc and I exchanged glances, and I hastened 
 ito retire from the bed and fi"om that beldame with 
 whom I had nothing whatever to do . . . The 
 imalady did not last long and the convalescence was 
 irapid." 
 
 Thanks to Helvetius, who prescribed a rather 
 [powerful dose of emetic, the King had a terrible 
 evacuation both above and below, and was at once 
 relieved. As His Majesty had rendered all in his bed, 
 not having consented to get up during his malady 
 (to satisfy any of his necessities, the Queen, who 
 entered at this moment, and " who saAV the King 
 in all his filth," imagining that His Majesty was 
 bathing in his blood, " began bitterly to cry, while 
 others were rejoicing at this evacuation, which to 
 them seemed as a deliverance to the King. " Every- 
 thing was going on better and better and the 
 convalescence presented itself under the best au- 
 spices, when a most insignificant accident was very 
 nearly putting every thing again out of joint. A 
 -small red spot having been observed on the King's 
 face, three of the physicians attending upon him opined 
 that it was small-pox, tlu'ee others that it was not. 
 When examined a little closer, it turned out to 
 be ... . what? — no more than the sting of a gnat ! 
 
 Marechal, Avhose situation as first surgeon gave
 
 36 
 
 him authority to speak to the King without reserve, 
 severely reproved the young monarch. He repre- 
 sented to him that it was his duty to preserve himself 
 for his subjects, instead of wliich, he was all the 
 time hunting, supping at night in disreputable com- 
 pany, and eating unwholesome food ; that the late 
 King Louis XIV was also fond of hunting, but he 
 was content to run one stag a day and not three 
 as he was doing, and several other things quite as 
 free, to which Louis XV listened patiently, and 
 promised to pay attention to them. 
 
 V^hen it was reported that the King had re- 
 covered there was quite a deluge of Te Beums and 
 popular rejoicings. A Te Deum at the Sainte 
 Chapelle, at wliich all the judges assisted; another 
 at Notre Dame, ordered by the Provost of the mer- 
 chants and echevins, * whilst the lieutenant of 
 police ordered bonfires to be lit in every quarter 
 of the capital, f 
 
 It is not until 1744: that we meet with another: 
 illness of the King, of which historians give any 
 details. § It is true we find in the Journal of' 
 Barbier, under date of 26th November 1728, the 
 following: "Here is a piece of news that puts all 
 others into the shade. Yesterday, at Fontainebleau, 
 
 * Echevins, a sort of aldermen. 
 
 t For the details of this malady of 1726 we have consulted: 
 Jobez, La France sous Louis XV, T. 2, p. 300 and sequitur : Saint- 
 Simon, Memoires, T. XVII, p. 259 ; Bevue retrospective, 1886, T, 
 III, p. 253 to 257, etc. 
 
 § Vide Jobez, loc. cit., and particularly: Metz pendant la ma- 
 ladie de Louis XV.
 
 37 
 
 the King was taken with fever, and to-day we 
 learn that it is the small-pox that has declared 
 itself." But the malady followed its usual course 
 and scarcely any mention was made of it. 
 
 In 1744, Louis XV, who had but a few days 
 previously arrived at Metz, where he had come to 
 join the army, was, after a copious repast, seized 
 with a vague indisposition, accompanied by decided 
 febrile symptoms. The physicians were not agreed 
 as to the nature of the malady. Was it a putrid 
 fever or an abscess on the brain? The two 
 hypotheses were in turn discussed without any 
 agreement being come to. Bleeding of the arm 
 was decided upon, to be followed by purgation the 
 next morning, which produced abundant evacuations ; 
 but the head-ache and fever persisted. The phy- 
 sicians then prescribed a bleeding of the foot and 
 another pui'gative, and the same day, the 11th 
 August, at eight in the evening blood-letting is again 
 resorted to. That night and the foUoAving days 
 were marked by profuse perspiration, the pulse is 
 calmer, the head-ache diminishes, and there remains 
 only a pain localized near to the right temple. 
 
 On the 12th the evacuations continue. On the 
 1 3th fever returns more intense ; at seven o'clock a 
 third bleeding of the foot, and toward six in the evening, 
 the fever continuing, a fourth blood-letting is resorted 
 to. The same treatment is continued on the 14th, 
 whilst the bowels are kept open by purgatives. 
 On the same afternoon leeches are applied to the
 
 38 
 
 right temple. At half past ten in the evening the 
 fever increases, and the patient is much agitated. 
 The next morning blisters are applied and in the 
 afternoon a slight amelioration is manifest. 
 
 On the 15th the improvement continues, there is 
 an access of fever, hut much later than its usual 
 hour. The King enters into convalescence on the 
 19th. On the 24:th, he has been able to take 
 two soups, and the following day was able to sit 
 up during four hours. 
 
 Although this illness did not last long, it was 
 marked by symptoms that were none the less 
 alarming. 
 
 The King had, however, sent away his favourite 
 mistress, Madame de Chateauroux. * 
 
 At one moment, the situation had become so 
 threatening that the King, believing himself to be 
 at death's door, had caused his confessor and his 
 almoner to be sent for, and the same day he 
 received the Extreme Unction. The following day 
 the prayers for the dying Avere recited, and the 
 
 * Dismissed on the 14th August 1744, the Duchess of Chateau- 
 roux died on the 8th December following. 
 
 As Chamfort relates: "On the day of the death of Madame de 
 Chateauroux, Louis XV seemed overcome with grief; but ex- 
 traordinary is the expression he made use of to testify it : 'To he 
 ever unhappy for ninety-eight years, for I am convinced that I 
 shall attain to that age!' I heard this," says Chamfort, "told by 
 Madame de Luxembourg, who had herself heard it, and used to add: 
 ' I have not related this until after the death of Louis XV.' " 
 This expression of the King deserves, however, to be known, on 
 account of the strange mixture therein contained of love and of 
 egotism. (Guerlin, loc. cit., 8).
 
 39 
 
 physicians, ^ith La Peyronie at their head, declared 
 that all hope was lost. There was a general 
 explosion of grief thronghoiit the kingdom. 
 
 The post-offices were beset by crowds of people, 
 officials placarded the bulletins on the walls of the 
 Hotel de Ville, or ToAvn-Hall, and at the doors of 
 the jyiinistries. Everywhere masses were being said 
 for the health of the King. The casuel, or mass- 
 money, of the priests attained to a sum hitherto 
 unknown. * Providence alone was now counted upon, 
 when suddenly the news spread that the King had 
 recovered. A quack had succeeded where all the 
 learned doctors had failed. That did not, however, 
 in the least prevent La Peyronie from attributing 
 the glory of this cure entirely to himself. 
 
 To that intent the first physician writes as 
 follows to the Procureur-Greneral (Attorney-G-eneral) 
 of Paris: 
 
 " Since nine o'clock, when I sent a letter by cour- 
 rier to the Count d'Argenson, giving him the details 
 of the night the King had passed, His Majesty's 
 sleep has lasted and still continues; it was inter- 
 rupted only once to take some bouillon, and two 
 cups of tea for the purpose of keeping up a gentle 
 perspiration which commenced about an hour ago. 
 The head is clear and without the least pain, 
 the pulse has nearly returned to its natural con- 
 dition. My assiduity near to the King and the 
 
 * Jobez, loc. cit, T. Ill, p. 381.
 
 40 
 
 sudden departure of the couriers to whom were 
 entrusted the bulletins, has permitted me to sign 
 them all, hut they are none the less true. 
 
 "I profit by the return of Mr. Dufranc to pen 
 these few lines of consolation destined to give life 
 to all the King's subjects. 
 
 " LiPEYRONIE 
 
 ''At Metz, this Wednesday 19 th August, 1744, 
 at noon." 
 
 The post-scriptum bore: "It is one o'clock and 
 the King is still asleep." 
 
 General congratulations were exchanged at , the 
 happy termination of the royal illness. As it was quite 
 sure that the King was out of danger, transparencies 
 showing in letters of fire the surname of Bien-aime 
 (well-beloved) with which a zealous courtier had just 
 thought fit to gratify the sovereign were exhibited. 
 
 The people, in its enthusiasm demanded an expi- 
 atory victim : the Duchess of Chateauroux, the 
 King's mistress, was pitched upon, and rendered 
 responsible for what had happened, and the people in 
 the popular slang idiom of the period, found a ready 
 way to express its feelings: "He recalls his wench," 
 shouts a street arab of the period, " very well then ! 
 if he falls ill again, from us he shall not get a 
 single pater." * 
 
 * De Goncourt, La duchesse de Chateauroux, p. 385, note. 
 By pater is meant a prayer; the people had prayed for his re- 
 covery.
 
 41 
 
 We must now let an interval of thirty years 
 elapse. — Louis XV has grown fat and is almost 
 impotent. 
 
 He continues to folloAv the hounds, hut often 
 falls from his horse, and he is suhject to very 
 frequent fainting fits. 
 
 His dyspepsia torments him more than ever. 
 
 He first of all submitted to a course of Vichy 
 waters, then he changed the hours of his meals, 
 coming down at last to only one meal a day. 
 But his dyspeptic complaint continues all the same. 
 It must also be remembered that the King is no 
 longer a young man, having just attained his sixty- 
 third year, a date which was considered by the 
 medical Faculty of that period as the grand climac- 
 teric so often fatal to aged men. * Notwith- 
 
 * Anecdotes secretes sur la comtesse du Barry, 1775. To com- 
 pare with the following passage of the Nodes Atticae of Aulus 
 Gellius (Edition Panckouke), T. Ill, p. 63 : " It has been remarked, 
 and the experience dates from far back, that to nearly all old 
 men the sixty -third year brings with it some danger or some 
 catastrophe, either a serious malady to the body, or grief to the 
 soul, or death. Therefore those who have given close attention 
 to all that concerns this particularity, have styled this year of 
 life the climateric. The night before last I was reading the 
 Letters of Augusttis to his grand-son Caius and I felt myself 
 carried away by the beauty of a simple and easy style which 
 breathes neither moroseness, nor anxiety. In one of the letters I 
 met with the following allusion to this dread year (I copy this 
 letter textually): 
 
 " ' The ninth day before the Kalends of October. — Greeting, my 
 dear Caius, my gentle friend, to thee whose absence is ever to 
 me a subject of regret; in days such as this present one parti- 
 cularly, my eyes seek everywhere for my Cams : wherever thou 
 mayest be, I hope that thou hast celebrated the sixty-fourth 
 anniversary of my birth. I have, as thou scest, escaped the
 
 42 
 
 stand ing frequent indispositions, he would not alter 
 his manner of living, disregarding the wise counsels 
 of his surgeon La Martiniere who exhorted him not 
 to content himself with "putting the break on," 
 hut unreservedly to "unharness." 
 
 On the 27th April 1774, Louis XV, who had slept 
 the previous night at Trianon, found on awakening 
 that " he was incommoded with head-ache, shivering 
 and lassitude, with pains in the limbs." A hunt 
 had been organized for the afternoon, and he decides 
 to take a part in it, but unable to follow the 
 hounds on horse-back, he has himself driven there 
 in a carriage. Towards half past five he returns 
 to Trianon, where Madame du Barry, who had 
 been informed, arrived in haste to tend him. A 
 few clysters administered to the King gave him no 
 relief. The du Barry, who refuses to believe in 
 the gravity of the symptoms, charges the King's 
 servants with the utmost discretion, still hoping 
 that it is but an indisposition that will soon 
 disappear. 
 
 The following night, the pains, of which the 
 King had complained during the day, reappear, at the 
 same time that he complains also of pains in the loins. 
 
 Le Monnier, first physician in ordinary, is called 
 in, and, without showing himself too afiirmative, 
 
 sixty-third year, the climateric, that usual rock ahead for old 
 men. I know not how long I have yet to live; but I pray the 
 gods so to order that after me thou findest the Republic flourish- 
 ing and worthy to pass into thy hands, which, I trust, will be 
 able to hold the reins with firmness.' "
 
 43 
 
 attributes to the pusillanimity of the King the 
 exaggeration of the sjinptoms of which he complains. 
 The surgeon La Martini5re, sent by the Dauphin, 
 had he some exact inkling of the true state of the 
 case, or was Ms object merely to oppose the views 
 of the favourite? at any rate he decided that the 
 King should be the same day removed to Versailles, 
 without taking the least heed of the protestations 
 of the King's intimate surroiinders. 
 
 At four o'clock the coaches were ready, and the 
 King, Avrapped up in his dressing-gown, is trans- 
 ported to Versailles. It is henceforth the battle 
 of greedy appetites let loose that is to be fought 
 furiously round the bed of the d}dng monarch. 
 
 Le Monnier, who just now was so optimist, seems 
 now more disposed to appeal to the knowledge of 
 his colleagues, and agreeing with La Martiniere, 
 prescribes blood-letting, while waiting for the arrival 
 of Lorry and de Bordeu, who have been hastily 
 convened. The King had named Lorry, at the 
 instigation of the Duke d'Aiguillon, the alter ego 
 of Madame du Barry. As for Bordeu, he is one of 
 the scientific glories of the period ; but he is more 
 particularly the physician of Madame du Barry, Avho 
 has had care of her since her youth, who has seen 
 her at the different epochs of her life; a lettered 
 wit as well as a learned practitioner, who knows hoAv 
 to amuse the royal mistress " Avith his stories and 
 his gaiety, and who possessed more influence than 
 any one over the haughty countess." Bouvardwas
 
 u 
 
 not called in. It was with great difficulty that 
 Lassone, physician to the DaupMne, was allowed to 
 join in consultation, and that because Le Monnier 
 had insisted that his colleague should he admitted 
 to the supreme council. 
 
 The clocks of Versailles have sounded noon. 
 The doctors have all arrived. After examining 
 their august patient, they consult together and 
 sententiously declare that the King is attacked with 
 "catarrhal fever," and that blood-letting, the second 
 since the morning, is indicated. It is decided that 
 it shall take place at half past three, and that, if 
 necessary, a third bleeding should be made during 
 the night or the next day, should the head-ache 
 persist. 
 
 "What, bleed me again," said the King, quite 
 overcome, " am I then dangerously ill ; could not 
 this third bleeding be dispensed with?" The phy- 
 sicians, much troubled by this attitude of the King, 
 hesitated. 
 
 " They were surrounded, interviewed, and it was 
 represented to those who were honest or reputed 
 so to be, how much the King had been affected 
 by the idea of a third bleeding, hoAV severely ill 
 he would consider himself if it was insisted upon . . . 
 to those who were considered less honest, it was 
 shown that a third bleeding would mean the taking 
 of the sacraments, the sending away of Madame du 
 Barry, whom they would henceforward convert ihto
 
 45 
 
 an irreconcileable enemy by ordering it, for no one 
 for an instant doubted but that she would soon 
 return again..." The result of these conflicts of 
 opinion was the adoption of a middle course, the 
 second bleeding- should alone be effected, but it 
 must be copious. 
 
 The King lost the value of about four big 
 pallets of blood, Avhich did not fail to weaken 
 him considerably. But as Ms head-ache did not 
 abate and was quite as violent, he began to apos- 
 trophize the physicians, reproaching them with hiding 
 the truth from him, moaning and lamenting, and 
 clutching with despair to the life he felt fleeing 
 from him. Not' fewer than fourteen physicians, 
 surgeons or apothecaries were around the King. 
 These foiu'teen assistants, in the King's mind, were 
 to form, so to say, a sort of rampart against death 
 which was laying in watch for him. Each in his 
 turn, in order of precedence, approached the bed, 
 the curtains of Avhich Avere put aside so that one 
 person only could have access at the same time, 
 to give his opinion on the condition of the precious 
 patient. Wliile they Avere one by one thus passing 
 through, the King kept his hands covering his 
 eyes, to preserve them from the light which blinded 
 him. He continued to observe the same precaution 
 Avhen the doctors Avere called each in his turn to 
 feel his belly. One of the valets of the bed- 
 chamber Avas specially charged Avith this office: it 
 was his business to direct the rays of a lamp upon
 
 46 
 
 the part that was required to be illumined. This 
 worthy fulfilled his duty mth so much zeal that 
 he was unwittingly the cause of a scene of most 
 exquisite drollery that the Duo de Liancourt 
 ''hereditary grand-master of the Wardrobe" has 
 related as follows: 
 
 " It was required," says the Due de Liancourt, " to 
 administer a clyster to the King. With much 
 difficulty he was brought to the edge of the bed 
 and placed in convenient posture, that is to say, 
 his face buried in a pillow and his posterior in 
 position. The learned Faculty, ranged round the 
 bed, divided into tAvo ranks on either side to leave 
 room for the master apothecary who approached 
 nozzle in hand, followed by an assistant apothecary 
 respectfully carrying the body of the instrument, 
 and by a valet of the bed-chamber carrying a lamp 
 destined naturally to shed a light upon the scene. 
 Master Forgeau (such was the name of the mas- 
 ter-apothecary), placed to advantage, was about to 
 present arms ready to fire, Avhen the valet, seeing 
 that the light he carried too directly illumined the 
 exposed part, and probably supposing that such an 
 effect might be dangerous to the health or the 
 commodity of His Majesty, suddenly snatched a hat 
 from beneath the arm of one of the learned doc- 
 tors and interposed it between the light and the 
 aim of Mr. Forgeau's diligent attention. It would 
 be difficult for me to depict the servile and dis- 
 dainful indignation of the master-apothecary, whose
 
 47 
 
 shot had been so suddenly hindered by this eclipse, 
 the astoundment of the doctors, the indignation of 
 the assistant apothecary and the intense inclination 
 to laugh on the part of the persons assembled, 
 favourably posted to witness the scene" ... * 
 
 The physicians, persisting in their error, thought 
 that the King had an attack of humoral fever. 
 Nevertheless, Bordeu, at Madame du Barry's, and Lorry, 
 at the Duke d'Aiguillon's instigation, had not dissi- 
 mulated their anxiety, and at once "All Versailles" 
 was convinced that the King had a '^ Grand malady. " 
 
 The royal family had gathered together, ready 
 for any contingency. 
 
 As certain reddish spots began to show them- 
 selves, the King was persuaded that he had a 
 "pimpled erysipelas." f Towards ten o'clock, in 
 the evening of the 29th April, a light being by 
 chance brought near to the face of the King, ren- 
 dered evident pustules, skin deep, of the nature 
 of which there could be no longer any possible 
 error. The Cardinal de la Roche-Aymou, Grand 
 Almoner of France and of the Court, was the first 
 charged to inform the King that he was affected 
 with small-pox. The physicians on their side seemed 
 less alarmed. Now that they knew well what ma- 
 lady they had to deal with, they could direct the 
 treatment in accordance. The disease would follow 
 
 * Bevue retrospective, 2e semestre. 1885, p. 19—20. 
 t Coirespondanee entre Marie- Therese et Mercy- Argenteau, T. 
 II. p. 144.
 
 48 
 
 its normal course, and unless any complications su- 
 pervened, all would go well. No doubt, the King 
 was aged, and at the very first he said to those 
 about him: "At my age, one does not recover 
 from that disease." But have there not been ex- 
 amples of people aged sixty and even seventy years 
 who have been cured of small-pox? Almost every 
 one round about the King went repeating: "All 
 is going well; it is but a matter of nine days 
 and of a little patience." But when somebody 
 said to Dr. Bordeu : " Listen to these gentlemen 
 who seem to be charmed because the King has got 
 the small-pox ! " — " Sblood ! " said Bordeu, " they have 
 probably something to inherit from Mm. The small- 
 pox at the age of sixty-four, with a body such as 
 that of the King, is a terrible malady ! " * 
 
 How was it, that Louis XY, who had already 
 been attacked by small-pox in 1728, happened to 
 have it again? Wliere had he caught the germs 
 of the infection? This, it may not be out of place 
 to elucidate. One of the most common versions is 
 that, related by Voltaire in a pamphlet entitled: 
 Louis XV and fatality. According to this histo- 
 rian, Louis XV, out hunting, had encountered the 
 funeral of a young girl, and asking Avhat had been 
 the cause of her death, he Avas told that it was 
 small-pox. This made a great effect upon the King's 
 mind, who was as superstitious as he was pusilla- 
 
 * Bevue retrospective, loc. cit., 25.
 
 49 
 
 nimous, * and he then incubated the malady to 
 wliich he was destined to succumb. Voltaire adds 
 that Bourdot, the King's dentist, visiting the royal 
 mouth, had recognized, by the a[)pearance of the 
 gums, the premonitory symptoms of a serious malady, 
 and connnunicated his apprehensions to one of the 
 Ministers of State. 
 
 According to other authors, the death of the 
 King had a less noble cause. " In the last days of 
 April, " relates the Abbe Baudeau, " the King was 
 at Trianon with Madame du Barry. While walking 
 out together they met with a little female cow-keeper, 
 cutting grass for her cows. They found that she 
 had pretty eyes, and taking her along with them 
 they have her washed and her hair dressed, and 
 then decide that she would be altogether charming 
 if she were but dressed like a fine lady. ' Well ! 
 let us dress her.' And at once we have our little 
 peasant-girl decked out like a grand lady, with 
 rouge on her cheeks and patches. She is truly 
 charming! 'She must sup with us, her embarrass- 
 ment will amuse us.' The supper is served, they 
 laugh and get tipsy. The little peasant-girl is put 
 into a bath and then to bed, and ... At this 
 very moment her brother was dying of the smallpox. 
 She caught it tlie next day and died of it, they say, 
 the following Saturday. Such is the legend or liistory. " 
 
 The same story is told, with some slight varia- 
 tions by Pidansat de Mairobert. 
 
 * Vide, Memoires de Madame de Hausset. 
 
 4
 
 50 
 
 According to him, "it had been settled to go 
 to Trianon, where the place itself inspired greater 
 freedom and less constraint of etiquette. It was 
 there observed that the King had seen with admi- 
 ration and desire the little daughter of a carpenter. 
 This cliild was fetched, washed and perfumed, and 
 put to bed with this royal wanton. The dish would 
 have been very indigestible to him if he had not 
 
 been aided by violent strengtheners it was not 
 
 then known that she already had the germs of 
 small-pox, w^hich did not fail to develop itself in 
 the most cruel manner for her, poor girl, who 
 shortly died of it, and for the old King, to whom 
 the venom had been communicated, and Avho, fi'om 
 the following morning began to feel its effects." * 
 
 Soulavie, in his turn, says: "The King, this 
 time, gave liimself up to a little girl who pleased 
 him, and Avho had but a few hours before con- 
 tracted the small-pox; she inoculated it for the 
 second time into the blood of the prince who had 
 a:lready had it in his youth. The King on liis 
 part communicated to her the badly cured evil 
 which Avas slowly destroying him for many years 
 and which had resisted all the possible remedies 
 opposed to it." An indiscreet chronicler reminds 
 us in this connection of Avhat Saint-Simon said of 
 the Due de Duras, during the campaign in Flanders. 
 " He died of the small-pox and of a host of others. " 
 
 * Vatel, Madame du Barry; G. d'Heilly, Maladie et mort de 
 Louis XV; Chronique de VCEil de Bceuf, T. VIII, etc.
 
 51 
 
 **'// n''y a r'ten de 2'>etlt chez les grands," said 
 the superior of the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, Le 
 Gallict, and it cost liim his place. 
 
 As we have seen, some spoke of a peasant-girl 
 as tlie medium of contagion, others of a young girl, 
 without furtlier indication. In truth, all these can 
 be but of very questiona])le authenticity. Nor is 
 there the least reason to suppose that Madame du 
 Barry would ever have consented to j^rocure to 
 the King the daughter of the Trianon gardener, 
 or of Louveciennes,* or the daughter of her 
 manager and secretary Montvallier, as Metra asserts, 
 or lastly the daughter of a Versailles baker, t 
 Everythiu'g tends to show that the cause of the 
 evil was much more natural. Already several cases 
 of small-pox had been noted in Versailles and its 
 environs, when Louis XV caught the malady in 
 liis turn. The Countess of Provence had been 
 attacked by it, a few days only after her marriage, 
 and the Spanish ambassador had died of it. 
 
 More than fifty people caught the disease from 
 simply passing through the Galerie de Versailles, 
 of whom ten died. 
 
 Monsieur de Letorieres died after having only 
 half opened the King's bed-chamber, so as to see 
 him for a couple of minutes. § 
 
 * Conite d'Hezecques, Souvenirs d'un jjf^fj^i V- 108- 
 t A fourth version indicated the daughter of a miller. Mr. 
 Vatel, who lias made conscientious researches in the mortuary 
 registers of Versailles and of Louveciennes found nothing to 
 confirm these legends. 
 § Memoires de Madame Campan, 1858, p. 85.
 
 OZ 
 
 The physicians, taking the greatest precautions to 
 preserve themselves, had prescribed the keeping 
 away of every person not connected with the 
 King's service. The Princesses Sophie, Adelaide 
 and Yictoire alone remained to tend their father. 
 
 On the morning of the 30th April, the physi- 
 cians, met in consultation, had prescribed the applica- 
 tion of blisters to the patient. At the same hour 
 the first health bulletin of the monarch was 
 placarded at the Hotel de Ville (Town -Hall), and 
 at the Office of the Governor of Paris. The editor 
 Hardy, * in a manuscript relation, has left us the 
 most circumstantial details concerning the King's 
 last illness, for the most part unpublished. From 
 the very first, the malady of Louis XV had 
 presented a character of extreme malignity. The 
 depression of the patient w^as such, that he who 
 generally was so extremely impressionable, seemed 
 to be hardly conscious of being dangerously ill. 
 
 Nevertheless, the doctors ill dissimulated, beneath 
 an ordered optimism, their anxiety and discourage- 
 ment. The first health bulletin of the ICing, dated 
 30th April, 7.45 a.m., says that "His Majesty 
 had passed a restless night, that small-pox had 
 shown itself late in the previous evening, that the 
 eruption followed its course, that there Avas only 
 the concomitant amount of fever that might be 
 expected, that blisters would be applied, and that 
 
 * This journal, entitled : Mes loisirs ou evenements de ma vie 
 is preserved at tlie Bibl. Nat'e, Paris, M.S. Fonds fran9ais, 6681.
 
 53 
 
 all things considered the King was as well as he 
 could be in his present condition." 
 
 The public was not otherwise affected. The 
 situation Avas most serious. But matters had 
 singularly changed. Thirty years before, when Louis 
 XIV fell ill in Metz, it Avould have been easy to find 
 in the capital a thousand men ready to sacrifice 
 their lives in order to save that of their sovereign. 
 But now it was quite diflferent. Nobody was seen 
 to run, to stop, to enquire after the royal health. 
 Things went on calmly and tranquilly, and every 
 one appeared to be satisfied and content. * A fact 
 Avhich may be taken as very significative is related by 
 a church dignitary, a canon of the Cathedral of Paris, 
 who said that in 1744, when Louis XIV was taken ill 
 in Metz, six hundred masses had been ordered and paid, 
 for the recovery of the King's health ; and in 1757, 
 after the attempt on the life of the King by Damiens, 
 also six hundred, but on the present occasion only three. 
 
 In the absence of spontaneous manifestations, 
 there were some official ones. At a quarter past 
 eight in the evening the great bells of Notre Dame 
 rang a solemn peal ; the vicar of Sainte-G-enevieve 
 had the shrine of the saint exposed, conuuencing 
 with the feet, as ordained by the ritual. At the 
 same time the French and Italian comedians announced 
 to the public, after the first act, that "by order" 
 the performance would cease and that the money 
 would be returned at the doors. 
 
 * Memoirs of the Due de Liancourt.
 
 54 
 
 On the morning of Sundaj^, the 1st of May, the 
 news was not in the least encouraging. " The night 
 had been bad," said the bulletin, "but His Majesty 
 had been slightly more tranquil." The evening's bul- 
 letins said that " the blisters applied the previous 
 day to the legs had not acted, and that the fever 
 was still very high." 
 
 The news had been spread about that the princes 
 and princesses of the royal family had retired 
 to their residence at Meudon, to await events, al- 
 though in truth they had not quitted Versailles; 
 but they were every instant expecting a fatal issue. 
 
 At seven in the evening, "the eruption had 
 progressed, particularly on the body and members. 
 The pustules are bigger, but the fever has dimi- 
 nished; there is less drowsiness, and the urines 
 are satisfactory in quantity and quality." As if 
 it much interested the public in general to knoAV 
 anything whatever about the " quantity and qua- 
 lity," of the royal urines! It cared just as much 
 about that as it did about the "forty hours pray- 
 ers," and the exliibition of the Holy Sacrament, 
 that the Archbishop of Paris, Christopher de Beau- 
 mont, had ordered to be prepared in all the paro- 
 chial churches of Paris and its suburbs. It was 
 known that the prelate had that same day gone 
 to Versailles, and that not only he had not been 
 admitted, but that the Duke of Kichelieu had left 
 him waiting in an antechamber. Another version 
 circulated, equally mortifying to the pride of the
 
 55 
 
 archbishop, according to which Christopher de Beau- 
 mont had indeed been admitted into the royal 
 hed-chamher, but the King- had merely said to 
 liim : '' My lord archbishop, I have heard that you 
 Avere suffering from colic, I trust you will get 
 relief." * The fact was that the archbishop had 
 been persuaded to pay only a visit of politeness 
 to the King and to be careful not to allude to 
 the sacraments, so as not to frighten him. 
 
 This Avas a triumph for the du Barry faction. 
 But those w^ho conspired for the overthrow of the 
 favourite did not give themselves up for beaten. A 
 large number of bishops, virtuously indignant at 
 the scandal, called upon the grand almoner, the 
 Cardinal de la Koche-Aymon, to Avhom they firmly 
 represented that he ought to employ his influence 
 to obtain from tlie King a retractation of his faults, 
 the dismissal of the favourite and the fulfilment of 
 his religious duties. The wily cardinal managed 
 his game so as to spare all susceptibilities : Avhen he 
 visited the King, which he did two or three times 
 a day, he took care often to address him in subdued 
 tones, so that no one else could overhear him, by 
 which means he could interpret his conversation as 
 he liked so as to satisfy every one. f 
 
 The King became worse and worse, but the 
 
 * The Archbishop of Paris was suffering from stone in the 
 bladder. The previous Saturday he had passed blood and two 
 large calculi. His colics were no doubt nephritic. 
 
 Mem. secrets, T. VII, p. 170. 
 
 t D'Heilly, Morts royales (royal deaths), p. 103.
 
 56 
 
 bulletins continued to be encouraging. The King's 
 want of sleep was scarcely even admitted: 
 
 "" Tuesday, 3rd May, 8 a.m. — The fever has 
 hut little increased during the night; as long as 
 it persisted, the shin preserved its moisture. His 
 Majesty did not sleep, hy reason of inopportune 
 itchings of the nose and chin, the p^^^stides are 
 well developed all over the hody, and the earliest 
 seem favourably disposed for suppuration. The 
 urines are satisfactory and the Misters continue to 
 have good effect." 
 
 The first bulletin of the 4th May, date 5 a.m., 
 announces no aggravation: 
 
 " The night has been as good as might be ex- 
 pected, but ivitliout sleep. The King could not 
 sleep because his eyes pained Mm. He has been 
 restless and there has been a slight increase of 
 fever, hit tvhich has now fallen. His Majesty 
 cannot be better under present circumstances. So 
 much for the otli day of the malady. The urines 
 are clear and run freely.'' 
 
 The King, in the evening, having expressed the 
 wish to see his mistress for the last time, his valet- 
 de-chambre Laborde, introduced Madame du Barry to 
 the bed-side of the dying monarch, who, although 
 greatly broken down, had still enough strength to 
 press her hands, expressing at the same time his 
 regret to be forced to quit her. ^ " Madam, " said 
 he, in an almost extinct voice, "I am very ill; I 
 
 * Soulavic, 3Iein. hisi. ct }wUt. du regne de Louis XF, T. II.
 
 57 
 
 know what remains for me to do. But I will not 
 have tlie scene of Metz done over again. Go to 
 Rueil, to the Duke d'Aiguillon and there await 
 my orders, hut he always assured of my affection. " 
 The courtesan left the royal presence trembling: 
 her dismissal had heen signified to her. 
 
 From that moment the malady continued to get 
 worse; outside, the text of the bulletins Avas not 
 much modified. ''^• 
 
 It Avas, hoAvever, decided to appeal once again to 
 the saintly patroness of the city of Paris, Saint 
 Genevieve. 
 
 On the 4th of May, toAvards eleven o'clock p.m. 
 the shrine of the Saint is entirely exposed, and the 
 folloAving morning a novena is commenced for the 
 recovery of the King.f All the municipality assisted 
 at the grand mass celebrated at Sainte-Genevieve. 
 During the ceremony, the members of the six 
 merchant corporations of Paris distributed printed 
 iuAitations for a solemn mass Avhich they proposed 
 to have celebrated the folloAving day. f NotAvith- 
 
 * The bulletin of the 4th May was as follows : " The suppura- 
 tion, which seemed to have stopped for some hours, has recom- 
 menced and seems this evening sensibly to progress. His Majesty 
 is very tranquil and has had a little sleep this afternoon. The 
 ventral and urinal evacuations are satisfactory, the pulse continues 
 quiet, and there is no symptom of exacerbation. The suppuration 
 gains the entire body and seems to attack the extremities: its 
 progress is not rapid; the fever has not increased; there has 
 been some sleep; the urinal evacuations have been satisfactory 
 and the blisters have rendered much matter." 
 
 t The monks, in order to more greatly excite the curiosity of 
 the public, as appears in the Memoires secrets, T. VII, p. 170, had 
 established a sort of dark chamber, in which they exposed the
 
 58 
 
 standing all these ofBcial demonstrations, the general 
 public remained absolutely indifferent. The theatres 
 were closed but people contrived to amuse themselves 
 elsewhere. The police gave orders that no musicians 
 should be received in any wine-shops or eating-houses. 
 But all these measures were not likely to reanimate 
 popular sympathy. The bulletins were eagerly read, 
 but in the secret hope that the long wished-for 
 end would not have to be much longer Avaited for. 
 
 While Paris remained indifferent, the fever of 
 intrigue ran high. The Due de Fronsac, one of 
 the sworn friends of Madame du Barry, went so far 
 as to threaten to throw the cure (parish priest) of 
 Yersailles out of window if he ventured to hint, at 
 confession, at the viaticum or supreme unction. 
 
 But on Saturday the 7th, at 3 a.m., the King 
 was so weak that he insisted upon seeing his con- 
 fessor, the Abbe Mardoux, and he had to ask three 
 times for him and at last to get angry until he 
 was fetched. The confession was soon over, a quarter 
 of an hour at the outside. 
 
 shrine, so as to give greater relief to the gems that adorned it. 
 Duriug the entire day, according to Hardy, crowds flocked to 
 Saint Geneneve, some going alone, others with the clergy of 
 their parish. Hardy, regular Parisian wanderer that he was, had 
 joined the clergy of the Parish of Saint Andre-des-Arts. Having 
 i>een clever enough to place himself immediately behind a friend 
 of his and managed in this manner he contrived to approach the vene- 
 rated shrine, which seemed to hira to be extremely rich in pre- 
 cious stones. He saw that it was carefully guarded by the first 
 and principal magistrates of the Chatelet, in scarlet robes, by 
 the Lieutenant civil, or civil attorney-general, the Lieutenant 
 cr:;:i:nel or criminal attorney-general, and a guard of soldiers.
 
 59 
 
 As the Butes of La Vrilli^re and d'Aiguillon 
 wanted to delay the administration of the last 
 sacraments, Dr. La Martiniere said to the King: 
 "I have seen Your Majestj^ in very interesting 
 circumstances, but I have never admired you as I 
 do to-day; if Your Majesty will believe me, you 
 will finish at once that which you have so well 
 begun." 
 
 The viaticum was administered to him the same 
 morning at seven o'clock, but he was already so weak 
 that it was with difficulty that he could take the 
 comnumion. The disease had entered the critical 
 phase. The bulletins, hourly more alarming, were 
 placarded throughout the capital. The royal family 
 was in consternation. 
 
 On Monday the 9tli May the agony commenced. 
 The body of the King was falling to pieces, in a 
 state of living putrescence, and the smell was 
 horribly fetid. On Tuesday the 10th May, 1774, 
 at 3.20 p.m. Louis XV had ceased to suffer. 
 
 The King having died of a contagious disease, 
 it was necessary, for the general interest, to suppress 
 all the formalities usually observed, at royal fune- 
 rals. As an English Magazine of the period 
 remarked, "Louis XV would have to be buried 
 privately," that is to say as a private individual. * 
 
 It Avas at one moment thought of embalming 
 his body. The first gentleman of the chamber, 
 the Duke of Villequier, had ordered the surgeon 
 
 * Gentlema7i's Magazine, 1774.
 
 Andoiiille to open the body of Louis XV and to 
 embalm it. But the surgeon immediately replied: 
 "I am ready, but you will hold the head while I 
 operate, your office commands you so to do." The 
 Duke did not insist. 
 
 A void was soon made around the royal corpse. 
 Excepting those Avhom the duties of their office 
 retained in the palace, all the others had fled. 
 
 One horn* after the King's death his valet 
 Laborde had put him on a clean shirt. In a very 
 short space of time, the body had become as white 
 as the shirt ; no trace of small-pox remained " because 
 there was regression of all to the interior." 
 
 The corpse Avas placed in a leaden coffin lined 
 with a cement formed of lime, vinegar and cam- 
 phorated spirits of Avine, which Avas immediately 
 soldered doAvn and enclosed in a double oaken 
 coffin. * " BetAveen the tAvo coffins Avas a layer of 
 bran. As the body Avas being removed along the 
 avenues at Versailles, the people shouted " Tally ho. 
 Tally ho ! " And Avhen it arrived at Saint-Denis the C17 
 Avas : " Here is ladies' pleasure, ladies' pleasure ! " f 
 
 The death of the King of course provoked a 
 number of satirical epitaphs ;§ Ave Avill cite a feAV 
 to give the general tone. 
 
 * Journal de Hardy, loc. cit., p. 537. 
 
 t A cry heard to this daj' in the streets of Paris, proffered by 
 the vendors of certain wafer-cakes thus designated. (Transl.) 
 
 § Sophie Arnould in alluding to the death of the King and 
 the dismissal of Madame du Barry, said: " Now we are orphans of 
 father and mother.'
 
 61 
 
 Let us begin by one of the least malicious: 
 I. 
 
 Louis " Woll-IJoluvod" lies here interred, 
 He was the second, — as we have heard,— 
 Who boro that name,— Save us from a third. 
 
 The following are three others rather more bitter, 
 of wliich we give only the general sense: 
 
 II. 
 
 Here lies the beloved Bourbon King, 
 ISot a bad looking- monarch in his day; 
 All the money his corn did bring- 
 Over the coals he paid away. 
 
 Lewd jokes and jests he had heard in scores, 
 He liked to drink deep, and he filled his station 
 To the great satisfaction of huntsmen and whores ! 
 Let that be his funeral oration. 
 
 Louis has ended his career. 
 And fulfilled his destiny, good or bad. 
 Fly, oh thieves, and whores drop a tear! 
 You have lost the best father you ever had. 
 
 The blessings of his reign are pretty well summed 
 up in the following epigram: 
 
 III. 
 
 Here lies the King of a mighty State, 
 Who, very soon after he entered life's gate. 
 Caused paper for gold to circulate. 
 Woes increased as his fame grew great. 
 Famine came at a later date 
 
 The ranks of his people to devastate ; 
 
 And, ere he drew nigh to his well-earned fate, 
 
 Plague rendered the nation desolate. 
 
 Pray for this King so noble and great I
 
 62 
 
 But here is the final bouquet, which we render 
 as closely as propriety permits: 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thanks to the P the King's course is run 
 
 And Louis XV lies on his bier. 
 
 lu ten days only the " small " has done 
 
 What the " great" could not in many a year. * 
 
 * That the French scholar may better appreciate the satire 
 of these lines we give the original. 
 
 I. 
 
 Cy-gist Louis le quinzieme, 
 
 Du nom de Bien-Aime le deuxieme. 
 
 Dieu nous prt^serve du troisierne! 
 
 II. 
 
 Cit-git le bien-aime Bourbon, 
 Monarque d'assez bonne mine, 
 Et qui paye sur le charbon 
 Ce qu'il gagnait sur la farine. 
 Ami des propos libertins, 
 Buveur fameux et roi c(5lebre, 
 Par la chasse et par les catins : 
 Voila ton oraison funebre! 
 Louis termina sa carriere 
 Et remplit ses nobles destins; 
 Puyez, voleurs; pleurez, catins, 
 Vous avez perdu votre pere. 
 
 III. 
 
 Cy-gist un roi tout-puissant. 
 D'abord a son peuple, en naissant, 
 II donna papier pour argent, 
 Plus d'une pierre en grandissant, 
 Puis la famine en vieillissant, 
 Puis enfin la pcste en mourant; 
 Priez pour ce roi bienfaisant! 
 
 IV. 
 
 La V par un bienfait. 
 
 A mis Louis XV en terre. 
 
 En dix jours la petite a fait 
 
 Ce que, pendant vingt ans, la grosse n'a pu faire.
 
 THE 
 SEMI-IMPOTENCY 
 
 OP 
 
 LOUIS xvr.
 
 " To play at which game, I am sure 
 it is clear, 
 Three Kings are no match for one 
 muleteer." 
 
 La FoNTAIiNE.
 
 THE SEMI-IMPOTENCY OF LOUIS XVI. 
 
 Whex Loiiis XYI was still but Dauphin and only 
 sixteen years old, he was luarried to the young 
 Archduchess of Austria, the daughter of the Empress 
 Maria-Theresa. Until then Ms natural timidity, as 
 well as his lymphatic temperament had preserved 
 him from all the snares that had been prepared 
 for his inexperience in the Coui't as pompous as it 
 was dissipated of Louis XV. He had never felt 
 any inclination for gallantry. Respectfully polite 
 towards women, he was careful not to go beyond 
 the bounds imposed upon him by his dehcate con- 
 stitution, more so even than by the serious educa- 
 tion he had received. If later on he acquired more 
 robust health, in his youth he had been of rather 
 delicate complexion. It was thanks to violent bodily 
 exercise, to which he was early addicted, that he 
 developed his muscular force. 
 
 Louis XVI was indeed a passionate lover of the 
 chase. Stag, or falcon or wild-boar, it was all 
 the same to Mm, and he gloried in bringing down 
 the greatest number of heads of game. In fact, 
 for the chase he would neglect the most important 
 
 65 5
 
 66 
 
 affairs, those of the State as well as his marital 
 duties. 
 
 And yet, if he ever was in love with a woman, 
 it was undoubtedly with his own wife, Marie- 
 Antoinette. How then explain the coldness he 
 manifested towards her ? Married in the month of 
 May 1770, already in the following August, after 
 a slight indisposition, he had his bed apart ! Among 
 the familiars of the Court this indifference was 
 ascribed to a physical weakness. '" "^ There is no 
 cause for uneasiness on that score, " writes to Maria- 
 Theresa her faithful ambassador, Mercy- Argenteau, 
 who was charged to observe the slightest doings 
 of the young couple at the Court of France; 
 " nature, tardy with the Dauphin, does not yet act 
 upon him, probably because his constitution has 
 been enfeebled by a sudden too rapid growth ..." 
 But at Court, people whisper, " He belongs, however, 
 to the Bourbons, and he will prove it like the 
 others, when he gets to be forty years old, and is 
 tired of the Queen." In the meantime the Dauphin 
 
 * This indifference of Louis XVI to the Queen had been attri- 
 buted to the fact of her hair being red. It is well-known that 
 Madame du Barry always called her Za^9e<('<e row.s'se (little carrots). 
 But if it were true that Louis XVI had any such aversion to his 
 wife, could he not have gone elsewhere? But it is averred by 
 all the memoirs of the period, that all women in general were 
 equally indifferent to him. He seldom deigned even to look at 
 them. It was quite an event, when one day at Choisy, in 
 October 1774, he went so far as to salute gracefully enough the 
 ladies around. It was then that the Queen exclaimed : " You must 
 admit, ladies, that for a child badly brought up the King has just 
 saluted you with very good grace." {Vide Arneth, Madame Cam- 
 pan, etc.)
 
 67 
 
 continues to hunt, to give liimself frequent indiges- 
 tions, and l)ctween times to give himself up to 
 joiner's and locksmith's work. 
 
 Nevertheless Louis XV, who notwithstanding his 
 advanced age, was still a keen amateur of the fair 
 sex, * could not avoid expressing his astonishment 
 that a prince, of his own blood, should be of such 
 unaccountable placidity. 
 
 He opened out on the subject one day to his 
 grand-son, who to his pressing questions replied, 
 * that he found the archduchess charming, that he 
 liked her, but that he required a little more time 
 to conquer his timidity." 
 
 It is now Maria-Theresa who in her turn is 
 troubled at the extraordinary reticence of her son- 
 in-law towards her daughter. 
 
 Already at the commencement of May 1771, no 
 doubt in answer to Marie-Antoinette, expressing 
 lier anxiety, she writes : " I am most eager to hear 
 the news. But I cannot sufficiently repeat to you : 
 to 'show no ill-humour about that; gentleness and 
 patience are the only means you should apply. 
 Nothing is lost as yet, you are both so young! 
 On the contrary, it is all the better for your healths : 
 you will both of you become stronger." f 
 
 Under date of 9th June, similar recommendations : 
 "Do not despair, hope in God, all will be well." 
 
 * Trousseur de jupons ! 
 
 f- Correspondance de Marie-Thcrhse et de Marie-Antoinette, 
 puWished by Alfred Kitter von Arneth, Vienna, 1865, p. 22.
 
 68 
 
 But on the 22nd of the same month, the Dauphin, 
 having given again way to his greedy appetite, has 
 been ill again and obliged to sleep alone. 
 
 Marie-Antoinette immediately writes, to her mo- 
 ther : " My dear husband has taken physic to-day, 
 having had an indigestion; he has vomited a great 
 deal, but is much better at present, and has pro- 
 mised me that he will not long delay in returning 
 to the nuptial couch." 
 
 On the 23rd September, one of the royal prin- 
 cesses, the Duchess of Chartres, Avas confined of a 
 still-born child. At the news of it the Dauphiness 
 exclaimed : " Although it must be terrible, would 
 that it were my lot; but as yet there is no 
 ai3pearance." 
 
 The discouragement, the humiliation and also the 
 apprehension of seeing the line of a venerable 
 monarchy die out with her, all these feelings can 
 be divined in the above phrase of the daughter of 
 the haughty Maria-Theresa. But how could she 
 without going against every sentiment of propriety 
 complain openly to her husband ? She was bold 
 enough to do so, however, Avhen she heard that the 
 wife of her brother Ferdinand was in the family- 
 way. She desires to follow her example : " I do 
 not think that I have acted wrongly," she writes 
 to the Empress on the 15th November, "in obeying 
 my first movement which made me tell the Dauphin 
 this little secret. I did not do so in terms of re- 
 proach; but he was nevertheless rather embarrassed.
 
 69 
 
 I have always good hope: lie is very fond of me, 
 he does tvliatever I uish and iviU finish all ivhen 
 he shall he less emharmssed." * 
 
 This time, there is no need to read between the 
 lines. It is to guess at the nature of the obstacle 
 that had liitherto hindered the consummation of the 
 marital act. But Avliy endeavour to solve an enigma 
 that the interested parties have been themselves 
 careful to decipher, in terms the clearness of which 
 is almost blinding? At every instant we find in 
 the Coryespondence of Maria- Theresa irifh her 
 daughter, the same recommendations, the same 
 reproaches. The Dauphiness does not exert herself 
 enough, she is too awkAvard, she does i.ot knoAV 
 hoAV to shake off the indifference of her royal spouse. 
 
 In June 1773, Maria-Theresa writes to her 
 Ambassador Mercy : " I have reminded my daughter 
 concerning the Dauphin : the situation is incompre- 
 hensible, and I am greatly astonished things are 
 allowed to go on in that manner without any 
 attention being paid to them." 
 
 Hope springs up again when the Empress is 
 informed by the papers that her daughter is enceinte. 
 But it is only a false report immediately contra- 
 dicted by the Dauphiness. " The Gazettes are not 
 yet right, " says Marie-Antoinette in a letter, dated 
 the 15th December 1772, "but I do not despair 
 of its happening to me shortly . . . certainly, the 
 instant it occurs, I shall not delay a minute to 
 
 * Combes, Episodes et Curiosites revolutionnaires, p. 39.
 
 70 
 
 inform you. " She consoles herself with the thought 
 that her children will be all the stronger for having 
 taken more time to come. 
 
 In 1773, there was a great event at Court. 
 During a performance of the Italian Comedy, the 
 Pauphin and his young wife Avere said to have 
 been seen kissing each other ! It was hut an optical 
 illusion on the part of an over-zealous courtier. 
 
 On the 3rd of January 1774 Maria-Theresa writes 
 to announce to her representative in France that the 
 Emperor Joseph II will shortly arrive in Paris. 
 She trusts that he will know how to induce the 
 youthful sovereign* to show himself egual to the 
 circumstances: "The coldness of the Dauphin, a 
 young husband of twenty years," she writes to 
 Mercy, " in presence of a lovely princess, is to me 
 inconceivable. Notwithstanding all the assertions 
 of the Faculty, my suspicions augment regarding 
 the bodily constitution of this prince, and I count 
 now upon nothing less than upon the influence of 
 the Emperor who, on his arrival at Versailles, may 
 perhaps find a way to induce this indolent husband 
 to acquit himself better of his duty." 
 
 But the journey of Joseph II was not destined 
 to take place until three years later, and up to 
 that time Maria-Theresa must have frequently had 
 occasion to come back again to a subject which 
 she had at heart. . . 
 
 * Louis XV had just died and the Dauphin had mounted the 
 throne as Louis XVI,
 
 71 
 
 The young couple mounted the throne without 
 any notable change having taken place. 
 
 In the month of September 1774, the Queen, 
 it is true, was seized with vomiting, nausea, etc., 
 but it was a simple gastric disturbance. In Decem- 
 ber of the same year, after a long conference that 
 took place between Louis XYI and his physician, 
 the Queen appears much satisfied with his " ten- 
 dencies", and firmly believes that she will not 
 long fail to follow the example of the Countess of 
 Artois, who was enceinte. But the Queen had the 
 vexation to see her sister-in-law confined, without 
 having even the consolation of openly expressing 
 all the annoyance it caused her. The custom was 
 that all the royal family should assist at the con- 
 finement of the princesses. The Queen Avas obliged 
 to conform to it and to remain a whole day in the 
 chamber of the confined lady. When she came 
 away, the fish-wives present, " who had arrogated 
 to themselves the right to address the sovereigns 
 iu their ridiculous and coarse language, followed 
 her to the verj^ door of her apartments, vociferating 
 in vile obscene language, that it was for her to 
 give birth to heirs." * 
 
 On coming back to her apartments, the Queen 
 burst into tears, and then took pen in hand to 
 relate the affair to her usual confidante. More 
 troubled than she wished to appear, Maria-Theresa 
 
 * Memoires de Madame Cam^an, T. I, p. 146.
 
 72 
 
 hastened to comfort her daughter.* "I admit," 
 she says, "that this happy accouchement of your 
 sister-in-law, the Countess of Artois, has somewhat 
 troubled my heart. But, nevertheless, a succession 
 in the family itself is always to he desired and 
 preferred. It is a long time since I have heard 
 at all from you on this important chapter, and 
 more particularly so to you." To this Marie - 
 Antoinette replied: ''With regard to the important 
 subject which disquiets the tender affection of my 
 dear Mamma, I am grieved to be unable to com- 
 municate anything. The noncJialance is certainly 
 not on my side. I feel more than ever how inter- 
 esting is this article for my future; but my dear 
 Mamma must see that my situation is embarrassing, 
 and that I have no other means than patience and 
 gentleness. " 
 
 Public opinion, in its turn, began now to trouble 
 itself about what could not be considered less than 
 abnormal. 
 
 Many indeed did not hesitate to openly impute 
 impotency to the youthful successor of Louis XV. 
 
 In the antechambers of Versailles the following 
 
 biting couplets circulated from hand to hand, of 
 
 which we give hereby a rough translation: 
 
 " Maurepas returns triumphant, f 
 TliaVs wJiat it is to he impotent; 
 The King said, him embracing, 
 
 * Correspondance de Marie-TMrese et de Marie- Antoinette (31 
 August 1775). 
 t The prime minister.
 
 73 
 
 Those who are together so resembling 
 Must together be residing 
 Morals good must reign at present, 
 That's ivJiat it is to he impotent.^ 
 
 Here is another: 
 
 • Maurepas was impotent, 
 The King made him omnipotent ; 
 The grateful minister said. Sire, 
 All that I can possibly desire 
 Is the same to do for you." * 
 
 The Memoires secrets, to which we must always 
 turn to get the satirical note of the day, brutally 
 indicate the cause of the genetic frigidity of the 
 monarch. At the date of 4th November 1775, 
 we note the following passage: "It is again 
 rumoured that the King, grieved at having no 
 children and having consulted the Faculty on the 
 subject, has been thereby advised to undergo the 
 befitting operation, that is to say, in technical 
 terms, to . have his string cut. It is hoped that 
 with this slight assistance nothing will further 
 impede natiu'e, and that oiu- sovereign and his 
 august partner will become perfectly happy and 
 give us the desired posterity." 
 
 Four days later we read in the same: "It is 
 asserted that everytliing was ready for performing 
 on the King the slight operation too long put off, 
 but that His Majesty at sight of the instrument, 
 desired to delay it until after his return to Ver- 
 
 * Metra's Corresjpondance, T. I, p. 4.
 
 74 
 
 sallies ; on the same day lie went out hunting, and 
 ran down foui' boars; which shoAvs and proves how 
 much Ms constitution has become fortified and con- 
 solidated. " 
 
 The writer then becomes more expressive, in the 
 folloAving- passage wliich we do not hesitate to 
 transcribe, begging* to be excused if we offend 
 certain easily-alarmed pudicities. 
 
 "28 Nov. nib — Upon hearing the report 
 lately circulated that the King had submitted to 
 the slight operation spoken of, but useful in order 
 to render Mm more apt for procreation, a poet 
 became enthusiastic and gave birth to the following 
 quatrain, in AvMch, taking that too great liberty 
 and familiarity that these gentry sometimes arrogate 
 to themselves, he exhales Ms prayer, that the results 
 of tMs sacrifice may be propitious." (We can give 
 tMs quatrain in the French text only. Edit.) 
 
 " D'un Priape de consequence 
 On vient de couper le filet, 
 Decalottez, chef de la France, 
 Mais b.... avant, s'il vons plait." * 
 
 It is therefore evident that at Court as also 
 among the public, the true motive of the infecun- 
 dity of the royal household was well knoAvn. But 
 he, who was treated by Marie- Antoinette as *a 
 poor fellow," refused either from fear or shame to 
 have at last the charm undone wMch hindered Mm 
 from consummating marriage. The young Queen 
 
 * Memoires secrets, XXXIII. London, 1788, p. 350.
 
 75 
 
 was naturally much distressed thereat, and she 
 could not be reasonably blamed if she sought for 
 diversion elsewhere. 
 
 In 1776 the Countess of Artois was again enceinte. 
 This new pregnancy of her sister-in-law was po- 
 sitively heart-breaking. " Thanks for your good 
 wishes, Madam my dear mother," she wrote to the 
 Empress ; " but I am distanced here as at Naples and 
 as at Parma. The Countess of Artois is in her seventh 
 month of pregnancy. I am in the hands of God, 
 and I try to divert myself as much as I can; I 
 require to do so, for it is not to be Queen of France 
 not to have even the honours of a Dauphin."* 
 
 The virtuous Maria-Theresa answers : " If the 
 operation on the King is judged necessary, it were 
 better to do it promptly than to always delay it. " 
 This is wisdom in the mouth of the Empress ; but 
 the King seems to pay but little attention to it. 
 In his indifference, he temporizes without caring in 
 the least for all the warnings and objurgations he 
 receives. 
 
 It is at this time that an incident occurs (which 
 we find related in the Correspondance secrete of 
 M. Lescure) and that is not without a comical point. 
 
 In December 1776, " when the King was return- 
 ing from mass, an abbe bent his knee before His 
 Majesty and presented him a paper. The monarch 
 
 * Letter of Marie-Antoinette to her mother, 10th June 1776> 
 taken from the Correspondence published by Count Vogt von 
 Hunolstein, 12 suppl.
 
 76 
 
 accepted it, and after entering- his apartments, 
 perused it. He then, laughing, communicated its 
 contents to his familiars, telling them that it was 
 a memoir, in which the author pretended to impart 
 to His Majesty a secret to enable him to perpe- 
 tuate his august race. 
 
 " The captain of the guard, nettled at this ahbe 
 for having so far overlooked his own prerogatives 
 of rank and uniform, as to personally present his 
 petition to the King, instead of passing it to him, 
 observed to His Majesty that such scandalous 
 temerity deserved to be looked into ; so that orders 
 Avere at once given to find out the said abbe and 
 arrest him ; Avhich was done. It was found, however, 
 that loyal zeal had over- excited the brain of this 
 Avorthy who was released after a few hours' detention. 
 The questionings to Avhich he was subjected, eluci- 
 dated that liis secret did not consist in any drug 
 to be taken or applied, but in a certain posture, 
 by means of which he pretended to be able to 
 teach His Majesty to make up for a physical defi- 
 ciency, about Avhich a report had circulated that 
 he Avould have to undergo an operation. * 
 
 ''All this Avas a cause of much laughter at 
 Court, to the King and particularly to the Queen. " 
 
 It is probable that if the Queen laughed at all, 
 she laughed on the wTong side of her mouth; the 
 
 * This abb^, haying taken vows of chastity and perpetual 
 celibacy, was no doubt quite competent to give the above ad- 
 vice. (Transl.)
 
 77 
 
 more so tliat her sister-in-law, the Countess of Artois, 
 had already two children and she was yet hoping 
 for a Dauphin. 
 
 However, a few months later, an event long 
 expected came at last to change the aspect of 
 things. In June 1777, the Emperor Joseph II 
 arrived in Paris, with the express mission to bring 
 his brother-in-law to take a firm decision. The 
 King, it is reported, made to him most touching 
 avowals, insisting upon the slightest details of the 
 congenital infirmity with wliich he Avas afflicted. 
 The Emperor sympatliized with his misfortune, 
 and strongly advised him to give liimself up bound 
 hand and foot to the Faculty. The case, in sum, 
 was curable, not being beyond the resources of 
 ai*t. As Sainte-Beuve so wittily says: "Louis 
 XYI was not impotent, any more than a man is 
 dumb because he stutters; husband or King, he 
 Avas the same; he was but awkward, ashamed and 
 embarrassed." In one Avord, Louis XVI had a 
 pJii7}wsis. A slight operation Avas therefore neces- 
 sary ''to give him voice," just as on children it is 
 sometimes necessary to cut the string Avhich holds 
 doAvn their tongue and prevents them from 
 speaking. 
 
 In deference to the entreaties of Joseph II, the 
 King consented to submit to the operation. M. de 
 Lassone,. first physician to Marie-Antoinette, was 
 officially charged to perform the operation. The
 
 78 
 
 doctor was not "without being troubled on the sub- 
 ject, as may be seen from the following cui'ious 
 extract from a conversation held on New Year's 
 day at Madame du Deffand's, and related in I'Espion 
 Anglais. * 
 
 The Count de Milly is introduced into the saloon 
 and, after bowing to the company present, expresses 
 himself as follows: 
 
 "Madam, what I wish to inform you of would 
 have been more ably produced by my colleague 
 (M. de la Lande): A few days ago, M. de la 
 Sone (sic), first physician to the Queen and mem- 
 ber of the Academy of Sciences, proposed, in a 
 private assembly, a physical question concerning at 
 once anatomy and medicine. Having presented 
 the particular conformation of a male individual, 
 he asked whether, by the aid of a certain attitude, 
 manner, or circumstance, or of a certain moment 
 favourable to nature, the so ill-favoured subject might 
 not be enabled to cheat her and to procreate a 
 child? Several members of the learned assembly, 
 referring to ' the exalted rank of the individual, 
 and to the details concerning him, opined that it 
 was inopportune to engage a question which had 
 better be submitted to the Faculty of Medicine or 
 to the College of Surgeons. This was the general 
 opinion. 
 
 " The academician, being afterwards asked why 
 he had mooted such a question, simply replied that 
 
 * Espion Anglais, 1783, V, 80.
 
 79 
 
 such an interesting subject could not be sufficien tly 
 investigated ..." 
 
 It is easy now to perceive why Lassone proposed 
 these questions. He wanted to have the advice of the 
 most enlightened of his colleagues before undertaking 
 an operation the entire responsibihty of which would 
 fall upon his shoulders. 
 
 However, the operation took place and succeeded 
 admirably. 
 
 We find a sufficient proof in the following pas- 
 sage from the Memolres tie Madame Caynpan, 
 which requires no commentary. 
 
 * . . . Towards the end of 1777, the Queen, being 
 alone in her apartment, called for us, my father- 
 in-law and myself and, giving us her hand to kiss, 
 said to us that considering us both as persons much 
 interested in her happiness, she wished to receive 
 our compliments; she ivas at last Queen of France 
 and hoped soon to have children ; that up to the 
 present she had been able to hide her grief, but 
 that she had shed many secret tears . . . From that 
 happy moment so long hoped-for, the affection of 
 the King for the Queen took all the character of 
 love. The worthy Lassone, first physician to the 
 King and to the Queen, had often spoken to me 
 of the pain that he had felt on account of a cold- 
 ness, of ivhich he had so long been unahle to 
 overcome the cause, and he thenceforward seemed to 
 have only anxieties of a quite different nature ..." * 
 
 * Memoires de Madame Campan, T. I, p. 185 — 186.
 
 80 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, who has slightly touched on the 
 subject that we have endeavoured to treat, has 
 written somewhere: "I would be glad once and 
 for all, even were it in a medical journal, that the 
 proofs and arguments might be produced to settle 
 this question. If there were any official report of 
 the operation, that would be decisive." Well! this 
 report does exist, but unfortunately, notwithstand- 
 ing the wishes we have expressed, * we have been 
 as yet unable to obtain communication of this 
 precious document. Is it necessary for us to regret 
 it? Assuredly our mind is already made up, nor 
 is anything further required to confirm our conviction. 
 
 The possessors of the manuscripts of Lassone 
 are, of coui'se, free to hide them jealously in a glass 
 case ; but let them rather take care, lest in seeking 
 to hide their light beneath a bushel, they do not 
 give some semblance of reason to those f who have 
 not feared to insinuate " that the famous chirui'gical 
 operation changed nothing in the state of things, 
 and that it was all nothing but high comedy, 
 become necessary in order to mask to the public 
 eye certain conjugal side-slippings : a comedy, to 
 which the King had lent himself, governed by the 
 reason of State, that religion of Princes." 
 
 * Intermediaire des Chercheurs et des Curieux, 1890, p. 706. 
 t Comljes, loc. cit., p. 46.
 
 THE 
 FIRST PPvEGNANCY 
 
 OF 
 
 MARIE- ANTOINETTE.
 
 " Hope deferred maketh the Leart 
 
 sick." BlELK.
 
 THE FIRST PREGNANCY 
 
 OP 
 
 MARIE-ANTOINETTE. 
 
 Whoever judges without passion and without pre- 
 judice, will recognize that the events that occurred 
 in succession a century ago, followed each other 
 with fatal logic. Timorous souls may deplore that 
 human reason, and civilization itself then suffered 
 an eclipse ; but there are certain expiations necessary 
 in order to assure the march of nations along the 
 road indefinitely perfectible of progress. 
 
 It is not for us either to condemn or to acquit 
 the woman whom a tribunal of exception, in October 
 of 1793, sent to the revolutionary scaffold. Were 
 the source of our tears to dry up, we should find 
 in the evocation of some other episodes of those 
 troubled times, wherewith to rouse our pity. 
 
 To some, the Queen of France appears as a 
 victim all the more to be pitied that her rank was 
 the more exalted. If the wife of Louis XVI has 
 not been made a saint of, she has not been far 
 from being made a martyr. Certainly no figure
 
 84 
 
 could better lend itself to the legend. From her 
 hirth, Marie-x\ntoinette possessed all the attributes 
 of a sovereign. She had distinction, grace and 
 beauty, and all native qualities, to such a degree 
 of perfection that it seemed as if a fairy had 
 Avatched over her cradle. As she grew up, her 
 charms became more developed, her air of majesty 
 Avas more asserted. One felt that a royal mantle 
 only could be worthy to cover those triumphant 
 shoulders. 
 
 By what cruel irony was this radiant creature 
 destined to be coupled to a husband the most alien 
 to every sentiment of delicacy, and the most prone 
 to every sort of awkwardness? Was not that the 
 most incongruous union that could be dreamt of: 
 beaming, frivolous, gushing youth to cold, obstinate, 
 calculating stubbornness? What could be augured 
 of a reign commenced under such auspices ? If even 
 love had played any part in it ! Alas ! of all the 
 sports the King followed Avith enthusiasm, this Avas 
 the one he cared the least about. It is no longer 
 a mystery at present that during the first eight 
 years of his marriage, Louis XYI Avas to his Avife 
 no more than a tiresome comrade. 
 
 We have already related in all its details, and 
 Avithout any of the masked allusions that disfigure 
 most of the recitals, the history of the conjugal 
 mishaps of the meekest of our Kings. It w'ould 
 be almost a rehabilitation to trace the portrait of 
 the father after having sketched that of the husband.
 
 85 
 
 If it had been desired to plead attenuating cir- 
 cumstances in favour of Marie- Antoinette, no more 
 solid argument could have been found than that of 
 her infecundity. This woman, however, adorned 
 with every seductive charm, and the object of general 
 adulation, was inconsolable at being unable to 
 bestow, without her, the treasures of affection con- 
 tained Aritliin her bosom. As queen she hoped for 
 a Dauphin, as mother she longed for a son. And 
 it was in silence that she had to swallow the grief 
 that was consuming her, to be the only Avoman at 
 Coiu't who had not the sweet satisfaction of pressing 
 a son to her breast. How can one not discern in 
 this ceaseless torment the secret of so many im- 
 prudencies and levities? Does not her despair 
 burst forth wholly in this cry which escapes her 
 in one of her letters, at the moment that a royal 
 princess had just given birth to a son : "I liid 
 my tears so as not to mar their joy." 
 
 It was with all her soul that she yearned for 
 the offspring that so obstinately refused to show 
 an appearance. Already, towards the end of June 
 1776, it was bruited about that the Queen was in 
 an interesting situation. But it was a false rumour, 
 which the reality soon disproved, and three days 
 later it was contradicted. The fact was, she had 
 been enceinte, and had hurt herself whilst raising 
 the blind of her coach. But this miscarriage, to call 
 it by its real name, had been kept rigorously secret. 
 
 Towards the autumn of the following year, the
 
 86 
 
 hopes of pregnancy had vanished; hut the Esciilapii 
 of the young monarch had just declared that there 
 was nothing any longer to hinder the consummation 
 of an act hitherto so unhappily delayed. The King 
 had become a man. On the 7th October, His 
 Majesty informs his courtiers that he starts for 
 Fontainebleau and that he has good hope that the 
 pregnancy of the Queen will be confirmed. On her 
 side,the Queen summons to her presence Madame Campan 
 and that lady's father-in-laAv, and announces to them, 
 " as to people who took an interest in her happiness, 
 that she wished to receive their congratulations: 
 being now really Queen of France, and that she 
 trusts soon to have children." 
 
 On the 17th January 1778, the faithful Mercy- 
 Argenteau, specially appointed to observe and report 
 to the Empress Maria-Theresa all that concerned her 
 daughter, writes to her as follows : " The Queen 
 continues to go on very nicely with the King, who, 
 on his part, ]}ersists in living maritally, in the 
 most real and exact sense." * 
 
 After the 15th April, it is openly stated that 
 the Queen is positively enceinte. The ncAvs was 
 SAviftly spread abroad. The King is head over 
 ears enchanted, and liis august spouse says, laugh- 
 ingly : " I so wish that it may be so that I al- 
 most take for nausea the ideas that pass through 
 my head." She is at the same time convinced of 
 
 * Correspondance de Mercy- Argenteau ct de MarieTMrese, 
 he. cit.
 
 87 
 
 her condition, for she informs her mother "that 
 she has vomited, which increases her hopes." The 
 physicians on their side Avere not mistaken, and 
 we find that already from the month of March, 
 they insisted that the Princess should take the 
 minutest precautions, that she should no longer 
 take carriage-drives, the slightest imprudence suffic- 
 ing to compromise everything. Nevertheless, when 
 Marie-Antoinette proposed to despatch a special 
 courrier to Vienna, as bearer of the happy news, 
 Lassone advised her to wait a little longer, twenty days 
 at least ; he would then be able to give Ms opinion 
 with a thorough knowledge of the case. Besides, the 
 Queen had made a mistake in her first calculation. 
 The delay ought not to be counted but fi-om the 
 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd of that month, the preceding 
 menses dating from the third of March. 
 
 " Until the term of the second revolution is 
 passed, we can but remain balanced between fear 
 and hope." * Besides one cannot be too careful. 
 As Maria-Theresa, always well-informed, writes to 
 her daughter : " Thirteen weeks accomplished, are 
 quite necessary, in order to be sure, particularly in 
 a case of first pregnancy." 
 
 However, those immediately surrounding the Queen 
 are more sanguine. M. de Lassone, her first 
 physician, offers to bet 1000 louis (/800) that 
 the sovereign is really enceinte. Needless to add that 
 
 * Correspondance de Marie- Therese et de Marie- Antoinette, 
 loc. cit.
 
 88 
 
 there was no one indiscreet enough to take up the bet. 
 
 On the 5th May Mercy despatched an express 
 to Maria-Theresa. Good-hye to gay freaks, to 
 nights passed at the hall, to wild frolics! The 
 young mother is conscious of the new part she 
 has to play. She passes her time in conversation, 
 in hearing a little music, and in taking short 
 walks. Hardly is she permitted to sit down for a 
 few brief instants at a card-table, as she was 
 wont to do formerly. Mercy expresses his satisfaction 
 in his confidential correspondence with the Empress. 
 
 Maria-Theresa sends the following note to her 
 ambassador, to be communicated by him to Lassone : 
 " Having had more than one proof of the senti- 
 ments and of the zeal of Doctor Lassone, it is but 
 just that I should testify all the confidence I repose 
 in him in the present condition of my daughter. 
 I confide in his care, which I am certain can but have 
 the best effect, and for which I shall be very grateful 
 to him. " To tliis note she joined a m.agnificent green 
 enamelled snuff-box, all garnished with diamonds. * 
 
 At Mercy's request, she caused at the same time 
 to be forwarded to Lassone a fine collection of 
 mineralogical specimens from Hungary, which the 
 chief physician had manifested the desire to possess, 
 to enrich his natural history collection. 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, on her side, writes to her 
 
 * The Accoucheur Vermoiid received a diarnoiid ring and an 
 enamelled snuff-box purchased in Paris I'or 600 florins (in round 
 
 liuinber^ £66}.
 
 89 
 
 mother, that she is in excellent health, with the 
 exception of occasional suffocations. Lassone allows 
 lier to drive out on condition that the coach shall 
 proceed slowly so that there may be no joltings. 
 She comes now to the third month, and is in 
 despair at finding her hips grow so immoderately 
 large. She has chosen for accoucheur Yermond, a 
 brother of her reader, the Abbe de Vermond. She 
 has been so long without being able to flatter her- 
 self with tlie joy of being pregnant, tliat she is 
 inclined at times to think it all only a dream ; but 
 the dream persists, and she now begins to think 
 that there is no longer any cause for doubt. 
 
 The happy effect of this new state of things on 
 the Queen has been remarked. " She appears to 
 be fond of her husband, seeks his company, amuses 
 herself Avith him, and makes him caresses to which 
 tliis prince replies in a manner to still more excite 
 this tender intelligence." '*' 
 
 On the 18th May, Her Majesty takes a walk of 
 about one hoiu\ The rest of the time she remains 
 seated in her cabinet, occupied with needle-work or 
 with the knitting of pui'ses. 
 
 Three days later, by order of the Queen, a 
 number of poor fathers of family were liberated 
 from prison, where they had been incarcerated for 
 not having paid several months nui'sing of their 
 children; in this connection Marie-Antoinette ex- 
 pressed the following noble sentiments: 
 
 * Ccrrespondance, loc. cit., I, p. 166.
 
 / 
 
 90 
 
 "If Heaven gives me the grace of a happy 
 delivery, I shall arrange that there be no more 
 such imfortimates. " 
 
 On the 23rd May, the Queen said to her chief 
 physician : 
 
 "As Grod, it appears, grants me the grace I 
 have so long desired, I will henceforth live other- 
 wise than I have done hitherto. I will live as a 
 mother, to nourish my child and give my time to 
 his education." 
 
 The King consents to the Queen suckling her 
 child if it is a Dauphin, but he will hesitate should 
 it be a daughter. 
 
 The choice of Vermond as accoucheur, in prefer- 
 ence to Levret, Andouillet and Milot, accoucheurs 
 to the Court and to the city of Paris, was not 
 without raising opposition. 
 
 The King had disapproved of the choice, but he 
 merely said: "I do not wish to see that man." 
 The Queen, hoAvever, maintained her accoucheur 
 against all and every one. 
 
 Levret was first of all thought of as accoucheur, 
 " the man who had the greatest and best reputation 
 in that line." The King had a particular esteem 
 for him, and had not dissimulated his preference 
 for him. But those surrounding the Queen are 
 hostile to this celebrated practician. They parti- 
 cularly insist that Levret is already the accoucheur 
 of the Countess of Artois, and that both princesses 
 might require his services at the same moment
 
 91 
 
 which could not fail to be seriously embarrassing. 
 He would then have to be replaced at the last 
 moment by some one unknown, at which every body 
 would complain. It was added that State reasons 
 were opposed to "the same hand being employed 
 on the two operations.'' 
 
 Lastly, and most important reason, was that the 
 Queen, l3eing still young, might bring forth a number 
 of heirs to the throne, and would be obliged, sooner 
 or later, to dispense with the services of Levret, 
 who Avas too old to continue them much longer. 
 
 The choice then fell upon Vermond, a brilliant 
 accoucheur, Avhose merit was not contested, but 
 who was anything but good-looking, and who, to judge 
 by the expressions attributed to liim, Avas far from 
 possessing the manners or the language of a Court. 
 
 The Queen, hoAvever, notAvithstanding all, continued 
 obstinately to insist upon having him, encouraged 
 in her resistance by her mother, Avho never ceased 
 making her all sorts of useful recommendations for 
 her health. Thus, on all occasions she lauded 
 Lassone, entreating her daughter to " submit blindly 
 to his prescriptions,'*' the duty of a patient being, 
 ''above all to obey the orders of her physician." 
 Then came counsels, suggested by her experience 
 and maternal solicitude, on the care to be taken 
 of the child about to be born. During the first 
 year, she Avrites : " the swaddling clothes nuist not 
 be tightened round infants, Avho must not be kept 
 too Avarm, nor have their stomachs overcharged
 
 92 
 
 with pap or other food; they should he given good 
 and wholesome food, which is a douhtfiil matter in 
 Paris... and with regard to the country-people, it 
 is ahout the same thing, taking into consideration 
 the corruption of morals." 
 
 On the 4:th of August the Court was officially 
 informed that the Queen Avas enceinte. She had 
 now reached four and a half months of pregnancy. 
 The first movement of the child was felt on Friday 
 the 31st July, at 10.30 p.m. " Since that moment,'' 
 writes Marie-Antoinette to her mother, " he moves 
 frequently, Avhich causes me great joy."' 
 
 When this first movement tooiv place, Marie- 
 Antoinette hrouglit it to the knowledge of the 
 King in a manner as veiled as it was witty: 
 " Sire, " said she, aifecting a most serious air, " I 
 have to demand justice from you upon one of your 
 suhjects Avho has violently insulted me.'"' And as the 
 King's face began to darken : " Yes, " continued 
 the Queen, " there has been one bold enough to give 
 me kicks in the belly." The scandalous chronicle 
 of the day adds that the Count d'Artois, who was 
 present, is said to have murmured : " Yes, and he 
 has at the same time put my brother's * nose out 
 of joint." 
 
 The fifth month came, and as required by 
 courtly etiquette, a Te Beum of thanksgiving 
 was solemnly chanted in all the churches, and four 
 presiding judges v/ere deputed by the Parliament 
 
 * The Corate de Provence, later Louis XVIII. {Transl)
 
 93 
 
 (Supreme Magistracy) to congratulate their Majesties. 
 
 On the 25th of August, the King requests the 
 Archbishop of Paris to order public prayers for 
 the happy progress of the pregnancy of the Queen. 
 
 On the 5th of September, it was proposed to 
 bleed the Queen, who had already 1)een bled at the 
 end of June. A slight cold delayed the operation, 
 but four days later it was performed. The Queen 
 fainted, and her surgeon Avas obliged to make her 
 inhale " eau de Luce." * She testified her 
 gratitude by giving him, besides the usual present of 
 30 louis (/24:) her golden smelling-bottle, saying to 
 him : " Take it, Sir, it has recovered me, and in your 
 hands it will render the same service to many others. " 
 
 Diuing the course of the same month, she is 
 frequently incommoded with griping but supports 
 her pains with courage. She soon gets better and 
 enjoys the best of health in October. 
 
 Several ladies of quality undertake pilgrimages 
 and perform novenas in order to obtain from Heaven 
 a happy delivery for the Queen. 
 
 Three nurses are chosen out of a great number 
 who had applied for the appointment. Two are simple 
 peasant-AVomen, the third is the Avife of a Paris-brewer. 
 
 All business is at a stand-still, nobody budges 
 
 from the Coiu't, in anticipation of the event which 
 
 is supposed to be nigh at hand. 
 
 ^ The Queen continues to enjoy the best of health. 
 
 She walks every day in the apartments or in the 
 
 * Liquor ammoniae and alcohol. (Transl.)
 
 94 
 
 gallery, and with such ease and vivacity that it is 
 difficult to follow her. She has long- since given 
 up rouge, and wears simply an ample cap, without 
 its making her appear less pretty . . . 
 
 Diuing this time what was the learned Faculty 
 doing? As a constituted body, it had of course 
 participated in the general rejoicings. On the 
 10th November it had a Te Beum chanted; on 
 which occasion it issued a decree, which according 
 to one of the joui'nals of the period "Avas one of 
 the most agreeable pieces that could be read." 
 
 ''It is written," says one chronicler, "with the 
 graces of a pure latinity embellished by the ami- 
 able eloquence of the author, by lively natural ideas, 
 animated and brilliant images, and by the poetic 
 and picturesque forms A\ith which it is replete. 
 In its brevity, it is a little master-piece." 
 
 One phi'ase, however, blunderingly allowed to 
 slip into this elegant discoui'se, created a great 
 rumour. * We produce it beloAV in the original 
 Latin, leaving to our readers the pleasures of the 
 translation. It is a rather clumsy allusion to the 
 impotency of Louis XVI. He had enough good 
 
 * The following is the phrase in question: 
 
 " Prinntm miracrfhim imellam dedit (coclum) in cujus ortu, 
 tarn ardenter qiiam diw expectato, yestire eo oppoi'tunius fuit, quod 
 naturoi tarditas, jam calumniis lacessita, 'injiciebat qiiandam 
 dissidentiam furtivo lapsu annis irreptentein/ 
 
 At length, there came from heaven a miracle, the child so loBg 
 and ardently expected, a daughter ! Whose advent was the more 
 opportune that nature had so long delaj'ed, it and now she came 
 to silence the calumnies bred from such sorry lapse of years.
 
 95 
 
 sense not to perceive it. The joy of soon becom- 
 ing a father made him indulgent. 
 
 On the 1st December the King had 100,000 
 livres (/4000) conveyed to the Grand Almoner, 
 to be distributed by him to the poor after the 
 delivery of the Queen. 
 
 On her side the Queen had a similar sum re- 
 mitted to the Lieutenant of Police of Paris for 
 indigent fathers and mothers, to pay for monthly 
 charges of children put out to nurse, and to be 
 distributed in child-bed linen or other help. 
 
 On the night of the 3rd, the Queen suffers from 
 suffocations, wliicli for a moment led to the belief 
 that the accouchement was imminent. She imagined 
 she felt distinctly two children moving, but the 
 professional men negatived this opinion. 
 
 She is bled for the fourth time on the 8th 
 December. The delivery was expected for the 1 5th of 
 the month. Every one was anxious, particularly the 
 accoucheur, who would be entitled, if it were a prince, 
 to a pension of 40,000 livres (/1 600) per annum, 
 but to not more than 8000 or 10,000 livi-es (/320 
 or ^400) paid down as a fee if it were a princess . . . 
 
 The King goes ten times a day from his own 
 apartment to that of the Queen, incessantly ques- 
 tioning the physicians and the accoucheur. And 
 the wished-for event is still delayed ! The Faculty 
 is of opinion that she may still go on in that way 
 for a few days. In the mean time she enjoys ex- 
 cellent health and is very gay.
 
 96 
 
 However, the end is at liaiid. 
 
 Maria-Theresa is more anxious from day to day. 
 On the 9th December, she writes to Mercy: 
 •** You will inform me of all the circumstances and 
 particularities; how the Queen has been and how 
 she is, how her days are passed, what food is 
 given her and what people she receives. . ." And 
 Mercy does not fail to give the required informa- 
 tion. On the eve of the event he hastily tran- 
 gcribes his impressions, wMch are, it is true, favour- 
 able : * For the last fortnight, the first physician 
 and the accoucheur lodge next door to the Queen's 
 apartments; everything is arranged with the utmost 
 order beforehand for the service. According to 
 usage, four nurses have been retained for the royal 
 child ; but it will be only at the last moment that 
 the choice will be made of the one who will have 
 to commence suckling the illustrious infant; the 
 three others will be kept in reserve in case of pos- 
 sible accidents." 
 
 The ceremonial is minutely observed. The royal 
 family, the princes of the blood and the grand 
 dignitaries pass the night in rooms contiguous to 
 the Queen's chamber. 
 
 At last, on the 19th December, 1778, towards 
 half past twelve, the Queen felt the first throes of 
 labour. At three o'clock the King was advised. 
 Little by little the other members of the royal 
 family entered the chamber, to which then were 
 admitted without distinction aU those who presented
 
 97 
 
 themselves, to such a point that at the moment 
 when the Accoucheur Vermond said in a loud voice : 
 "*' The Queen is aljout to be delivered,'' the croAvd 
 of inquisitive people that thronged into the room 
 was so gi'eat and so tumultuous that the movement 
 Avas nig-h killing- Her Majesty. 
 
 During" the night, the King had taken the 
 precaution to have tied up with cords the immense 
 tapestry screens surrounding Her Majesty's hed, or 
 they would certainly have been thrown down upon 
 her. It was no longer possible to move in the 
 chamber, which was so full of a mixed crowd that 
 one might have thought it to be a public place. 
 Two Savoyards mounted upon a piece of furniture, 
 so as more easily to see the Queen, as she lay 
 extended for her confinement on a bed placed 
 in front of the chimney. * The noise, the sex of 
 the infant, that had been imparted to the Queen, 
 it is said by a preconcerted signal from the Princess 
 of Lamballe, or some fault of the accoucheui', 
 suddenly interrupted the natural issues following 
 delivery. The blood flew to her head, and her 
 mouth was contracted. The accoucheur cried out: 
 
 " Some air, Jwt ivater, blood must he draivn 
 from the foot ! " 
 
 The Avindows had been blocked up, the chinks 
 having been pasted over Avith paper; but the King 
 burst them open Avith a strength that Avas inspired 
 by his affection for the Queen. 
 
 * What a scandalously disgraceful scene! {Transl.) 
 
 7
 
 9S 
 
 The basin of hot water not coming quiclily enough, 
 the accoucheur told the Queen's cliief sm*geon to 
 dry-lance the vein; he did so, the blood spurted 
 out with force, and the Queen re-opened her eyes. 
 
 It was difficult to dissimulate the joy that suc- 
 ceeded to such alarms. * When the Queen came 
 to herself, she asked, after having' been moved back 
 to her bed, how was it that she had a bandage 
 on her leg. She had not felt the bleeding during 
 her syncope. 
 
 A very numerous body of attendants was attached 
 to the Queen's service during the first days after 
 her confinement. Besides a certain number of women 
 for Avhom she ordered enormous arm-chairs, the 
 backs of which could be let down by means of 
 springs so as to enable them to be easily trans- 
 formed into couches, the chief physician Lassone, 
 the chief surgeon, the head-apothecary, the officers 
 of the buttery, etc., remained nine days without 
 going to bed. 
 
 When the Queen had felt the first pains of labour, 
 the Grovernor of Paris had, according to custom, 
 sent one of his pages to the city corporation wliich 
 had assembled at the Hotel de ViUe (Town-Hall) 
 to await the event. He had afterwards despatched 
 his captain of the guards to announce that the 
 Queen had given birth to a daughter. During that 
 time the King had despatched an officer of his own 
 body-guard with the same message. The same 
 
 * Madame Campan, Memoires, p. 159.
 
 00 
 
 prescriptions were followed as if it were a Dauphin. 
 The presents took place for what was called the 
 opening of the womb, as requii'ed by etiquette. 
 The Queen was most anxious to know the sex of 
 her child. She had indeed trusted to have a boy. 
 A charlatan, of the name of Printems, a soldier 
 become a physician, and who pretended to be able 
 to discover in the aspect of the urine of pregnant 
 women the sex of their child, had formally predicted 
 to the Queen that she Avould give 1)irth to a son. 
 
 It was a terrible deception for the ^ueen when 
 the truth Avas announced to her. She was indeed 
 much shaken. 
 
 On this occasion the Accoucheur Vermond gave 
 proof of great presence of mind. Without delaying 
 a moment, he had draAvn blood from the foot, the 
 immediate result of which was to stop the convul- 
 sions; for there is no doubt but that it was con- 
 vulsions of eclampsy that had begun to manifest 
 themselves. * 
 
 Mercy did not fail to notify the incident to 
 Maria-Theresa. As soon as the accouchement was 
 over, he writes to inform the Queen-Mother of it in 
 the following solemn terms : 
 
 * Professor Pajot cites in his lectures the facies of Marie- 
 Antoinette and the shape of her neck, said to be in column as 
 it is called, as presenting the type predisposed to eclampsy.
 
 100 
 
 Mercy to Maria-Theresa. 
 
 "From the Secretary's Office of the Ambassador at Versailles, 
 
 20 December, 1778, Noon '/t. 
 
 " iSacred Majesty, I profit by the courier being- 
 now despatched to the Baron de Breteiiil, to announce 
 most respectfully to Your Majesty that the Queen 
 gave birth to a princess this morning at half past 
 eleven. The pains of labour commenced at half an 
 hour after midnight; at first they were not very 
 considerable and Avith long intervals of rest and 
 even of sleep. The severe throes that followed did 
 not commence till about eight o'clock and the waters 
 burst tlirough. The Queen supported her labour 
 with great coiu'age; I saw this august princess in 
 the last moments of her accouchement, and again 
 a few moments afterwards. The violence she had 
 exerted on herself, so as not to cry out, caused 
 her a slight convulsive movement of the nerves; it 
 was thought necessary to bleed her, and the acci- 
 dent was immediately calmed. * The Queen is as 
 well as she can possibly be in the first maments 
 of her condition, and her august infant, who is big 
 and strong, is doing marvellously. 
 
 " In the hurry of the moment I can add nothing to 
 
 * Mercy, in his ig-iiorance, attributed the convulsive movements 
 to several causes : Istly, the moving' about of too great a number 
 erf persons present; 2ndly, tlie eiforts of the Queen not to cry out (!) ; 
 3rdly, the shock sustained by her in the first moment at not 
 hearing the cry of the infant, whicli led her to fear that it was 
 still-born; 4thly, that after the child had cried out, the contrast 
 between grief and J03' brought about a revolution(!!).
 
 101 
 
 this very humble report; twenty-four hours after 
 the despatch of this report, Your Majesty's courier 
 will start. 
 
 " The moment of the after-birth has not yet come ; 
 but, according: to all appearances now before my 
 eyes, I believe that Your Majesty has every reason 
 to be relieved of all anxiety. The Queen does not 
 yet know the sex of her royal infant." * 
 
 We may add here, as a curiosity, the bulletin 
 of the first accouchement of Marie- Antoinette, drawn 
 up by the King himself. One would never imagine 
 it to be an account Avritten by a father, writing 
 under the impression of one of the greatest emotions 
 of his life. This document throAvs a light, better 
 than any commentary, on the physiognomy of this 
 monarch, careless and sham good-fellow, caring more 
 for following the hounds and for his locksmith work 
 than for Affairs of State or for the health of 
 his wife. 
 
 " CONFIXEMEXT OF THE QuEEX. — The 19th December 1788. 
 
 *" The Queen had retired to bed the previous evening 
 without suffering. Half an hour after midnight she 
 commenced to suffer; at 1.30 she rang her bell; 
 Madame de Lamballe and the dignitaries were fetched. 
 The Queen was still in her great bed; half an 
 hour later she was placed on the bed of travail. 
 Madame de Lamballe sent for the royal family and the 
 princes and princesses Avho were at Versailles, and 
 
 * Correspondance, loc. cit., T. Ill, p. 277.
 
 102 
 
 had sent pages to the Duke of Orleans, to the Duchess 
 of Bourbon and the Princess of Conti, who were 
 at Saint-Cloud, and to the Duke of Chartres, the 
 Duke of Bourbon and the Prince of Conti who 
 were at Paris. The pains having diminished, she 
 walked about the room until nearly eight o'clock 
 when she was again placed on the bed of travail. 
 In the room there were the royal family, the princes 
 and princesses of the blood, the dignitaries and 
 Madame de Polignac; in the grand cabinet were 
 assembled my household, that of the Queen and the 
 grand entries; in the card-saloon and the gallery 
 the rest of the people. As soon as the accoucheur 
 announced the moment, everybody entered. The 
 Queen gave birth at 11.30 to a girl. I went 
 immediately into the grand cabinet to see it swathed 
 and to confide it to the hands of Madame de Gueme- 
 nee, the governess. 
 
 " The sub-lieutenant of the guards on service to 
 the Queen, left at once to convey the news to the 
 city corporation which was assembled ever since 
 first hearing that the labour had commenced, and 
 another sub-lieutenant escorted my daughter to her 
 apartment. During all this time it had not been 
 possible to bleed the Queen, and a few minutes 
 after her delivery, the blood flew to her head and 
 she fainted; she was then copiously bled in the 
 foot, and ever since she has been quite well. 
 
 "I returned to my apartments at 2.30 and signed 
 letters in my own hand to the Emperor, the
 
 103 
 
 Empress and the King of Spain; the others had 
 been already signed several days beforehand." 
 
 "We know how much the Queen was disappointed 
 that the child was a girl. She was consoled by 
 the attentions and amiabilities of the King, and 
 she never ceased repeating that, but for the pre- 
 sence of mind of her accoucheur Vermond Avho had 
 bled her, she might have died. 
 
 The big-wigs of the Faculty were anything but 
 flattered at the success of this intruder, and in 
 order to revenge themselves, they Avent about pro- 
 claiming everywhere that the accoucheur was no- 
 thing more than an awkward and unmannerly 
 empiric, and that it was a miracle that he had not 
 crippled the Queen. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Vermond was the man of the 
 day. Everybody vied in praising his skill and his 
 coolness. Those who were jealous continued to 
 insinuate that he was as clumsy as he was ignorant, 
 but that in no way injured his reputation. 
 
 His enemies went so far as to cite the following 
 anecdotes of him: 
 
 One day, the Queen complaining to Vermond that 
 she was getting big beyond all reason : " Eemember, 
 Madam, " said the uncouth boor, " that you are in- 
 clined to be stout of the belly." 
 
 On another occasion he was still more fi*ee in 
 his expressions. The Princess finding that her 
 breasts were taking too much development, he is
 
 104 
 
 supposed to have said: ''It is because Your 
 Majesty is naturally inclined to have big teats." 
 
 This did not prevent the King from consulting 
 him as to when he might return to the marital 
 couch. The Prince, who felt that he had so much 
 for which he required pardon, entreated earnestly 
 to be allowed to sleep with the Queen, who was 
 opposed to it. She, however, finally consented ; but 
 according to the advice of Vermond, the married 
 couple were to take "precautions of salubrity." 
 
 The accoucheur had definitively won the good 
 graces of Louis XVI. 
 
 On the 16th January 1779, he received a 
 yearly pension of 12,000 livres (/480) and the 
 prospect of the order of Saint Michael: "As I 
 am aware that it is to you I owe the preservation 
 of the Queen," said the monarch, " you may be siu'e 
 that I shall not stop there!" 
 
 Marie-Antoinette scrupulously observed a repose 
 of six weeks in her chamber. At the end of that 
 period she went out for the first time. 
 
 She then again appeared in public, "more 
 beautiful than ever, decked out in the loveliest 
 laces and with ribands of two colours on each side, 
 invented for her, and that she alone could wear, 
 since the manufacturer refused to sell any, not- 
 withstanding the most seductive offers that were 
 made to him." 
 
 .... She would not long delay in preparing 
 the way for the birth of a Dauphin.
 
 LOUIS XVI 
 
 IN 
 
 PKIVATE LIFE.
 
 At home he'll sit down ; eat as long: 
 as he's able, 
 
 With his back to the fire, his face 
 to the table. 
 Maynabd.
 
 LOUIS XVI IN PRIVATE LIFE. 
 
 We dare to say, without further hesitation that if 
 Louis XVI suffered the supreme expiation, it was 
 because he was very badly defended. 
 
 Then, will it be said to us, you would plead 
 not guilty? Assuredly so, and we shall no longer 
 dissimulate an opinion which it remains for us to 
 justify. It naturally goes without saying that we 
 shall confine ourselves, as it is only proper for us 
 to do, to a strictly medical point of view: this to 
 clearly establish that our thesis borders neither 
 remotely nor closely upon the political domain. 
 
 As if he had a prevision of the lot that aAvaited 
 him, Louis XVI had— 0! quite unwittingly — him- 
 self prepared his defence. If his advocates, Males- 
 herbes, Des6ze and Tronchet, had placed beneath 
 the eyes of his judges the autobiographical journal, 
 kept by the King during nearly thirty years of his 
 life, it is probable that the Convention would have 
 uttered quite a different sentence. W^hat then is 
 this diary, now mentioned for the first time? 
 
 Already, from 1766, Louis XVI, then only 
 Dauphin, noted down every day his impressions, 
 
 107
 
 108 
 
 and the facts that to him seemed the most remark- 
 ahle, keeping a register of the slightest distractions 
 that came to fill up the void of his dnll existence. 
 The note-hook of the Danpliin terminates on the 
 30th July, 1774; the diarj^ of the King commences 
 on the 1st August of the same year and continues 
 without interruption until the 31st July, 1792, 
 ten days hefore the 10th of August, the fatal date 
 of his forfeiture, first act of drama which was to 
 end on the Place de la Eevolution. From this 
 diary, actually preserved in the National Archives, 
 and of which only a few fragments have heen 
 published, we shall merely draw what will permit 
 us to paint a moral portrait, a psycho-physiological 
 sketch, of the man, whose inconscient state might 
 have earned for him some degree of indulgence if 
 not of sympathy. 
 
 This journal, entirely in the hand-writing of 
 Louis XYI, presents the most absolute stamp of 
 authenticity. It was found, with other papers, in 
 the ''Iron Chest," and no historian has, to our 
 knowledge, concluded it to be apocryphal. Having 
 made the above reservations, what shall we find in 
 these old papers yellowed by age? A very pre- 
 cise record of the royal hunts, of the number of 
 stags or roe-bucks which were killed, or got away, a 
 few details concerning his health, notes on the service 
 of the royal table, a chapter of capital importance 
 to a Bourbon ; the slightest family events, deaths, 
 maladies and births. The piety of the King is
 
 109 
 
 therein revealed by a minute account of his reli- 
 gious duties, of the vespers and benedictions at 
 which he assisted, and of the grand ceremonies in 
 which he has taken part. 
 
 Lastly, Louis XYI has forgotten neither the 
 reviews he has passed, to the number of twenty- 
 five, nor dances, nor rides on horseback, nor 
 the theatre and other diversions. As for political 
 events, he barely mentions them. As one of his 
 biographers has judiciously observed : " What is 
 the most singular is, that in these thousands of 
 pages about to be anal3^zed it is impossible to un- 
 earth a single thought." All this rubbish denotes 
 a dryness of heart, an indifference and al)ove all 
 a poverty of mind calculated to disarm the most 
 prejudiced. If we here seek for a descendant of 
 Louis XIV, or even of Louis XY, we find but a log. 
 
 All that has been said of his natural timidity, 
 of his awkwardness, finds its confirmation in these 
 flying leaves. From his earliest age, he had ma- 
 nifested that fear of the crowd and of noise, that 
 nothing could ever overcome. Marie-Adelaide (sis- 
 ter to Louis XV), who was very fond of him, used 
 sometimes to say to him: "Talk jusfc as you 
 like, shout, scold, make as much noise as your 
 brother d'Artois, smash and break my china: make 
 people talk about you ..." But no, he would 
 sit shyly in his corner, hardly venturing to lift 
 his eyes upon the persons surrounding him. He 
 preferred giving himself up to nolent physical
 
 110 
 
 exercise, or passing his time in executing manual 
 work; or else he would be occupied in drawing 
 up and colouring geogi'aphical maps^ or in filing 
 iron and making keys. It was all very well for 
 the Dauphine, to joke at him, to call him her 
 god Vulcan, he would none the less continue to 
 live away from the Court and from its seductions, * 
 feeling within himself no taste for noisy pleasures, 
 pleased "with the society of the workmen, whose 
 labours he shared, helping them with his advice 
 and also making them partake of his liberalities. 
 This at all events seems indicated by the following 
 anecdote related by Eug6ne de Mirecourt. f 
 
 " Last week, the King, returning from his daily 
 walk, took into his head to mount the scaffolding 
 erected around one of the buildings of the palace 
 of Versailles, which was being enlarged to allow 
 the hall it contained to have room to receive the 
 members of the Assembly. For the last fortnight 
 a number of men had been occupied on this work. 
 
 " His Majesty, having reached the top of the 
 scaffolding, was stooping to examine the works, 
 
 * The Marquise de Pracontal was presented at Court on the 5th 
 May 1776. The young King Louis XVI, at this ceremony, on 
 kissing the marquise, who was very pretty, very devout and very 
 timid, went about it so heartily, that the poor young lady was 
 much embarrassed. He was about to begin again on the other 
 cheek, when the Duke of Aumont, who was on service, threw 
 himself between the King and the young marquise, exclaiming 
 that she was not a duchess and was not entitled to so much 
 honour; which made everybody laugh, the King first of all. (Reiset, 
 Modes au temps tie Marie-Antoinette, T. I, p. 259). 
 
 t Avant, pendant et apres la Terreur, p. 259. 
 
 \
 
 11 
 
 when suddenly the plank upon which he was stand- 
 ing g-ave way beneath his weight and broke. 
 
 " A terrible cry arose, for the workmen whose 
 eyes were fixed upon the King, all gave him up 
 as lost. But with marvellous presence of mind, 
 feeling his fall imminent, Louis XVI had clung to 
 a scaffolding pole near to him. A carpenter's 
 apprentice flew to his help, and Avith some difiiculty 
 managed to draw him on to the plank next to that 
 which had given way. 
 
 '"' The King heartily shook the hand of his liberator 
 and, requesting him to follow him, came down from 
 the scaffolding." 
 
 What the narrator of this tale does not tell us 
 is the motive that made the King thus risk him- 
 self on the roofs. Fortunately contemporary writers 
 are more expansive and, thanks to their indiscreet 
 revelations, we may complete the incident briefly 
 related by de Mirecourt. 
 
 It was an agreeable pastime of this sham-bene- 
 volent King, whose reputation of gentleness is, to 
 say the least, usui'ped, to hunt dowi cats, on those 
 days when he could not hunt the stag or the roe- 
 buck. There is no douljt that it Avas wliile giving 
 himself up to this favourite sport of his that he 
 nearly fell from the roof of the palace of Versailles 
 into the marble court below; and if he gave a 
 pension to the workman Avho had saved his life, * 
 
 * Lettres inedites de Mad. de Crequi a Senac de Meilhan, 
 1782—89, p. 285 Sc Mcmoircs de Madame Bertin, p. 218.
 
 112 
 
 it was a mere act of justice that he accomplished. 
 He had such an aversion to every individual of the 
 feline race, that he took it into his head once to 
 Mil by a blow of a hammer a favourite cat be- 
 longing to the Count of Maurepas. * We should, 
 however, not be surprised to learn that this unhappy 
 victim of the sanguinary fury of the King had been 
 the hero of the adventure so pleasantly related by 
 the Count d'Hezecques, in his reminiscences of a 
 page, t 
 
 " The King, " says the narrator, " seated himself 
 one day on the throne, not that throne from 
 the height of which he received a solemn embassy 
 or rebuked a parliament, but on the throne of 
 which the master of the close-stool is director. In 
 his hurry, he had not perceived that an enormous 
 Angora cat lay snugly coiled up in the earthenware 
 pan there to enjoy in peace the charms of solitude 
 and coolness. For a certain time all went on well 
 as far as the animal was concornod; the privation 
 of air had not interrupted its purring. But, at a 
 certain moment, which is not easy to designate 
 but may be divined, Master Tom got right-down 
 angry and testified his annoyance by the most 
 extraordinary efforts to escape from his unfortunate 
 situation. The King, as much frightened as sur- 
 prised at this truly armed attack, took at once to 
 his heels, his small-clothes held up in one hand, 
 
 * Do Reiset, loc. cit, p. 326. 
 
 t Comle d'Hezecques, Souvenirs d\in page, p. 213.
 
 113 
 
 while with the other he rang all the bells in the 
 place, at the same time that, on his side, the 
 unfortunate captive, in pitiful plight, smashed through 
 porcelain and vases, seeking everywhere an issue 
 that was right readily offered to it." 
 
 Hezecques, who had this anecdote from the palace 
 servant who hastened to obey the King's call for 
 lielp, affirms its absolute authenticity. We have 
 all the more reason not to suspect his testimony 
 that he was one of the intimates of the Court, 
 interested therefore in not purposely disfiguring the 
 actions of the King he Avas describing. 
 
 On the other hand, to those who should doubt 
 the veracity of this story, we might dedicate the 
 following, related by General Thiebault in Ms 
 interesting Memoir es. 
 
 "The King went out by the little door of the 
 palace of the Tuileries, near to the Pavilion de 
 Flore .... we followed him at a distance of from 
 fifty to sixty paces .... As he came to the door 
 of the passage which, passing through the Convent 
 of the Feuillantines, formed a connnunication 
 between the Place Vendome and the Tuileries and 
 between l)oth these places and the hall of meeting 
 of the Constituent Assembly, a young lady came 
 out of that door; she was preceded by a pretty 
 little spaniel dog, who was already close to the 
 King; as soon as she recognized liim, she hastened 
 to call back her dog, curtseying deeply; the dog 
 immediatelv turned round in obedience to the call
 
 114 
 
 of its mistress, but Louis XVI, who had in his 
 hand an enormous cane, with a blow of it broke 
 the back of poor doggie. And while the lady 
 uttered bitter cries and melted into tears as the 
 poor beast expired, the King continued his walk, 
 enchanted with what he had just done, strutting 
 about a little more than usual and laughing as 
 the coarsest peasant might do." * 
 
 After having read the above, one may be, it is 
 to be hoped, sufficiently edified concerning the 
 pretended good nature of the martyr King. 
 
 HoAvever, this justice must be rendered to Louis 
 XVI that he was far from tender to himself, tak- 
 ing but little care of his health. On the other 
 hand he was seldom indisposed, and, with the 
 exception of a few indigestions, the diary mentions 
 no serious maladies. But these indigestions were 
 frequent. To tell the truth, he only mentions 
 three: one on the 31st May 1770, the other on 
 the 10th June 1771, and a more severe one on 
 the 19th July 1773. But with regard to that, 
 historians have shown themselves less discreet than 
 the sovereign. 
 
 One of them relates that one day the Iflng gave 
 himself an indigestion from eating too much pastry ; 
 at the supper Avhich followed, the Dauphine caused 
 all the dishes of that kind to be removed from 
 the table, and forbade any being served until fur- 
 ther orders. On the other hand the conventionnel 
 
 * Memoires de Thiebault, p. 265—266.
 
 115 
 
 BaiT^re, in his Memoires, alludes to the immoderate 
 gluttony of the King, accusing him even of culti- 
 vating the bottle. Already, during his time, a 
 comedy had been composed on the King's intemper- 
 ance. The truth is that on one occasion only the 
 King was seriously intoxicated, as he was returning 
 from a hunt: he staggered to such an extent that 
 he had to be hoisted into his coach to be brought 
 back to Versailles, and during the joiu'ney he was 
 fast asleep. 
 
 This bulimy of the King deserves to arrest our 
 attention a little longer ; the more so that manifes- 
 tations of it can be recognized even in the most 
 sanguinary days of the Revolution, and that it is 
 not one of the least singular features that charac- 
 terized Louis XVI. ''He could no more contain 
 liimself than a child," said a historian, * who is 
 not open to suspicion ; he knew of no circumstance 
 worth putting off a meal or changing the order of it. 
 
 When he fled from the Tuileries, on the 21st 
 of June 1791, he had particularly recommended 
 that all sorts of mouth provisions should be placed 
 in Ms coach. t "It contained even a silver 
 saucepan and two small portable kitchens of sheet- 
 iron. As soon as he thought himself beyond the 
 
 * Nicolardot, Ilistoire de la table, p. 402. 
 
 t Never had there been constructed a more convenient coach, 
 says a journal of the period (the Orateur du yeiiple, No. LII); 
 so as not to he delayed on the way there was even a W.C, in 
 case of natural necessity, and in the forepart, there was a sort 
 of warming-pot for warming broth by means of a spirit-lamp.
 
 116 
 
 reach of the commissaries of the Assembly his 
 imprudence knew no bounds. Despite the entreaties 
 of the Queen, he decided to put up at Etoges and 
 claim the hospitality of Monsieur de Chamilly, his 
 first valet-de-chambre. There, a copious breakfast 
 was improvised, which was prolonged during three 
 hours. Louis XVI would not consent to get into 
 the coach again until his stomach had been well 
 lined. This stoppage was fatal to him. When he 
 arrived at Varennes, the troops that had come there 
 to meet him had already gone away again, and the 
 King, being recognized, was arrested * and guarded 
 in view, and, irony of fate! in the house of 
 citizen Sauce, a predestined name! 
 
 His first words are to ask for something to 
 
 * The episode of Varennes is mentioned in the following terms 
 in the King's diary: 
 
 Tuesday 21th June 1791. — Left Paris at midnight. Arrived and 
 arrested at Varenncs-en-Argonne, at eleven o'clock at night. 
 
 Wednesday 22. — Left Varennes at five or six o'clock in the 
 morning. Breakfasted at Sainte-Menehould. Arrived at ten at 
 night at Chalons. Supped and slept at the old Intendance. 
 
 Thursday 23. — At half past eleven mass was interrupted to 
 hasten departure. Breakfasted at Chiilons. Dined at Epernay. 
 Found the commissaries of the Assembly near to Port-;i-Binson. 
 Arrived at eleven o'clock at Dormans ; supped there. Slept three 
 hours in an easy-chair. 
 
 Friday 24. — Left Dormans at half past seven. Dined at La 
 Ferte-sous-Jouarre. Arrived at ten o'clock at Meaux. Supped and 
 slept at the episcopal palace. 
 
 Saturday 25.— Left Meaux at lialf past six. Arrived in Paris 
 at eight o'clock witliout stopj)ing. 
 
 Sunday 26.— Nothing at all. Mass in the gallery. Conference 
 with the commissaries of the Assembly. 
 
 The fliglit from Paris and the return from Varennes are 
 marked, on a recapitulative table drawn up by the King himself, 
 as "five nights out of Paris in 1791".
 
 117 
 
 drink; cheese and Burgundy are set before him; 
 he does honour to both and asks his host to join him. 
 Brought hack to Paris, he displays the same appetite 
 throughout the journey, dining yery well at Claye 
 and stopping at Pantin * for refreshment. Hardly 
 had he got hack to the Tuileries than he had 
 supper, devouring a chicken as usual, f 
 
 Od the 10th August, he is shut up in the 
 lodge of the stenographer at the National Assembly, 
 where he eats and drinks as if nothing had oc- 
 curred, in presence of a furious mob, vociferating the 
 coarsest insults to this really far too careless 
 monarch. 
 
 After leaving the sitting of the Convention before 
 which he had just appeared, he was asked if he 
 wanted anything. He at first refused, but per- 
 ceiving some one mth bread in his hand, he 
 immediately expressed the desire to have a bit, 
 which being given him, he munches it on his way 
 in the coach. 
 
 " As soon as he arrived at the Temple, he sat 
 down to table and devoured six cutlets, a pretty 
 large plateful of fowl, and some eggs, washed down 
 with two glassfuls of white wine and one of 
 Alicant." § 
 
 When the sentence of death had been pronounced 
 upon him and that he had taken a last leave of 
 
 * Pantin is a village just outside the walls of Paris. (Transl.) 
 t Nicolardot, loc. cit., p. 405. . 
 § Ibid., p. 403.
 
 118 
 
 his family, at the supper which followed he dis- 
 played, according to his valet-de-chamhre, Clery, 
 a very good appetite. 
 
 To the very last the Convention had satisfied 
 the requirements of this stomach of such truly 
 monstrous capacity. In the prison of the Temple 
 there were not less than thirteen ofiicers of the 
 huttery charged Avith the service of the King. * 
 
 This voracity was a sul)ject of scandal for all 
 those who were witnesses of it. We will here 
 introduce an anecdote which is typical of the sub- 
 ject: When the Convention put up for competi- 
 tion the painting of a picture to represent the 
 Bay of the 10th of August 1792, it was the 
 painter Gerard who obtained the prize. But what 
 did the artist make choice of to strike the imagi- 
 nation of the jury ? He had represented the moment 
 when Louis XVI was eating, to the frenetic applause 
 of the sans- culottes, while the Conventionnels were 
 deliberating on his fate. He is figured holding a 
 chicken with both his hands, at which he is gnamng 
 as if he were starved. An amusing detail to note : 
 when later on Gerard was created baron and became 
 first painter to the King, f he suppressed the 
 chicken ! . . . § 
 
 His belly together with his health, formed the 
 principal preoccupation of Louis XYI. Each revo- 
 
 * Vide Inter mediaire des Chercheiirs et Curieux, 10 July 1891, 
 p. 498. 
 t Louis XVIII. (Transl) 
 § Nicolardot, loc. cit., p. 405.
 
 119 
 
 lutionary passing event is marked, one may say by 
 a purgation or by an indigestion. In July 1791, 
 at the moment wlien martial law has just been 
 proclaimed at the Champ-de-Mars, and that Paris is 
 weltering in blood, the only brief notes to be found 
 in the diary for the entire month are the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 Thursday 14th July 1791.— Was obliged to 
 take physic. 
 
 Sunday 17. — Affair of the Champ-de-Mars. 
 
 Thursday 21.— Physic at six o'clock and took 
 some whey. 
 
 Already, immediately after the flight to Varennes, 
 and as soon as he was back again in Paris, he 
 could find nothing better to note down than this : 
 
 Tuesday 28th J?^ we ■ 1791.— Nothing. Have 
 taken whey. 
 
 Whey seems to have been one of his usual 
 remedies. It seems that the treatment lasted 
 several days. In 1791 he notes down that he 
 has taken whey on the 28th June and that he 
 has ceased taking it on the 21st July; he again 
 takes it from the 22nd October until the 12th 
 November. 
 
 In the intervals he drinks Walz {sic) waters 
 and Yichy waters; which did not prevent him from 
 purging himself occasionally. From 1771 to 
 February 1792 he has taken in all twenty medicines. 
 At other times he writes: "I should have purged 
 myself," or "I oucrht to have taken physic," which
 
 120 
 
 leads one to believe that he avoided doing so when 
 he could. Of haths he only mentions having taken 
 forty-three during a period of eight years. 
 
 The slightest indispositions are noted carefully 
 and with precision. One day he has fever, on 
 another he has caught a cold. 
 
 On the 20th June 1774, he has had himself 
 inoculated. The result was that he had fever 
 during three days. " He will not have many pim- 
 ples," writes a compiler df annals, "he has one on 
 the nose which is very remarkahle; those on the 
 wrist and on the chest already begin to whiten. 
 Four little incisions were made upon him, but these 
 little wounds are suppurating well. " The next day 
 he is purged and a few days later he is bled. 
 
 The inoculation produces on the King this un- 
 expected result, that he no longer suffers from those 
 disorders of the stomach to which he was subject, 
 and which after the slightest intemperance caused 
 him violent disturbance of the boAvels. 
 
 All these indispositions * did not stop his ardour 
 for the chase. It being his ruling passion, he 
 marks down its most trifling incidents. Whether 
 it be to run down a stag, a wild-boar, a doe or a 
 roebuck, nothing is forgotten! He never fails to 
 say whether a full pack or a small pack was 
 taken, if lunch or supper was had, at Avhat hour 
 and at Avhat place. In fact the diary is essentially 
 
 * The most serious malady he had was an erysipelas of the 
 bead that showed itself on the 15th December 1787.
 
 121 
 
 a hunting account. Besides what is entered daily, 
 Louis XYI sums up, at the end of the month, all 
 that he has bagged during the month, and at the 
 end of the year adds together the results of tho 
 twelve months in a lump. 
 
 The spirit of order, pushed to minuteness, shows 
 itself at every moment in this autobiography. In 
 some manuscript note-books, entitled Comptes (Ac- 
 counts), for the years 1772, 1773 and 1774 we 
 find the slightest expenses noted down. 
 
 The King writes in his own hand: "For a 
 watch-glass, 12 sous; to Bastard for postage of a 
 letter, 9 sous; for paper, 4 sous; for thread, 10 
 sous; at Epinay, for expenses. 4 sous, 3 de- 
 niers ....'"' 
 
 Errors in accounts throw him into despair. 
 Thus in one of his note-books bearing the title of 
 Private expenses and which are but a continuation 
 of his Accounts, we read : " I cannot make out 
 what error has glided into my accounts for some 
 time past, but on the 9th of this month I could 
 not find at the bottom of my privy purse, some 
 money that I had forgotten there a few years pre- 
 viously, I am therefore obliged to go over the general 
 account once more ..." 
 
 In his Private expenses, he sums up at the end 
 of every month, his gains or losses at play or in 
 the lottery. He was more often a loser, but it 
 was not there that the best part of his income was 
 absorbed : Marie- Antoinette cost him ever so much
 
 122 
 
 more with the thousand and one caprices she imposed 
 upon his easy nature. 
 
 The Queen remained, however, his sole affection, 
 if he can he said to have ever felt any. Nowhere 
 does his diary give the least evidence of any cir- 
 cumstance in which his heart has throbbed. On 
 the 14th May 1770, he notes do\ATi his "interview 
 with Madame la Dauphine." His marriage is briefly 
 alluded to in the following words : " 1 6th May 
 1770, Wednesday, my marriage, apartment in the 
 gallery, royal banquet in the Opera-house." And 
 that is all. On the 17th he assists at the per- 
 formance of Persee at the Opera, and on the 18th 
 he joins a stag-hunt Avith the "Full pack." Once 
 only does he seem rather prolix: it is on the oc- 
 casion of the Queen's confinement. But he soon 
 falls back into his usual sleepiness. 
 
 When Louis XYI goes neither out hunting nor 
 to religious ceremonies, which fill up a large space 
 in his life, he marks on his diary the word Nothing. 
 This Nothing is sometimes accompanied by events 
 of the utmost importance and the comparison does 
 not fail to be somewhat startling. This Nothing 
 reappears by the side of the most serious affairs of 
 State. 
 
 The remonstrances of the Parliament, Nothing. 
 Nothing, the audience of the grand deputation of 
 the Parliament of Paris. Nothing, the retirement 
 of the Minister Necker. Nothing, the death of 
 Monsieur de Maurepas. Nothing, even the death
 
 123 
 
 of his mother-in-law, the Empress Maria-Theresa. 
 Nothing, the death of liis own brother-in-law, the 
 Emperor Joseph II. 
 
 In June 1792, Nothing alternates with vespers 
 and his hunts. In July of the same year, whilst 
 the most tragical events of the Revolution were oc- 
 curring, during twenty-three days, the only mention 
 on the diary is : Nothing ! 
 
 Is not this in the end, and to close this anal- 
 ysis, the word that can best portray this sover- 
 eign without energy and without vigour, to whom 
 the chances of succession had bequeathed the sceptre, 
 too weighty for such feeble hands, of that mighty 
 ancestor of whom he was but such a faint copy.
 
 ONE 
 OF THE JUDGES 
 
 OF 
 
 MARIE-ANTOINETTE. 
 
 (the surgeon souberbielle).
 
 Neque me vixisse poenitet: quoniam ita vixi, 
 
 lit non frustra nie natum existimem : et ex vita 
 
 ita discedo, tamquam ex hospitio, non tamquam 
 
 ex Jomo. 
 
 Cicero, Senect. 2.'>, 
 
 (For I am not at all uneasy that I came into 
 and have so far passed my course in thi.s 
 world; because I have so lived in it that I 
 have reason to believe I have been of some 
 use to it; and vrhen the close come8 1 shall 
 quit life as I would an inn, and not as a real 
 home).
 
 ONE OF THE JUDOES OF MAHIE-ANTOINETTE. 
 
 THE SURGEON SOUBEKBIELLE. 
 
 The composition of the revolutionary tribunal was 
 strang-ely mixed : all classes were represented there, 
 ming'led together. At the side of ex-deputies, of 
 cx-prosidents of provincial criminal courts, there 
 were to be seen a musical instrument-maker, a 
 hatter, a barber, a printer, a painter, a carpenter, so 
 to say, all sorts of trades. He Avho presided over 
 tlie court on the day of the trial of Marie-Antoinette, 
 was a friend of Eobespierre, the citizen Herman. "^ 
 Such a puissant friendship was at that time 
 equal to a brevet of civism, or zeal for the Re- 
 public. It was in the same quality of friend of 
 the dictator that Souberbielle took his place on the 
 jury. We will endeavour to draw in a few brief 
 touches a sketch of this curious personage. 
 
 * The tribunal assembled to judge Marie-Antoinette was com- 
 posed as follows: Presiding judge, Herman, ex-presidont of the 
 criminal court of the Pas-de-Calais, assisted by four other judges: 
 Cofinhall, former physician; Maire, judge of the tribunal of 
 the 1st arrondissement of Paris; i)onze-Verteuil, an unfrocked 
 monk; and Deli^ge, ex-deputy of the Legislative Assembly. 
 
 The jurors were: Antonette, ex-deputy; Renaudin, musical 
 instrument-maker; Souberbielle, surgeon. 
 
 127
 
 / 
 
 128 
 
 At tlie moment of the Eevolution, Souberbielle 
 had already acquired a certain reputation. The 
 latest pupil of Brother Come * and of his nephew 
 Pascal Baseiliiac, he excelled in tlie operation of 
 litliotomy, a method now nearly forgotten, hut which 
 was much in vogue at the end of the last century. 
 Souberbielle had received a solid professional education. 
 In his family there could be counted not less than 
 twenty physicians or surgeons: he was therefore 
 by race a surgeon. His grandmother had been 
 three times married, and each time to a surgeon. 
 Her last husband had been the eldest brother of 
 Brother Come. Four of her sons, out of five, 
 practised surgery. The father of our hero had at 
 one time thought of following the medical profes- 
 sion ; but he was promptly obliged to abandon this 
 idea. The sight of blood and the spectacle of the 
 sufferings of others caused him such emotion that 
 he preferred to adopt an occupation more con- 
 
 * Brother Coine (Jean Baseilhac) was a celeLrated surgeon. 
 Impelled by religious motive?, in 1740 he became a monk, but 
 continued his practice, founding a hospital, supported by dona- 
 tions, in which he devoted himself to poor patients. He was 
 the most skilful lithotomist of his day, preconizing the lateral in 
 preference to the high operation, which he considered dangerous. 
 He was a very successful operator, principally by means of an 
 instrument of his invention called tlie hidden litliGtome. He in- 
 vented besides a curved troquart for perforating the bladder, and 
 also the operation for the cure of cataract by extraction. His 
 name is well known in connection with an anti-carcinomatous 
 escharotic powder, in which arsenious acid enters as basis in the 
 proportion of 25^0 ; before ap])lication the powder was made 
 'into a paste by the addition of mucilage. It enjoys a certain 
 reputation even to the present day. Brotlier Come left a number 
 of useful works. He died in 1781. {Transl.)
 
 129 
 
 genial to his delicate temperament. He became 
 schoolmaster or rather regent (superintendent) of 
 the schools of Pontacq, a little village in the 
 Pyrenees, where the object of this biograpliical 
 sketch first saw the light. The boy received from 
 his father the first elements of a good classical 
 instruction. A maternal uncle, surgeon at Orlaix, 
 near to Tarbes, undertook to inculcate in him the 
 first elements of the art of healing, after which 
 he was placed under the protection of Larrey, the 
 lieutenant of the King's chief surgeon at Tarbes. 
 
 The young man landed in Paris in 1774, at 
 the age of twenty, full of confidence and rich in 
 illusions. He had been recommended to his relative, 
 Brother Come, whose reputation was then in all its 
 lustre, but who, by the novelty and boldness of 
 his practice, had raised about him numerous 
 enmities. The celebrated Lecat led a cabal against 
 him together mth Marechal, then all-powerful, and 
 Ferrand, surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu. * 
 
 Attached for some time to the clinical service 
 of Ferrand, Souberbielle had to put up with all 
 sorts of annoyances from this surgeon, Avho wanted 
 
 * It was in the service of Ferrand, at the Hotel-Dieu, that the 
 poet Gilbert had been placed for treatment, whom a false legend 
 represents as having died of hunger. Ferrand used to relate to 
 whoever would hear him the last moments of the poet, giving 
 such details as could not be invented: "Mr. Gilbert, please 
 answer me!" said Ferrand to the patient. — Gilbert, short, "Mr. 
 Ferrand; the key is choking me." Who could ignore after that, 
 that Gilbert had committed suicide by swallowing a key. 
 
 Intermed. des Chercheurs et Oiirieux, 1876, p. 176. 
 
 9
 
 130 
 
 to make him expiate the affection he entertained 
 for Brother Come, and it required nothing- less than 
 the intervention of the Archbishop of Paris and of 
 the Pro cureur- general of the Parliament, Joly de 
 Fleury, * to put a stop to these persecutions. 
 
 At the same time that he did liis service at the 
 Hotel-Dieu, first as outside student and afterwards 
 as interne or resident assistant, the young student 
 did not neglect the lessons of Brother Come, who 
 was endeavouring to popularize his methods at the 
 hospital of the Charlte, as also at his private 
 infirmary. 
 
 At the death of Ms l)enefactor, young Souber- 
 bielle placed himself under the guidance of Brother 
 Come's nephew, Pascal Baseilhac. 
 
 Baseilhac, overcome by age and infirmities, re- 
 signed his functions of chief surgeon of the C ha rite 
 in favour of Dessault, and bequeathed to Souber- 
 bielle the precious instruments that he had himself 
 received from Brother Come. 
 
 When the Eevolution broke out, Souberbielle 
 hails its advent with enthusiasm. In 1789, he is 
 appointed surgeon-major of the Conquerors of the 
 Bastille. This was his first step in public life, f 
 He now makes close acquaintance with the principal 
 political personages of the day, of Avhom he becomes 
 the friend rather than the physician. He has 
 
 * Notice sur Souberbielle, by M. Ta.jen, in Archives des 
 Jiommcs du jour, p. 3. 
 t Ibid., p. 3.
 
 131 
 
 frequent intercourse with his colleague Marat, witli 
 iDanton and Camille Desmoulins: that, however, will not 
 prevent him from sending the two latter to the 
 -scaffold with the utmost serenity of conscience. 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville, who reserved him for the im- 
 iportant cases, such in which he employed those 
 whom he called ''solid," had appointed him to be 
 one of the jurymen called upon to judge the hatch 
 icomposed of Danton, Fahre d'Eglantine, Desmoulins, 
 (Chabot, Westermann and others. Coming early in 
 ithe morning to the Palace of Justice, Souberbielle 
 finds there a good friend of his, a juryman like 
 himself, who was drowned in tears: 
 
 "Eh! what," says he to liim, "what is the cause 
 of your grief, why are you crying?" 
 
 " Why, " answers the other, " do you not see 
 that to-day we shall have to judge such a patriot 
 as Danton, one of the founders of the Republic, a 
 man whom we have seen at our head on all the 
 great days?" 
 
 "Come, come, my friend," answered Souberbielle, 
 " listen to me, it is a very simple matter. Here are 
 ;two men who cannot exist at the same time, Robes- 
 pierre and Danton; which of the two is the most 
 useful to the Republic?" 
 
 "It's Robespierre," said the fi'iend without 
 i hesitating. 
 
 "Very well then, Danton must be guillotined. 
 You see, Ws as simple as how cVye do!" 
 
 And when he related this fact to Dubois (of
 
 132 
 
 Amiens), wlio has transmitted it to us, he did not 
 betray the least emotion. Later in life he still 
 remained so much the same man that at the 
 Revolution of July 1830 (being then seventy- six 
 years old), he said to some young men who were 
 carrying him in triumph with his decoration of the 
 Bastille: "Ah! this Marquis de La Fayette, he 
 has then come back again ! I trust that this tim e 
 we shall not miss him, and that we will guillo- 
 tine him." * 
 
 One man alone was safe from the harshness of 
 his appreciations, and even he was not always 
 judged by him with indulgence : f that man was 
 Eobespierre. In many circumstances he had been 
 the confidant of the tribune, and was not a little 
 proud of the same. During several weeks running, 
 Souberbielle might have been seen every morning 
 entering the abode of the incorruptible one, where 
 he would remain for about an hour, and then 
 leave with the greatest mystery. It was not till 
 long afterwards that the secret of these visits was 
 
 * He had received the decoration awarded to the Conqiierors of 
 the Bastille, and he reliariously preserved, as Mr. Latour tells us, 
 a memento of this gallant feat " in the shape of a stone from 
 the fortress, framed in a mahogany case, surmounted by a little 
 tricolor flag and the phrygian cap of liberty." In his extreme 
 old age, he used to have this relic brought piously to his bed- 
 side, and would then, in a ringing voice, strike up a strophe of 
 the Marseillaise (Payen, Notice sur Soioberbielle, loc. cit., p. 3 
 and G. Moreau-Chaslon, L' Entree de Danton aiix Enfers,'p.SO). 
 
 t Being one day with Trousseau who asked him what he 
 thought of Robespierre, Souberbielle gave him the following typical 
 answer : " Alas ! Robespierre himself was after all but a faint- 
 hearted chicken." Moreau-Chaslon, loc. cit., p. 29 note.
 
 133 
 
 revealed. The member of the Conyention was 
 afflicted with a yaricose ulceration on one of his 
 legs. But as M. de Robespierre Avas very neat 
 and careful of his appearance, ahvays clean shaven, 
 always Avell poAvdered, wearing- shorts and silk 
 stockings and a light blue tailed coat with gilt 
 buttons, he would not for the world have had any 
 one suspect his infirmity. His medical attendant 
 was therefore obliged to take infinite precautions 
 in order that nothing might transpire exteriorly. 
 
 On the very morning of the 9th Thermidor, 
 Robespierre, always uneasy about Ms ulcer, sent 
 for Souberbielle, who dressed his sore in one of the 
 rooms of the Hotel-de-Yille, * a few hours only before 
 the celebrated pistol-bullet e which fractured his jaw. 
 The following dialogue passd between the tw^o men : 
 
 " Thou wilt not be able to cure the wound they 
 will give me," said Robespierre, with a gloomy air. 
 
 " Wear a coat of mail, " said Souberbielle to him. 
 
 "It is not there that they Avill strike," replied 
 Robespierre, pointing to his breast: ''It is there, 
 it is there," passing the edge of his hand upon 
 his neck. '' They AviU cut off my head, I tell thee ! " 
 and. he took hold of the arm of Souberbielle, which 
 he shook Avith a sort of nervous phrenzy. 
 
 " He was fearful to look at ! " used to add Sou- 
 berbielle, Avho trembled again Avhen relating it tw^enty 
 years later, f 
 
 * Union Medicate, 1873, T. I, p. 374. 
 t Vide Union Medicale, 1850, p. 161.
 
 134 
 
 It may be questioned Avhat credence is to be 
 attached to the gossip of an old man then eighty 
 years of age, whose attention it was difficult to 
 fix, and who unrolled his reminiscences with a readi- 
 ness that may authorize a suspicion. What is 
 positive, is that Souberbielle had played an active 
 part in the revolutionary drama and that, if in 
 most of the events he may appear to us to have 
 been but a supernumerary, he was, in one circum- 
 stance at least, one of the leading actors. 
 
 When it was decided to put Marie-Antoinette on 
 her trial, Souberbielle, whose ardent republicanism 
 had recommended him to the attention of Robespierre 
 and of his acolytes, was called upon to judge the 
 unfortunate Queen of France. He had at first 
 thought of claiming to be challenged as juryman, 
 under the pretext of having attended professionally 
 upon the accused. 
 
 The presiding judge then said to him : " If any 
 one could reasonably challenge you, it would be the 
 prosecution, for you have attended upon the accused 
 and you might be touched by the grandeur of her 
 misfortune." * We do not know how far this is 
 true ; but certain it is that one day, the terrible 
 surgeon gave proof of feelings of humane compas- 
 sion ; t during a visit to the Conciergerie, he was 
 
 * Imbert de Saint-Amand, La derniere annee de Marie- 
 Antoinette, p. 267. 
 
 t He had notwithstanding, in a certain world, the reputation 
 of being very humane, and most obliging to the unfortunates who 
 confided in him. We have not ascertained at what epoch the
 
 135 
 
 so much struck by the humidity of the dungeon 
 in -which the prisoner -was confined, that with his 
 finger he scraped the moisture, overspread with 
 mildew, that covered the walls and infected the 
 place, and showed it to the members of the Con- 
 vention, in order to excite their pity in favour of 
 the unfortunate widow Capet. "■' He none the less 
 bears the responsibility of the condemnation of 
 Marie -Antoinette who, as it is known, was sent to 
 the scaffold by unanimity of votes. Is it true that 
 he pronounced the odious expression attributed to him 
 by the Abbe Soulavie, in his Memoirs, which are very 
 open to doubt? Nothing authorizes us to think so. 
 The reply of the Queen to Hebert, who had just 
 proffered against her the most infamous of accusa- 
 tions : " I appeal against it to all mothers ! " — " Bah ! 
 a mother such as you!" Souberbielle is supposed 
 to have muttered, according to Soulavie. But what 
 credit can be given to an expression related by a 
 man, a renegade of the Kevolution, whose Avritings, 
 more imbued with passion than with truth, have 
 so often been the subject of the most acrimonious 
 controversies ? 
 
 However it may be, Louis XYIII retained a 
 spite against the judge of Marie-Antoinette for 
 
 Count de Segur composed the following quatrain in praise of the 
 • good doctor" : 
 
 To do good is your sole occupation; 
 
 In all you surpass the men of the day, 
 
 While they throw stones one at the other 
 
 You, doctor, ease them of theirs. 
 * Gazette medicale de Paris, 1850, p. 757.
 
 136 
 
 having figured on the trial. At the time of the 
 Restoration Souberhielle occupied the post of chief 
 surgeon to the Gendarmerie of Paris. All the officers 
 of the garrison of Paris had been invited to go to 
 the Tuileries, in order to present their respects to 
 the royal family. The Duchess of Angouleme had 
 insisted that the usher at the door should call 
 aloud the name of each officer as he introduced 
 him. SouberMelle would not understand that it is 
 a proof of tact to try to remain in oblivion, and 
 he came to the palace. When the daughter of 
 Marie-Antoinette heard the name of her mother's 
 judge called out, she fainted away. Souberbielle 
 fell a victim to the scandal he had himself so 
 imprudently provoked : his post was suppressed and 
 he was officially placed on the retired list. 
 
 According to the expression of one of our most 
 brilliant conversationists, * Souberbielle united in 
 himself tAvo individualities equally interesting for 
 history : " The politician, taking part in the most 
 serious events of the latter end of the last century ; 
 and the surgeon, the celebrated lithotomist, whose 
 skilful hand has preserved the existence of so many 
 sufferers. " 
 
 The politician is now known to us, the practi- 
 tioner deserves fi*om more than one point of view 
 to be drawn from oblivion. 
 
 * Dr. Amadee Latour, "who for more than thirty years, has 
 lavished all the treasures of his charming wit in the Causeries 
 im'dicales, of which the most part are genuine chefs-d'ceuvre, 
 unfortunately not sufficiently known.
 
 137 
 
 Souberbielle had been received master in surgery 
 in 1792. In the same year, thanks to influential 
 support, he was nominated surgeon-major to the 
 35th division of the National Gendarmerie, and 
 subsequently surgeon-major to the revolutionary army. 
 
 During the Terror, he exercised the functions of 
 the health oflicer of the revolutionary tribunal and 
 of prisons. A few months later, he was appointed 
 to direct, with the title of chief health officer, the 
 medical service of the School of Mars. 
 
 This school, fi'om which have sprung later the 
 Ecole normale and the Ecole polytechnique, was 
 established at the Camp of Sablons. It was com- 
 posed of thi'ee or four thousand young men, chosen 
 in all the departments, from among the most in- 
 telligent and the most healthily constituted youths, 
 but as yet too young to take service in the army. * 
 
 The hospital attached to this school was estab- 
 
 * The School of Mars was established at the Camp of Sablons, 
 situated between Paris and the suburb of Neuilly. A part of the 
 Bois de Boulogne and of the Porte-Maillot was comprised within 
 the bounds of the Camp. 
 
 The pupils were picked youths, of from sixteen to seventeen 
 at the outside, chosen from all parts of France, to be exercised 
 in artillery, cavalry and infantry manoeuvres. 
 
 Paris was required to supply eighty pupils and the contingent 
 of each district was rigorously fixed at six. 
 
 Six pounds of straw was allotted to each man to sleep upon ; 
 the sand of the plain served for bedstead. 
 
 The diet consisted of black munition bread, coarse and in- 
 digestible; salt bacon, proceeding from a convoy of provisions 
 taken from the Prussians, and on great occasions veal or beef. 
 For drink the pupils were entitled only to water acidulated with 
 vinegar or to liquorice water. 
 
 (Those who desire more precise information concerning the
 
 138 
 
 lished Under tents in the Bois de Boulogne. Sou- 
 berbielle liad as assistants: Gavart, one of the 
 best pupils of Dessault; Lallement, "who died pro- 
 fessor of the Faculty of Paris ; Dr. Fouquin, who 
 became chief physician to the King, f etc. 
 
 The sudden change of manner of life and of 
 climate, bad food, and added to that, incessant 
 fatigue in the heat of summer, were not long in 
 provoking an epidemic of dysentery in the Camp. 
 Articles on the subject which appeared in the 
 Moniteur ended in spreading the alarm through 
 Paris. It was said therein that "two hundred 
 pupils had died in the Camp of Sablons, and that 
 they had been biuled at night in the Bois de 
 Boulogne, in order to hide their fate from their 
 parents." A formal contradiction from Souber- 
 bielle and his colleagues dissipated the bad effect 
 produced by this publication. 
 
 The treatment applied was pretty nearly that 
 used to combat enteritis in general: opiates, fric- 
 tions with camphorated oil, with "bread and lin- 
 seed poultices afterwards," veal broth, in which 
 entered also lettuce, leeks, sorrel and chervil, and 
 when these measures were found insufficient, recourse 
 was had to the laudanum of Abbe Eousseau, ac- 
 cording to the preparation of Brother Come. 
 
 School of Mars, cannot do better than consult the Compte-rendu 
 of the sittings of the SocicU lihre (Vemulation de Rouen, 1836, 
 p. 60 and seq.). 
 
 * He was made chief physician to King Louis Philippe, in 
 1840. {Transl.)
 
 139 
 
 What appeared to act best against the malady, 
 was the patients being treated under tent, that is 
 to say consequently in the open air. The tents 
 were forty-five feet in length and twenty-four feet 
 wide; they contained thirty beds in three rows of 
 ten beds each, one patient to each bed; "the 
 spaces between the beds were strewn with sand, 
 and grass grew one foot high beneath the beds." 
 The rest of the treatment had at least the merit 
 of originality. We cannot do better than let Sou- 
 berbielle himself speak: "I must not forget 
 either," says he, " another thing Avliich helped us very 
 much: tliis was music, Avhich brouglit diversion to 
 the minds of our patients. Close to the School 
 of Mars we had a military band, composed of more 
 than thirty musicians: having noticed one morning, 
 while the band was playing, that the patients ma- 
 nifested much satisfaction, that gave me the idea 
 of asking the band-master to be good enough, 
 Avhen retiu'ning from rehearsing at nine o'clock, to 
 strike up when passing before the health-quarter 
 (for so we designated the hospital), in order to 
 cheer up our patients ; to which he very graciously 
 consented; and I consequently ordered that every 
 morning each musician should be treated to a glass 
 of wine, as they came making then* musical prome- 
 nade so pleasing to everybody." 
 
 Souberbielle is so delighted with this medication, 
 that he does not hesitate to recommend it to the 
 ruling powers in 1832. "I believe," he says, " that
 
 140 
 
 if the same thing were done to-day, that music 
 was played in the hospital courts and on the bridges 
 of the Hotel-Dieu, * once or twice a day, nothing 
 in the world would better divert the attention of 
 the sick from their sufferings, particularly in this 
 circumstance where the mind has so much influence. 
 I remember that a jKipil whom I was treating for 
 a cerebral affection, on hearing the music, got up 
 from his bed and went out of the tent, and began 
 to dance under a heavy downpour of rain. He got 
 better and better, and four days later, was able to 
 return to camp." 
 
 After that, no one can surely deny the merits 
 of musico-therapeutics ! 
 
 It was not until 1813 that Souberbielle obtained 
 the degree of doctor of surgery. Soon afterwards 
 he succeeded in obtaining his nomination as surgeon- 
 major of the imperial gendarmerie, of the national 
 guard and of numerous charitable institutions. 
 Souberbielle enjoyed for a very long time an almost 
 European reputation ; he had not his equal in cut- 
 ting for stone in the bladder by what is known as 
 the high operation. "We can at present hardly 
 explain to ourselves the extraordinary favour that 
 this method then enjoyed, othermse than by the 
 remarkable skill displayed by the surgeon in this 
 delicate operation. In his hands lithotomy gave 
 
 * The old Hotel-Dieu, long since demolished, was built on both 
 sides of the small branch of the Seine, and the separate build- 
 ings were connected by covered bridges over the river. {Transl)
 
 Ul 
 
 marvellous results. Moreover he used to say, in 
 speaking of the treatment for stone in the bladder, 
 as it was in his time : " Lithotrity, " he Avould exclaim, 
 " a curse to surgery ! " He had such faith in the 
 excellence of his method that he admitted a numer- 
 ous company to assist at his operations. Physicians 
 and surgeons from all countries crowded to his 
 lessons. He was not afraid even to go abroad 
 to operate, and thus to submit liis method 
 to the criticism of his foreign colleagues. In 
 1823 he paid a visit to England and at West- 
 minster Hospital performed the liigli o])eyation, 
 at the same place Avhere, one hundred years before 
 Douglas had already practised it, and strange to 
 say, during that long period, the method had been 
 entirely abandoned in England.* It was now as 
 well appreciated by our neighbours across the Channel 
 as it was in his own country, as is testified in 
 the work of Dr. Carpue (of London), f and in the 
 Traits de la cystotomie stcs-piihlenne, by Dr. Bel- 
 mas, which appeared in Paris in 1827. In the 
 meantime he made numerous communications to 
 the Academy of Medicine and to the Institute. 
 This learned body awarded him, in 1834, the 
 Montyon prize as homage rendered to "the zeal 
 and perseverance" he had displayed for "the pre- 
 servation of a precious method of lithotomy," and 
 also "for the improvements" that he had applied 
 
 * Payen, he. cit., p. 7. 
 
 t On the high operation, in 8vo, London, 1819.
 
 142 
 
 to it. When lithotrity definitively took rank in 
 science, thanks particularly to the efforts of Civiale, 
 Souberbielle struggled "with energy against the 
 general enthusiasm. He did not systematically 
 condemn the new operation, as certain authors have 
 led to suppose, but he at least gave proof of clear- 
 sightedness, in not dissimulating that it might some- 
 times present serious danger. In a memorable 
 discussion that , took place at the Academy of 
 Medicine, in 1835, about lithotomy and lithotrity, 
 Souberbielle came forward as the champion of the 
 old doctrines and displayed, on this occasion, all 
 the brilliant qualities of a polemist, never at a 
 loss for arguments. 
 
 At eighty-two years of age he still continued to 
 operate for the stone as if he were yet in the 
 prime of life. He had preserved a freshness that 
 many young men might have envied him. "^ 
 
 * Dr. Berclion (of Bordeaux) has been amiable enough to com- 
 municate to us the following letter, which he had received from 
 Dr. Garat who knew Souberbielle towards the end of the latter's 
 life. This document contains some precious information concerning 
 the eccentric individual whose biography we have attempted to 
 write. 
 
 * I was just twenty-one, just landed from Bordeaux, where I 
 had been although so young, interne (resident assistant-surgeon) 
 at the Hopital Saint-Andr^, when I arrived in Paris to complete 
 my medical instruction and to pass my doctor's examen. 
 
 * My uncle, nephew of Garat, minister under the Convention, 
 brother of Garat, the celebrated singer, and himself a good 
 singer, but who had later in life become a teacher at Vaugirard, 
 used to receive me at his dinner-table every Wednesday. 
 
 * The first time I came there to dine, fresh from the provinces, 
 for Bordeaux was then quite a country-town, I found myself 
 seated at table next to a little old gentleman over seventy years
 
 143 
 
 If we are to believe liim, he himself carried 
 his patients from one bed to another, after having 
 "cut them in superior manner." He was fond of 
 relating, to wliomsoever would listen, his amorous 
 exploits, of which he was nearly as proud as of his 
 scientific achievements. He attained to the age 
 of ninety years Avithout the least infirmity. One 
 day, at a sitting of the Academy of Medicine, he 
 stopped in the reading of a memoir of liis to fill 
 with water the glass beside him : " Look, " said he, 
 holding it out at arm's length, "does my hand 
 tremble?" And, as a fact, although the glass 
 was filled to the brim, he did not spill a drop. 
 
 of age, but sprightly, quick anti still vigorous who at once treated 
 me as a Garat, and with the utmost cordiality : ' You are a 
 future colleague,' said he to me, 'I am myself the nephew of 
 Brother Come.' "We entered into conversation, notwithstanding 
 my relative timidity, and I was astonishingly surprised at the 
 prodigious meridional accent of Souberbielle. He had lived for 
 upwards of sixty years in Paris and yet he still used a Gascon 
 accent such as is now seldom heard even in the department 
 of the Gers. I was all eyes and all ears, but ears quite 
 shocked, although I had but just come from the South. 
 
 * ' Yes, young man,' said he, ' Robespierre was my friend, and 
 I feel glory and honour in the fact, as I told Mr. de Lamartine, 
 who has put it in his Histoire des Girondins.' 
 
 •'But,' I ventured to object, with hesitation, 'he behaved like 
 a scoundrel, he was drowned in blood.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! young man ! (always with the same accent and the 
 same heat), he a man of blood, he, the most honest of citizens, 
 a worthy man, he, a man of blood, never! Listen to this: a 
 bosom friend of his, a good citizen, brave and absolutely con- 
 vinced, who came to Robespierre, and said to him : " In order 
 to finish up at once, it is necessary to cut oif one hundred 
 thousand heads." What did Robespierre do? He sent his bosom 
 friend to the guillotine. And after that you call him a man of 
 blood!...'" 
 
 Is tliis not typical !
 
 144 
 
 Although he often read memoirs to the Academy, 
 he was not a member of that learned assembly. 
 But he had a fancy to present himself as candi- 
 date, and with that view had paid the usual visits 
 to the reporter of the Committee, Mr. Eeveille- 
 Parisse, whose political opinions were totally at 
 variance with those of Souberbielle, and who gave 
 him a more than cool reception. When he objected 
 to his visitor his advanced age (he was then past 
 eighty) Souberbielle began to stamp about, to 
 jump, and to dance a wild cancan. The sight of 
 this aged man, with his bald head, his face fur- 
 rowed Avith Avrinkles, with stooping back and 
 emaciated form, was more painful than repugnant. 
 
 To see this man who had pronounced sentence 
 of death against a Queen of France, jump and 
 pirouette, his operating instruments in hand and 
 in his pockets big boxes full of calculi ! . . . "My 
 astonishment, " says Reveille-Parisse, " was nigh to 
 stupefaction ! " 
 
 Needless to say that Souberbielle had executed 
 his gymnastics to no purpose, and the Academy 
 refused to open its doors to him.
 
 WHAT 
 
 WAS 
 
 MARAT'S DISEASE. 
 
 10
 
 Magis exurunt quos secrelie lacerant 
 euro". Seneca. 
 
 Those whom secret cares torment, 
 suffer most.
 
 WITH WHAT DISEASE WAS MAEAT 
 AFFLICTED? 
 
 It may seem rash, after the lapse of a century, 
 and without the document before our eyes, that 
 is to say the subject in person, to discuss the 
 nature of his aihnent, particularly when it concerns 
 a man who, like Marat, dissimulated its slightest 
 traces with fastidious care. Besides, what indica- 
 tions are there whereon to base a diagnosis? 
 In those times, wliich now seem to us so remote, 
 the medical observations were not rigorous enough, 
 they were indeed scarcely noticed. And, on the 
 other hand, would the fiery publicist have easily 
 consented, he, a former physician, to submit to 
 an examination that would not have been willingly 
 endured by his untractable nature? We are 
 therefore reduced to argue upon conjectures, upon 
 oral tradition, upon Avhat is related by his con- 
 temporaries, all things which, united, Avill per- 
 haps give some weight to an opinion, the prob- 
 ability of which will, we venture to think, hardly 
 be doubted. 
 
 There were some to cry out "" paradox" when, 
 
 147
 
 148 
 
 free from all political passion, imbued with the sole 
 desire of casting a ray of truth upon a physiognomy, 
 Avilfully distorted, we have endeavoured to establish 
 a connection between the pathological state and the 
 character, hy turns pitiful and ferocious, of the 
 man who liked to call himself the friend of the 
 people. Who does not to-day know what influence 
 certain inflammatory affections, and particularly those 
 of the skin, exercise upon the moral being and 
 upon his actions ? We trust that no desire of re- 
 habilitation will be seen here; at the utmost an 
 attenuation of responsibility might be inferred. One 
 cannot remain otherwise than baflled at this blending 
 of cold cruelty with exalted sensibility, and a feeling 
 of indulgence takes hold of the man who has dis- 
 sected this physiological being. Once more, we 
 repeat, we do not justify, we draw attention to 
 facts, and with the result, that we establish, beyond 
 all contestation, that Marat was ill. AVhat matters 
 it to us, besides, that his sanguinary fury or mania 
 for accusing corresponded with the moments of the 
 attacks of his malady? What matters it that the 
 cerebral being had been the docile slave of the 
 physical individual? Why adventure further on 
 into the so complex domain of psychology, when 
 we have already so much difiiculty in unravelling 
 the chaos of the various morbid manifestations? 
 
 They are, in fact, so numerous, the affections 
 that provoke those incessant itchings which torment 
 Marat, this prurigo that necessitated a more or less
 
 149 
 
 [irolonged immersion in that bath, around which 
 the murderous poniard has created a leg-end. How 
 is it that the suft'erer remains thus whole days 
 plunged in the water, without succeeding- in cooling 
 the lire which is burning him? Is it, as some of 
 the enemies of the demagogue have insinuated with 
 more perfidy than justice, a malady contracted 
 during a vicious youth that has l)rought in its 
 train such disorders? A medical man in the least 
 degree gifted with a sense of observation would 
 not for a moment stop at such an hypothesis, these 
 kinds of affections being particularly singularized 
 by their indolence which, often indeed, misleads us 
 as to their gravity. 
 
 Scabies, or the itch, to call it by its vulgar name, 
 alwaj'S spares the face, even when it is inveterate, 
 and lasts for years. 
 
 Phtiriasis, and the malady of ScyJla, cannot be 
 brought into question: they commence by the back 
 and the neck, and not by the scrotum and the 
 perineum; for we have this admission from a con- 
 temporary of Marat, of whom he was the friend 
 and to some extent the physician, from the litho- 
 toraist Souberbielle, who affirmed that the Friend 
 of the peoi)h was being devoured by a horrible 
 impetiginous affection of the perineo-scrotal region. 
 Has this localization a sig-nificance that we can 
 interpret? Undoubtedly. The prurigo scroti, the 
 various varieties of lichen, the lichenoid eczema are 
 aU to be met with in these regions.
 
 150 
 
 The lichen group is so thick-set, it horders 
 on so many neighbouring species, that it is almost 
 impossible to withdraw one variety therefrom in order 
 to distinctly characterize it. All that is known, 
 is, that apart from some exceptional cases, the 
 itching is generally moderate ; this was not the case 
 with our subject. 
 
 The xwurigo of Hebra is well characterized by 
 eruptions, accompanied by itching against which 
 every kind of treatment is powerless. According 
 to Besnier, scrofula or arthritis are its grand he- 
 reditary and constitutional sources; and there is 
 reason to suppose that Marat was of arthritic nature. 
 We have, in fact, established elsewhere * that he 
 had exhibited undeniable symptoms of exhaustion, what 
 is known under the generic name of neuro-astJienia 
 (he was exhausted by night-studies, excess of work 
 and the immoderate use of coffee). But neuro- 
 asthenia and arthritis are closely related. It would 
 therefore appear as if Marat was affected with the 
 prurigo of Hebra, were not this affection relatively 
 so rare. What is more commonly observed is 
 eczema, whether lichenoid or not, and as far as 
 we are concerned, we would rather incline to 
 that conjecture. 
 
 That is, besides, the opinion of our distinguished 
 colleague. Dr. Barthelemy, who has been good 
 enough to communicate to us his impressions on 
 the subject, 
 
 * Marat inconnu, by Dr. A. Cabanes, Paris, 1891.
 
 151 
 
 With all the scientific rigour to he expected 
 from a former clinical physician to the hospital 
 Saint-Louis and one of the preferred pupils of Pro- 
 fessor Fournier, Mr. Barthelemy discussed under 
 all its hearings the prohlem that troubles us. 
 " Whether it he a case of lichen or of eczema, 
 these two affections result from the corrupting of 
 the blood crasis by the products of fermentation 
 elaborated in the organism, by the exaggerated 
 production of extractive matter, for Avant of elimina- 
 tion and purifying, by the accumulation of uric and 
 butyric acids, etc ... In short, they are the con- 
 sequences of auto-intoxications. They are skin- 
 poisoners." How are these skin-poisoners produced ? 
 "For that," continued he, " there must be habitual 
 errors of diet, prolonged disregard of the general 
 laws of hygiene, of hygiene in food, of hygiene of 
 the skin." 
 
 Whoever has made a careful study of the per- 
 sonage, will see clearly that Marat lived under the 
 most deplorable hygienic conditions. Working with- 
 out intermission, taking his meals at irregular 
 intervals, and hardly devoting a few rare moments 
 to his toilet. Are not all historians agreed to 
 dilate with satisfaction on the would-be negligence 
 of his external appearance ? " Marat, " say they, 
 " was of repugnant dirtiness in his dress and in his 
 person. " 
 
 Besides that, living in a state of perpetual fever, 
 he never interrupts his writing but to absorb
 
 KO 
 
 15 
 
 hastily some food which, insufficiently masticated, 
 is in consequence insufficiently digested. Whence 
 " Sleeplessness, a leaden hue," anxiety, feverish 
 agitation, gastric troubles and their consequences. 
 There is nothing astonisliing, if after that, there 
 should follow eczema whether accompanied or not 
 hy lichen. 
 
 "His stomach could no longer support liquids," 
 says one of his biographers. "Is this not," logically 
 adds Mr. Bartheleray, " the dyspepsia of liquids of 
 Chomel, the dilatation of tJw stomach ofBowGhSiTd? 
 Translate it once again as: arthritis or better 
 eczema in an arthritic or a herpetic subject." 
 
 A symptom, which, according to us, is worthy 
 of being seriously examined, is the thirst, that 
 burning thirst that the sufferer has the greatest 
 difiiculty in quenching by emollient soothing drinks, 
 such as water " mixed with almond paste and clay," 
 of which he absorbs several cupfuls during the 
 day. This continual thirst, is it to be attributed 
 to a vice of nutrition or would it not rather be 
 a sign of diabetes? We can invoke in favour of 
 the latter hypothesis the following souvenir : our 
 learned colleague and friend Dr. Eobinet, affirmed 
 that he had heard from one of the descendants of 
 Harmand (de la Meuse), or of some other deputy 
 having Ms seat at the Convention behind Marat, 
 that the latter was almost continually, during the 
 sittings, munching cakes and other sweets; now, it 
 is a Avell-known fact, that diabetics are particularly
 
 153 
 
 greedy for that wliicli is to them forbidden fruit. 
 
 Another detail, the importance of which may be 
 put forward: According- to Fabre d'Eglantine, 
 Marat hopped in walking. Was it that the rub- 
 bing of the scrotum caused him such itching as 
 to oblige him to waddle with his feet apart; or, 
 more simply, was he not affected with iisoriasis 
 of the soles of the feet, which would have made 
 it uncomfortable for him to put his feet to the 
 ground? 
 
 It is true that this kind of psoriasis is rare; 
 and also that it exceptionally coincides Avith eczema, 
 but it often accompanies diabetes, and most fre- 
 quently it falls to the lot of arthritic subjects. 
 
 To sum up, the "hideous leprosy" that the 
 painter David saw on the body of Marat, tAVO days 
 before his death, the squamous and vesicant affec- 
 tion Avhich obliged the unhappy man to^ have re- 
 course to the hydrotherapic manoeuvres that are 
 knoAvn, was, in all probability, an eczema general- 
 ized. If it is not permitted to us to be more 
 affirmative in a retrospective diagnosis, the fault 
 lies in the want of documents that would have 
 enabled us to establish it with greater certainty.
 
 TALLEYRAND 
 
 AND 
 
 THE DOCTOES.
 
 Savoir dissimuler est !e savoir des 
 
 rot's. KlCHEHBU.
 
 TALLEYRAND AND HIS DOCTORS. 
 
 The man who, during sixty years "played Avith 
 peoples and crowns on the chess-hoard of the 
 Universe," the incarnation of all apostacies, 
 
 " . . . . the liying perjurer, 
 Talleyrand-Perig-ord, Prince of Benevent," 
 had received from Louis XVIII the formal order to get 
 himself forgotten. The incomparable actor had used 
 up all his parts. He accepted exile, hut he refused 
 to taste its bitterness. He was resigned to retire, 
 but surrounded himself at the same time with all 
 the luxury and comfort that Ms ambition and his 
 tastes had long since rendered indispensable to him. 
 
 Like a fallen sovereigii, he carried his Court 
 away with Mm: that crowd of greedy parasites, 
 who sharpened his contempt for the human race; 
 the witty and cynical buffoon to revive once more 
 his vanished smile; the most skilful cook in 
 Europe, the illustrious Car6me himself, to stimulate 
 his blunted palate; the all gracious Duchess of 
 Dino, the most charming and seductive of nieces. 
 Without taking into account a pack of coachmen, 
 grooms and stablemen, an army of valets, to remind 
 
 157
 
 158 
 
 him of his former regal escort. Sportsman, libertine 
 and epicure, the lines had fallen unto him in pleasant 
 places: hut what the prince loved more than good 
 cheer and women, was play. 
 
 In his sumptuous residence of Valen^ay, a strange 
 Moorish construction, buried in a forest of oaks, 
 when evening came and lights were extinguished, 
 the whole place distilled emmi. But then came 
 those interminable rubbers of whist, intermingled 
 mth conversations in W'hich shone the satirical sallies 
 of the host, around a modest green table which 
 helped to recall to the diplomatist the time when 
 he juggled before an audience of Kings. 
 
 As may well be imagined, the prince led the 
 conversation. The only right accorded to the 
 liireKngs composmg the audience was that of holding 
 their tongues. 
 
 One man alone, perhaps, had preserved his freedom 
 of speech. This partner, whom he feared at the 
 whist-table, tliis personage, whose advice he so- 
 licited and sometimes followed, was his principal 
 physician. Doctor Boui'dois de la Motte. To gain 
 the confidence of so versatile and capricious a 
 personality as that of Talleyrand, it was necessary 
 to have furnished proof of value. Dr. Bourdois 
 was born in the same year as the Prince of Benevent, 
 on September 14, 1754. Before becoming acquainted 
 with the prince, he had already inaugurated a 
 brilliant career. By a happy chance, from the 
 beginning honours had showered upon him.
 
 159 
 
 In 1788 he had succeeded Malouet, as chief 
 physician to Madame Victoire, the aunt of Louis XVI. 
 In this capacity he \vas lodged in the palace of 
 the Luxembourg. The Count de Provence, afterwards 
 Louis XVIII, wisliing to attach him to his person, 
 had made him manager of his library, of his 
 cabinet of natural pliilosophy and of his collection of 
 natural liistory. He was then thirty-four years of age. 
 
 In 1791, "the Count de Provence started off as 
 an " emigre. " Already he had been preceded several 
 months before by Mesdames Adelaide and Victoire, 
 the aunts of the King, who had gone by another 
 road. Malouet had accompanied them. 
 
 These ladies, who had taken the road to Italy, 
 were soon arrested by the mimicipality of Arnay- 
 le-Duc and carefully guarded until the Assembly 
 should decide their fate. 
 
 The devotion of Bourdois de la Motte in these 
 unhappy circumstances was not likely to be over- 
 looked. Denounced and persecuted, it was not long 
 before he was incarcerated in the prison of La Force, 
 as a suspected royalist. He had the shrewdness 
 to get himself claimed for public service and sent 
 to the army. 
 
 At the end of 1793, he was made chief physi- 
 cian to the division operating on the Var. There, 
 he became intimate with a man who Avas destined 
 to have the greatest influence upon his future : the 
 chances of war had brought him into contact with 
 Bonaparte, then simply a major of artillery.
 
 160 
 
 The intercourse of the doctor with the future 
 Emperor bore first of all the stamp of warm- 
 hearted cordiality. The refined politeness of Bour- 
 dois, his speech equally removed from base flattery 
 or from brutal frankness, had conquered this rugged 
 nature, which dissimulated, under a dominating 
 exterior, treasures of sensibility. After an expedi- 
 tion, of which eyery stage was a triumph, the 
 brilliant general returned to Paris to become in- 
 toxicated with the acclamations of the crowd, and 
 also to meditate the act of vigour that was to 
 realize for him the dream of his ambition. 
 
 Bonaparte, who then occupied a modest apart- 
 ment in the rue Neuve des Capucines, invited 
 several times to his table Ms former companion 
 in arms.' 
 
 A little later, he appointed him chief physician 
 to his army of the interior. 
 
 One day, that Boui'dois was breakfasting quietly 
 at home with his family, a courrier came, informing 
 him of the departure of Bonaparte for Italy, bring- 
 ing liim at the same time his nomination as director 
 of the sanitary service of the army. 
 
 This invitation very much resembled an order; 
 Bourdois committed the blunder of declining it. 
 His young wife, he said, was delicate; his private 
 practice took up all his time. In reality, his 
 peaceful nature and home tastes alone kept him 
 in Paris. 
 
 Bonaparte, who could not suffer that any one
 
 161 
 
 should not be unreservedly devoted to himself 
 accepted these excuses with much difficulty, and 
 was very ni^^h never forgiving Bourdois. 
 
 It required nothing less than the diplomatic 
 finesse of Talleyrand, who, in the interval, had 
 entrusted the care of liis health to Bourdois, to 
 bring about a reconciliation. 
 
 In one of those fits of indulgence, of which he 
 was but little lavish, Napoleon consented to forget the 
 slight cast upon Bonaparte. In 1811 the Emperor 
 appointed Bourdois physician to the King of Eome. 
 
 The doctor, most happy to be again in favour, 
 expressed the most profuse thanks: 
 
 " All is forgotten," said the Emperor, " begin your 
 service. I intend to found a princes' college at 
 Meudon, of which you shall also be the physician." 
 And as he was about to leave, the Emperor added, 
 laughing : 
 
 "Since our last interview, do you find me any 
 taller?" ^'= 
 
 And as Bourdois commenced a dithyrambic praise 
 of the warlike deeds of the Emperor, the latter 
 interrupted Mm, saying: 
 
 "No, no, that is not my meaning, I allude in 
 fact to my actual height, for I have often regretted 
 not to have had yours. Ah! If in Egypt I had 
 possessed the physical advantages of Kleber, it would 
 have been of immense value to me." 
 
 Bourdois occupied a good position at Court. 
 
 * Fius grand, taller, iiieaas also greater. {IVansl.) 
 
 11
 
 162 
 
 Besides his annual salary of 4:, 500 francs, his 
 carriage and horses supplied hy the imperial stahles, 
 he was appointed Counsellor of the University, 
 received numerous dotations, together with the 
 title of baron, and Avas decorated with the insignia 
 of all possible orders. 
 
 But he had to consider Corvisart, Avhose author- 
 ity extended over all the medical staff of the 
 Emperor and of the Court, and who could with 
 difficulty stand any contradiction; the more, that 
 the manners of Bourdois, always courteous and 
 affable, contrasted singularly Avith the roughness 
 and brutality, entirely superficial, of Corvisart. It 
 was not without a certain spite that the latter saw 
 his prestige daily diminishing. 
 
 He therefore neglected no opportunity of assert- 
 ing his supremacy. One day, he had announced 
 his visit to the King of Eome and had, for the 
 occasion, convoked his physician and surgeon, Mr. 
 Auvity. He ordered the young prince to be un- 
 dressed, examined his body carefully and then re- 
 tired without saying a word. 
 
 Bourdois must have suffered in his wounded 
 pride, but he let nothing transpire. 
 
 He was amply revenged '^ when, called to the 
 bedside of the dying Corvisart, he heard that un- 
 
 * In 1839, Bourdois was called upon to draw up a report on 
 the proposal of placing the bust of Corvisart in the hall of the 
 Acaderaie de Medecine. He fulfilled this duty with the most 
 commendable impartiality. (V^ide, BInn. de I'Acad. ro>j. de Med., 
 T. IV, p. 53 & seq.).
 
 163 
 
 fortunate great man beg liis forgiveness for what 
 lie had previously done. 
 
 With the keen perception that distinguished him, 
 Corvisart had divined the merit of a man Avhom 
 he had always highly esteemed, although his nom- 
 ination had been made without Ms having been 
 made cognizant of it. 
 
 Besides, if we are to believe one of his biog- 
 raphers, * " Doctor Bourdois de la Motte was the 
 type of those Court physicians, models of urbanity, 
 of refined politeness, of good breeding, supremely 
 masters of all the finesse of the drawing-room, and 
 possessed of the talent of speaking well and at 
 the proper moment." 
 
 The only thing he lacked to be a perfect homme 
 comme il faut, was perhaps a certain amount of 
 selfishness ... " His conversation was animated, 
 full of sense, of wit, but Avithout epigrams, or 
 irony, and without any affected point of humour; 
 and it might be taken as one of those pleasant, 
 subtle and delicate causeries so dear to the aged 
 and from which the young can always draw profit." 
 
 Can it therefore be surprising that this cheerful 
 conversationist, this amiable impertinent, entirely 
 moulded of charm and seduction, should have con- 
 quered Talleyrand ? 
 
 Talleyrand, who was keen-sighted as regards 
 men, had at once appointed him to the post of 
 physician to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, im- 
 
 * Keveille-Parise, Gaz. med. Paris, 1838.
 
 164 
 
 portaiit functions, which immediately placed Boiir- 
 dois in communication with every new ambassador 
 or extraordinary charge d'affaires. 
 
 The task was not beyond his powers: ha showed 
 himself, in every point, worthy of the confidence 
 that the prince had in him. 
 
 His bearing- and his manner had charmed all 
 those who approached him. They gained for him 
 also the favour of the ladies, Avhich he had always 
 the skill to enlist on his side, by his gentleness 
 and kindly urbanity. But he was quick to reassume 
 his coldness and haughty reserve, when he judged 
 that his dignity was in danger of being compromised. 
 
 In whatsoever circumstance he found liimself, he 
 never abandoned that dignity. Talleyrand himself, 
 so expert in the matter, was the first to recognize it. 
 
 " There are two men who visit me," he often said, 
 " about whom people are always mistaken : Cohentzel, * 
 who is supposed to be my doctor, and Bourdois, 
 who is taken for an ambassador." 
 
 His tall figure, his long and serious face, his 
 strongly marked features, his sculptural profile, all 
 concurred to mislead as to his quality. 
 
 And, in that connection, the Court of the Emperor 
 Napoleon talked a good deal and laughed not a 
 little at an adventure, of Avhich the Emperor's 
 valet-de-chambre. Constant, has handed down to us 
 the piquant account, f 
 
 * Cobenlz, Austrian ambassador. (Transl.) 
 j Memoires de Constant, T. IV, p. 56.
 
 165 
 
 The Persian aiiiljassador, Asker-Khan, sent to Paris 
 on a mission from liis government, having- been for 
 some days indisposed, and convinced that French 
 medicine mnst be more efHcacions than that of his 
 Persian physicians, ordered Doctor Bonrdois to he 
 sent for, as one of the most repnted physicians in 
 Paris, and whose name Avas known to him, he 
 having taken care to inform himself ahont all the 
 celebrities of the capital. 
 
 Of course the orders of the embassy were promptly 
 executed; but by a singular mistake, it was not 
 Dr. Bonrdois who was requested to visit Asker-Khan, 
 but Mr. Marbois, the President of the Court of 
 Requests, who was much astonished at the honour 
 conferred upon him by the Persian ambassador, not 
 seeing exactly what connection there existed between 
 them. 
 
 However, he hastened to respond to the invi- 
 tation of Asker-Khan who, on his side, took the 
 severe costume of the President of the Court of 
 Accounts for that of a Court physician. 
 
 Hardly had Mr. Marbois entered, than the am- 
 bassador, looking at him, Avithout a word, put out 
 his tongue. Mr. Marbois was somewhat astonished 
 at this sort of reception, but imagining that it was 
 an oriental fashion of saluting magistrates, bowed 
 profoundly in his turn, respectfully taking the hand 
 extended to him. He was still in this respectful 
 attitude, when four attendants of the ambassador 
 brought forward and presented beneath his nose,
 
 166 
 
 for information, a golden vase, of Avhich the matter 
 therein contained was revealed by non equivocal 
 manifestations. Mr. de Marhois recognized the 
 matter with inexpressible surprise and indignation. 
 He drew back affronted, asking sharply what was 
 meant by all that, and, hearing himself called 
 doctor : " What, " says he, " doctor? " — " Yes, Doctor 
 Bourdois. " Poor Mr. Marbois was confounded. The 
 similarity of the ending of his name with that of 
 Dr. Bourdois was the cause of this disagreeable 
 mistake. 
 
 Doctor Bourdois was, however, well known to all 
 the diplomatic corps. At the time when the sovereigns 
 of all the liliputian principalities of Germany flocked 
 to Paris to defend their threatened interests, there 
 w^as not one who did not simulate some illness in 
 order to gain to his cause the intimate physician 
 of Talleyi'and. Under colour of consulting him, 
 they all sought to win the favour of the good 
 doctor, whom they hoped in this manner to make 
 their advocate towards Ms illustrious patron. 
 
 Thence, this showier of golden snuff-boxes, of which 
 he had two thousand pounds sterling worth melted 
 and sold when he purchased his country-house, 
 and of which he reserved the finest for his inestim- 
 able collection of objects of art. 
 
 For, in fact. Dr. Bourdois was a connoisseur 
 and an amateur of taste. Together with the tra- 
 ditions of the old Faculty, he had preserved those 
 of the ancient Court. His professional occupations
 
 167 
 
 never made him forget his duties to society. Dressed 
 \)y nine o'clock, alter taking his coffee or his cho- 
 colate, he started off in his carriage, not to return 
 until evening. His professional visits alternated 
 with visits of politeness or of friendship. 
 
 If he frequented distinguished personages, he 
 liked also to open his house to all that Paris could 
 count of men of letters, * and of artists, who in 
 his drawing-rooms met with the most illustrious 
 names in the army, in the magistracy and in 
 finance. 
 
 The Marshals Macdonald and Sehastiani, the banker 
 Lafitte and Ghauveau-Lagarde, there elbowed against 
 the painters Isabey and Gerard and the heroic Ee- 
 gnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely. 
 
 The residence of Dr. Bourdois was one of the 
 most sumptuous in the capital. Every one of 
 those Avhom he had obliged strove to leave him 
 some memento of his gratitude. Isabey and Cireri 
 insisted upon themselves decorating his drawing-room 
 and there painted two superb panels representing 
 scenes connected with the art of healing. The 
 Temple of Escidapius and the Gardens of Epidaiirus 
 were the two paintings which Bourdois had the 
 greatest pride in showing to his visitors. 
 
 On Sundays, the doctor preferred receiving his 
 friends in the country. He occupied, near to Ville 
 d'Avray, a vast habitation which had belonged to 
 
 * Vide the verses of Desaugiers on the birthday of Dr. Bour- 
 dois {Drohries mcdicaUs de Wilcoxi-ssli, y. 52).
 
 168 
 
 Liiiguet; from whence that celebrated pamphleteer 
 had heen dragged to mount the steps of the 
 scaffold. 
 
 Dr. Boiirdois there devoted himself to gardening 
 and naturally sacrificed large sums to that 
 recreation. As a respectful and sul)missive servitor 
 he went to Yalen^a}^ whenever Talleyrand called 
 him there, hut it Avas in general more often to he 
 his partner in a rubber of whist than to give him 
 medical advice. 
 
 Talleyrand followed too strict a regimen to be 
 often ill. He ate but little, particularly in the 
 evening, often contenting himself with his mid-day 
 meal. * But Ms table w^as served with such pro- 
 fusion that he could always taste of any dish he 
 particularly preferred. His cuisine was choice and 
 his cellar contained the finest brands. 
 
 Like Napoleon and Yoltaire, he was very fond 
 of coffee, sipping as a connoisseur the liquor, so 
 prettily disparaged by Madame de Sevigne. He 
 had always forbidden himself the use of spirits 
 and liqueurs. 
 
 It is well-known that he was most particularly 
 careful of his dress. He would devote long hours 
 to it, displaying in this supreme art of coquetry 
 all the resources of his ingenious intellect. 
 
 * M. de Talleyrand took but one meal at a fixed hour, only 
 he Mould at times take a glass of excellent Madeira, in which he 
 Foaked a biscuit {Memoire sitr M. de TalJei/rmid, sa vie politique 
 et sa vie intime, svivi de la relation authentiqiie de ses derniers 
 mo)iicnts, etc., p. 96, bureaux de la Gazette des Families).
 
 169 
 
 He could still find time to work several hours 
 a day, to drive over his estates in his carriage, 
 his infirmitj' (a club-foot) denying him any long 
 walks. 
 
 He slept but very little, passing his nights at the 
 card -table, only leaving his game noAv and then to 
 converse ; often going to bed not before four o'clock 
 in the morning, to aAvaken again at day-break. 
 
 ''His pulse had the strange peculiarity of being 
 very full, Avith an intermittence at every tenth 
 pulsation. He had indeed a theory on that subject ; 
 he considered this absence of the tenth pulsation 
 to be a moment of rest, a sort of repose of nature, 
 and he seemed to believe that these pulsations that 
 were wanting and which were due to him, would 
 come into account in the long run and be added 
 to all those of his whole life, which to him was 
 as a promise of longevity. He also attributed to 
 this the small amount of sleep he required, as if 
 nature had taken sleep in retail and in small doses 
 on account." "'' 
 
 It may almost be said that his death was the 
 ending of his first and only malady. 
 
 For a long time, he used to take the waters 
 of Bourbon I'Archambault, at least every other year. 
 
 There he was treated by a local physician, a very 
 pedantic personage, Dr. Fage, who was often the 
 butt of his satirical remarks. 
 
 * Pichot, Sonoenirs intitnes sur M. de Talleyrand, from the 
 documents of Florent and Place.
 
 170 
 
 This doctor had the insupportable mania of 
 interlarding his conversation with numerous Latin 
 quotations. One evening, at supper, he gave out, 
 with the grotesque solem.nity which he never put aside, 
 the following sentence : " Fins acre vwimns qnani 
 ciho, " which it appears caused all the ladies present 
 to hlush, although they had not the least idea of 
 what it meant. 
 
 Talleyrand at once took advantage of the cir- 
 cumstance to augment their confusion hy treating 
 them to a fantastical paraphrase of the sentence; 
 which otherwise was innocent enough. 
 
 Excepting towards Dr. Bourdois, for whom he 
 professed both admiration and esteem, Talleyrand 
 was much addicted to re-editing the epigrams of 
 Moliere against the doctors. 
 
 A disciple of Aesculapius, brother to one of the 
 most honourable representatives of France, joined 
 to the worship of Hippocrates, one equally pro- 
 nounced for Comus: in brief, he was supposed to 
 be much of a gastronomist. This doctor had 
 presented to Talleyrand, who admitted him into his 
 intimacy, a personage whose prodigalities were 
 much talked about; the rich Mr. Seguin. 
 
 . Mr. Seguin, very proud of such a recruit, proposed 
 to treat his new guest magnificently, and begged 
 of the diplomatist to make out himself a list of the 
 persons whom he should like to meet. The number 
 of guests at table Avas to be twelve, including the 
 host, Mr. Seguin. M. de Talleyrand fulfilled his
 
 171 
 
 task conscientiously, only he managed to forget to 
 invite the \eYj person who had made him acquainted 
 with Mr. Seg-uin. He simply wanted to make this 
 gourmand miss a good dinner. 
 
 He was fated to dearly expiate his sarcasms and 
 his sallies against the profession! He, who had 
 never known ought but passing indispositions, was, 
 in his turn, attacked by the evil that pardons not. 
 
 Since his retimi from England, he had one of 
 those infirmities that contribute to maintain 
 health: an affection of the legs which constituted 
 for him, a natural derivative. * 
 
 From the day that nature suppressed that issue, 
 the patient's condemnation was passed. 
 
 Taken with sudden chill and vomiting, he felt 
 a violent pain in the lower part of the loins, on 
 the left side and, in obedience to the entreaties of 
 the friends surrounding him, he consented to call 
 to his bedside one of the princes of science. 
 Cruveilhier, with the rapid glance of a clinical 
 doctor, at once diagnosed an anthrax in the lumbar 
 region, but he required that Marjolin be called in 
 to aid him in the operation. The surgeon was 
 obliged twice to recommence the operation. The 
 patient, impassible and resigned, merely said: 
 ''Doctor, you have pained me a good deal, but if 
 I am quit at that price, I thank you." Marjolin 
 shook his head and Avithdrew. 
 
 The next day, fever broke out, and the patient 
 
 * The only treatment employed was lead lotions.
 
 172 
 
 fell into a lethargic prostration that predicted an 
 imminent final result. 
 
 On the 17th of May, 1838, the greatest actor 
 of modern times had ended his career. 
 
 Two days afterwtirds, a reporter of genius, Vic- 
 tor Hugo it Avas, indited on a flying leaf the fol- 
 lowing remarks: ^' 
 
 "Well, the day before yesterday, 17th May, 
 1838, this man died. Doctors came and embalmed 
 his body. For that, after the manner of the Egyp- 
 tians, they withdrew the entrails from his abdomen 
 and the brain from his cranium. That done, after 
 having transformed Prince Talleyrand into a mummy 
 and having deposited that mummy in a satin-lined 
 coffin, they went away, leaving upon a table the 
 brain, f that brain which had thought so many 
 things, had inspired so many men, built up so 
 many edifices, led two revolutions, deceived twenty 
 monarchs, and had contained the world. 
 
 " The doctors gone, a valet entered, he saw what 
 they had left. How now! they have forgotten that. 
 What is to be done with it? He remembered a 
 drain close at hand, there he Avent, and cast that 
 brain Avithin it. Finis reriim" 
 
 How Avas it that such a profanation could have 
 been accomplished, is what remains for us to 
 relate. Talleyrand's physician in ordinary was, as 
 
 * Victor Hugo, Glioses vues, p. 3. 
 
 t The autopsy of his brain showed that, at the age of eighty, 
 he had that organ as firm as that of a man of forty.
 
 178 
 
 we have seen, Dr. Bourdois. In the last years of 
 Ids life the prince was afflicted with paralysis of the 
 rectum, which rendered necessary a rather repug- 
 nant operation : this used to be performed by a 
 valet-de-chambre, in the presence of Dr. Bourdois. 
 
 The doctor was, at that time, very intimate with 
 an apothecary of the name of Micard, whose labo- 
 ratory was situated at the beginning of the rue 
 Duphot, close to the rue Saint-Honore. Micard 
 was one of the glories of his profession. Very 
 skilful, very ingenious, he had invented, from the 
 indications supplied by the doctor, a whalebone- 
 spoon destined to be used for the rectal catheterism 
 of the patient. Talleyrand had great repugnance to 
 this operation, and in the course of a discussion 
 on the subject with Dr. Bourdois, the latter said 
 to him : " Should I die before (wliich did happen), 
 you will not survive me six weeks, for yoiu' valet- 
 de-chambre Avill not have sufficient authority over 
 you to oblige you to submit to this operation." 
 
 The prediction was fulfilled to the letter. When 
 Talleyrand was dead his embalming was entrusted 
 to Micard. It had been agreed, during the life- 
 time of the diplomatist, that the Egyi)tian method 
 should be employed. 
 
 This method consists, as is well-known, in making 
 numerous incisions in all the members, filling them up 
 Avith special aromatics and then sewing them up. 
 As for the brain, it is taken out of the cranium, boiled 
 in a bath of aromatics and then put back in its place.
 
 174 
 
 The body of Talleyrand, extended upon a long 
 table in the antechamber of the library, which had 
 been used for the work of embalming, was opened 
 under the direction of Dr. Cogny, ordinary physi- 
 cian to Prince Talleyrand. 
 
 The lungs were found healthy and well developed, 
 the heart was large and surromided with a layer 
 of fat. Its density Avas relatively considerable. 
 
 The aorta and the principal arterial tissues 
 were ossified and brittle throughout. No lesion 
 whatever was observed in the liver, stomach or 
 intestines. 
 
 Micard had been charged to embalm the body 
 of the prince. Nevertheless, Mr. Glannal, director 
 of the Company for Embalming, constituted for 
 applying the method of which he was the inventor, 
 had come to offer his services, and, for a moment, 
 the family hesitated. 
 
 Dr. Cruveilhier, bemg consulted, declared that 
 the Gannal method appeared rational to Mm, but 
 he left all latitude to the family to make their 
 choice. The neAvspapers of the period attacked 
 Professor Cruveilliier, who had replied as we have 
 just said. 
 
 Mr. Micard had, besides, every right to insist 
 upon superintending the operation. He was an 
 intimate of the family of Talleyrand and of M. de 
 Valen^ay. The Duchess of Dino, as well as Talley- 
 rand had the highest esteem for him. 
 
 We have discovered in a document of the period
 
 175 
 
 some curious details concerning tlie operation of 
 embalming carried out by Micard. ''•' 
 
 The body, upon wliicli deep and closely connected 
 incisions were made, through the muscular layers, and 
 in the direction of the fibres, was placed in a bath, 
 with a solution of natrum or carbonate of soda, 
 where it remained during several hours. Taken 
 out again, the interior cavities were washed with 
 aromatized alcohol, and plunged once more for four 
 and twenty hours in another bath of a strongly 
 concentrated infusion of tannin. 
 
 Lastly, every opened part was painted over with 
 several coats of a solution of deutochloride of mer- 
 cury, and each cavity rubbed with a balsamic 
 astringent powder, composed pretty nearly as follows : 
 balsam of Tolu, Peruvian balm, storax, calamite 
 stjTax, musk, ambergris, quinquina, cinnamon, gum 
 tacamahac, etc. 
 
 After each incision had been sewn up, the en- 
 tire body received a coat of varnisli and another 
 of the powder above-mentioned, fixed on by a first 
 application of fine muslin bands; the trunk con- 
 taining the heart and the intestines, prepared 
 separately as above, was entirely filled with the 
 aromatic powder and with closely pressed toAV. 
 The body Avas then swathed in six layers of 
 gummed diachylum, varnished on the outside, and 
 disposed with skill so as to preserve to the body 
 its natural form. 
 
 * * Mem., loc. cit., p. 117—120.
 
 17G 
 
 On the head, an incision, beginning at the oc- 
 ciput, where the hair commences to take root, along 
 the forehead, and directed downwards laterally from 
 the occipital to the mastoid apophyses, permitted 
 the dissection of the scalp. This operation termi- 
 nated, and the teguments as well as the crophyte 
 muscles having been removed, the model of the 
 skull was taken, with the utmost care, by Mr. 
 Guy, naturalist of the School of Medicine, in order 
 that there should remain an authentic document 
 for physiological science. The interior of the cranium 
 Avas filled Avith toAV and the poAvder above-mentioned, 
 a coronal trepanning having facilitated the extrac- 
 tion of the brain. The face was entirely dissected, 
 and prepared in the same manner as the body, 
 and with the same care, so as to respect the phy- 
 siognomy, Avhich had been modelled. When the 
 teguments and muscles had been put in their place, 
 the ocular globes Avere emptied and artificial eyes 
 planted in their stead, made according to a very 
 excellent portrait, supplied by Mr. Elie, chief 
 officer of the chamber of the prince. 
 
 Micard had put the brain aside in a glass vessel. 
 It Avas only Avhen he had put his instruments and 
 bottles in order that he perceived that the vessel 
 containing the brain had not been put into the 
 coffin. 
 
 Without saying anything he took it aAvay Avith 
 him, and the same evening he threw the vessel
 
 177 
 
 and its contents into a drain that existed between 
 the rue Richepanse and tlie rue Duphot. * 
 
 This same drain had received forty-four years 
 previously the remains of the man who had been 
 known as Robespierre !....! 
 
 And what is exhibited to-day, as a relic in the 
 chamber where died Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento ? 
 The orthopicdic apparatus, made of cast-iron, rusted 
 by exposure to the air, which sustained the club- 
 foot of lame Talleyrand! § 
 
 * Intermed. des Cherclieurs et Curieux, 18S7, p. 353 — 439. 
 
 t M. Victorien Sardou, ia his introductory letter to the present 
 work, p. II, has sufliciently disposed of this legend, indicating 
 the cemetery where the remains of Robespierre were interred. 
 
 (Transl) 
 
 § Interni'd. des Cherclieurs et Curieux, 1887, p. 192. 
 
 12
 
 THE 
 ACCOUCHEMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EMPKESS MARIE-LOUISE.
 
 How fares our pracious lady? 
 Fmil. As >7on as one so great and so forlorn 
 
 May hold together. On her frights and griefs, 
 Which never tender lady hath borne greater, 
 She is something before her time deliver'd. 
 
 Wiktkr's Tale, a. ii, sc. 2.
 
 THE ACCOUCHEMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EMPEESS MARIE-LOUISE. 
 
 Already in the beginning of July, 1810, it was 
 rumoured that Marie-Louise was enceinte. "Without 
 being positive, the physicians did not dissimulate 
 their hopes. The Empress exhibited certain sj^mp- 
 toms, upon the nature of which no mistake was 
 possible. Napoleon, whose divorce from his first 
 wife had been solely motived by her sterility, pressed 
 upon the Faculty to give its opinion. He had no 
 doubt of his capability of engendering, of which 
 he had on many occasions given sulQEicient proof; 
 but he could not help being uneasy at the delay 
 that Marie-Louise took to make him a father. This 
 delay visibly annoyed him, and one day, he con- 
 sulted his physicians. In deference to their advice, 
 it was decided that the Empress should in future 
 take fewer baths, which, according to them, was 
 an obstacle to fecundity. * 
 
 On the 27th July, Marie-Louise wrote to her 
 
 * Mcmoires de Constans, IV, p. 295. 
 
 181
 
 182 
 
 father: "I can assure you, dear Papa, that I 
 have no fear of the ei'ent "which will be such a 
 happiness. " A few days previously, she had expressed 
 the same sentiments in not less touching terms: 
 " Grod will that it so be ! the Emperor will be so 
 happy ! " ''' Napoleon saw realized his dearest wish. 
 At this moment the sex of the child was immaterial 
 to him, he had no doubt but that Ms dynasty Avas 
 founded on immovable bases. Towards the 15th 
 August, the pregnancy of the Empress was confirmed : 
 the physicians become more affirmative. One 
 of them, in his enthusiasm, went so far as to 
 dedicate and address to the Empress some Latin 
 verses, terminating with the following sentiment 
 borrowed from Yirgil: 
 
 Jam nova progenies coelo dimittitur alto. (Now 
 is a new scion sent to us from heaven on high). 
 
 Official notification of the pregnancy is not made 
 till November. Napoleon then sends an express to 
 Yienna, Baron de Mesgrigny, charged with two 
 autographic letters, one in the hand- writing of the 
 Empress, the other penned by himself. Both letters 
 were addressed to his father-in-law, the Emperor 
 Francis, who sent a most affectionate missive in 
 reply, f 
 
 The most extraordinary stories gained credence 
 
 * Tmbert de Saint-Amand, Les beaux jours de Marie-Louise. 
 t Documents taken from the Archives of Foreign Affairs and 
 brought to light \>y Imbert de Saint-Amand.
 
 183 
 
 among- the public. Some pretended that the Empress 
 never had been enceinte, that her confinement Avas 
 only a ruse to enable Napoleon to adopt one of 
 his numerous bastards. Later on others will assert 
 that the Empress was delivered of a girl, of a still- 
 born infant, and that another one was substituted. * 
 
 On the 2nd December, the anniversary of the 
 battle of Austerlitz and of the coronation ceremony, 
 the Emperor gives audience to the Senate, which 
 came to congratulate liim. 
 
 The Te Deum and public prayers are ordered 
 in all the churches throughout the Empire. The 
 public buildings were illuminated. The Empress insisted 
 on settling dowries upon tAvelve young girls, who 
 Avere married on the same day. The Emperor, on 
 his part, had the delicate inspiration of founding the 
 Maternal Society, of which he appointed Marie-Louise 
 president, and Madame de Segur vice-president. 
 This institution had for object to give aid to 
 mothers in poor families, who had several children. 
 They were assisted gratuitously during their con- 
 finement. They received besides wherewith to 
 obtain wine, l)roth and baby-linen. Lastly, when 
 they had several children, they received for suckling 
 the last, the usual salary of a wet-nurse. 
 
 In prevision of the coming infant, the Countess 
 of Montesquieu received the title of Governess to 
 the children of France. She was assisted by two 
 under-governesses, to whom a third would be added 
 
 * Memoirs of General Durand.
 
 184 
 
 later. As wet-nurse, a robust and healthy woman 
 Avas chosen, the wife of a carpenter at Fontainehleau. 
 Two little heds were got ready : One, hlue coloured, 
 should a prince be born ; the other, in rose-colour, in 
 case of a princess. The baby-linen was marvellous ; 
 it was valued at not less than 300,000 francs 
 (^12,000).'^ 
 
 The months of January and February 1811 passed 
 without anything worthy of notice. The Empress 
 took a part in all the merry-makings that took 
 place within the palace. For her sake intimate 
 dancing-parties were got up, at which she was always 
 delighted to be present. As she was passionately 
 fond of hunting, the Emperor used to take her 
 with him when he went to hunt at Yincennes or 
 in the forest of Saint-Germain, or to shoot in the 
 preserves at Versailles. When she felt too much 
 fatigued, she used to be satisfied with a mere walk 
 in the woods. Towards the middle of February 
 preparations for the confinement began to be made 
 at Court. 
 
 The accoucheur by right, Dubois, received 
 notice to take up his quarters in the apartment 
 of the grand marshal of the palace, which had 
 been specially reserved for him. The Duchess of 
 Montebello, who was to show such devotion to the 
 Empress at the moment of her confinement, was 
 lodged in another wing of the palace. 
 
 On the 5th March, the prefect of the Seine, 
 
 * Vide General Durand, Memoirs, loc. cit.
 
 185 
 
 Frochot, came, in the name of the City of Paris, 
 to express his best wishes to the Emperor, The 
 delegation that accompanied him hroug-ht a magni- 
 ficent silver-gilt cradle, in the form of a ship, the 
 emblem of the City of Paris. The design Avas by 
 the great artist Proudhon. The ornaments, in 
 mother-of-pearl and in silver-gilt, appeared in relief 
 on a carnation velvet ground-work, of the most 
 happy effect. The foot had for decoration two 
 genii: that of Force and that of Justice. 
 
 For the Empress, there was brought a sump- 
 tuous toilet-service, worths upwards of half a million 
 of francs (i:20,000) . . . 
 
 The moment of confinement approaches, and 
 Marie-Louise now hardly ever quits her apartments, 
 unless to take rare walks, on certain days, on the 
 terrace of her private garden, leaning on the women 
 attached to her service. * 
 
 On the 19th March, at seven in the evening, some 
 say at nine o'clock, the Empress felt the first pains. 
 The previous night, the Emperor, who for several 
 days past sends at all hours to know how the 
 august patient is getting on, had sat up with her, 
 promenading her round the room on his arm. At 
 this moment she experienced but very slight pains, 
 and at six in the morning they had ceased, 
 and the Empress had fallen asleep. The Emperor, 
 
 * The physicians had recommended the Empress to take frequent 
 walks She often did so, accompanied by Madame de Montebello, 
 on the terrace of the Tuileries, on the side of the river, at the 
 end of which her carriages awaited her orders.
 
 186 
 
 having mounted to his apartment, had entered 
 his hath, and his hreakfast was served to him. 
 Half an hour afterAvards Dubois was announced: 
 "Ah! you are here, Dubois," said the Emperor 
 to him, "what neAvs? Is it for to-day?" — "Yes, 
 Sire, and it will not be long, but I should wish 
 Your Majesty not to come down." — "But why so, 
 Dubois?" — "Because Your Majesty's presence Avould 
 hinder me. " — " But not in the least ! You must deliver 
 the Empress just as you Avould deliver any peasant- 
 W'Oman, and pay no attention to me. " — " But, Sire, 
 I must Avarn Your Majesty that the child presents 
 itself badly." The Emperor then demanded expla- 
 nations: "And hoAv are you going- to proceed?" — 
 " Well, Sire, I fear I shall have to make use of the 
 forceps." — " Grood God!" said the Emperor alarmed, 
 "is there any danger?" — "Well, Sire, either one 
 or the other may ha\^e to be spared." — "Then, 
 Dubois, let the mother be your first concern. And 
 go doAvn at once, I folloAV you." * 
 
 Dubois goes doAvn by the little private staircase 
 leading to the chamber of the Empress, and the 
 Emperor quitting his bath and getting Mmself 
 rajtidly dressed, does not delay to rejoin the ac- 
 coucheur. The entire particular household of the 
 Empress thronged her apartment. All the grand 
 officers of the croAvn were already there congregated 
 in the grand saloon, of AvMch the doors Avere throAvn 
 
 * Eetrospective Memoirs of Cottiii, 1888, T. VIII, p. 147—148, 
 iind also the Memoirs of Koustan, the Mameluke of Napoleon I.
 
 187 
 
 wide open. ''It looked like a day of rejoicing,'' 
 relates an eye-Avitness, who was in tlie bondoir 
 adjoining the saloon. Near to the Empress were, 
 Madame de Montebello, Madame de Lnray, Madame 
 de Montesqiiiou, two first ladies of the chamber, 
 Mesdames Durand and Bnlhind, two ladies-maids, 
 the nurse, Madame Blaise. * The Emperor, the 
 imperial family, and the principal physicians attached 
 to Napoleon's person, Corvisart, Bourdier and Yvan, 
 are in the next room. 
 
 As Dubois had foreseen, it was necessary to have 
 recourse to the forceps, f Marie-Louise, who per- 
 ceived it, said bitterly : " Must I then be sacrificed 
 because I am an Empress ? " Madame de Montesquiou, 
 who Avas supporting her head, said to her : " Take 
 coui-age, Madame, I also have undergone it, and 
 can assure you that your precious days are not in 
 danger. " The delivery scarcely lasted half an hour, 
 but it was extremely laborious. The Emperor anx- 
 iously awaited the result. As soon as he was informed 
 that the cliild was born, lie rushed into the room 
 and affectionately embraced the Empress. As for 
 the child, it remained seven minutes without giving 
 any sign of life. In order to revive it, some drops 
 of brandy had to be insufflated into its mouth, and 
 it Avas necessary to gently slap the body all over 
 with the palm of the hand and to envelop it in 
 
 * Memoirs of General DuraiiJ, loc. cit. 
 
 t The child presented itself feet foremost, and Dubois v;a,^ 
 obliged to use the forceps to disengage the head.
 
 188 
 
 warm towels. At last the first wailing of the 
 new-born child was heard; it was saved! The 
 Emperor was radiant with joy. When he went up 
 again to his apartment to dress, he thus announced 
 the news to his faithful valet Constant : " Well, 
 Constant, so we have a big boy, but he had to 
 be strongly pressed to come, and no mistake." 
 To every one he met he communicated his happiness. 
 Never had he felt such emotion. 
 
 As soon as the delivery was effected, the arch- 
 chancellor of the Empire was called in, the duties 
 of his charge requiring him to verily the birth 
 and the sex of the infant. The Prince of 
 Neuchatel followed him, impelled by his zeal and 
 attachment. 
 
 Outside the palace, the people of Paris were 
 grouped in compact masses in the Tuileries gardens 
 and the neighbouring quarters. The quays along 
 the Seine were thronged by a seething multitude. 
 It was known that a salute of twenty-one guns 
 would announce the birth of a princess but that a 
 hundred and one would be fired to celebrate the 
 birth of an heir to the throne. When the report 
 of the twenty-second gun was heard, it was no longer 
 enthusiasm in the crowd, it was madness. Hats 
 flew up into the air, huzzahs burst forth, and all 
 Paris was rejoicing. At half past ten, Madame 
 Blanchard, the aeronaut, ascended in a balloon from 
 the Military School, to spread far and wide the 
 news of the birth of the EJing of Rome, while the
 
 18.9 
 
 telegraph also announced the happ)^ event to the 
 four corners of France. 
 
 Extra couriers were from the very first moment 
 despatched to the foreign Courts. In Paris, there 
 was nothing but rejoicings, illuminations, Venetian 
 fetes, and fireworks ; nothing was neglected to 
 celebrate tliis joyful accession. In less than one 
 week there were not less than two thousand pieces 
 of poetry, etc. composed on the occasion of the 
 birth of the imperial heir. 
 
 Poems of all sorts were written in every lan- 
 guage, except English: epistles, odes, strophes, 
 fables, couplets, hymns,, the entire lyre! A sum 
 of 100,000 francs was taken fi*om the privy purse 
 of the Emperor, and distributed by the secretary 
 of accounts of the chamber to the authors of the 
 poems sent to the Tuileries. 
 
 Of all these monuments of the occasion, the 
 most curious that flattery has ever erected, was a 
 collection of French and Latin verses entitled: 
 L' Hymen et la Naissance, printed in the Impri- 
 merie Imperiale, and which the University was 
 obliged to distribute as a prize to the pupils of 
 the four colleges of the capital and to those of the 
 provinces, so as to facilitate its being promptly 
 got rid of. Posterity has retained the memory of 
 only one of the numerous poets who came forth on 
 this occasion : Casimir Delavigne, of Havre, then a 
 pupil in the class of rhetoric at the Lycee (college) 
 Napoleon, who for the first time made his debut 
 
 I
 
 190 
 
 in a style in which he was destined later on to 
 become illustrious ... * 
 
 Immediately after his birth, the young prince 
 was confided to the care of the nurse who had 
 been chosen for him. She could neither leave the 
 palace nor receive any male acquaintance; with 
 regard to this the strictest precautions had been 
 taken. For the sake of her health she used to be 
 taken out for drives in a carriage, but never with- 
 out being accompanied by several other women. 
 
 On the 20th March, at nine a.m., the King of 
 Eome was baptized in the chapel of the Tuileries, 
 in the presence of the Emperor, of the princes and 
 princesses, and of all the imperial Court. Marie- 
 Louise kept to her room for six weeks after her 
 confinement ; as a submissive sovereign she wished 
 to give her subjects an example of respect to the 
 rules of etiquette as well as to the laws of hygiene. 
 
 * This piece of poetry drew the attention of Mr. Fran9ais, of 
 Nantes, Director of the Tax OfSce, himself a literary man, a keen 
 connoisseur, and a willing Maecenas to young poets. Kecog- 
 nizing the talent of Delavigne, this gentleman appointed him to 
 a modest berth in his office, on condition of his coming there 
 only once a month, on pay-day to draw his salary. Meeting him, 
 however, in the office some other day, he said to him, " do not 
 come here to lose your time, go home and work; I give you a 
 berth only to put you in the way of soon being able to do 
 without one." 
 
 Five years later Casimir Dalavigne's first great poem, Les 
 Messenniennes, appeared, and had a sale of 27,000 copies withi n 
 the year. {Transl.)
 
 THE 
 ANCESTORS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARSHAL MAC-MAHON.
 
 " Honour a physician with the honour 
 due unto him for the uses ye may have 
 of him: for the Most High hath created 
 him." Ecci.
 
 THE ANCESTORS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARSHAL MAC-MAHON. 
 
 THE MAC-MAHONS DOCTORS. 
 
 A CURIOUS particularity from various points of view, 
 and that his biographers have barely alluded to, * 
 
 * The only mentions concerning this subject, that we have 
 been able to discover in the course of our researches are the 
 following. 
 The first is in the Moniteur of 12th August, 1877 : 
 " Several journals have lately asserted that Marshal Mac-Mahon 
 descended from the physician Dr. Patrick Mac-Mahon, who for 
 some time lived in France. The Times observes on this subject 
 that it is not the first time that this erroneous fact has been 
 asserted in the press, but the marshal has never taken the 
 trouble to notice it. It is perfectly established," says the English 
 journal, * that Marshal ]Mac-Mahon belongs to the Mac-Mahons of 
 the South of Ireland and that he descends in direct line from 
 King Brian « who reigned over the whole Island." 
 
 « Brian Boruma, more generally known as Brian Boroo, reigned 
 supreme over the other Irish Kings, his tributaries, from 976 to 
 1002. He was elected to the throne after the death of his bro- 
 ther Mahon, slain in battle in 976. The pedigree is so difficult 
 to establish, that all the Mac-Mahons, Mahons, Mahonys and 
 O'Briens of Ireland, and their number is legion, claim to be 
 descended from King Brian Boroo. More power to theui, if they 
 can prove their royal descent, and much good may it do them! 
 
 {Transl.) 
 
 193 13
 
 194 
 
 is that Marshal Mac-Mahoii counted in Ms ascend- 
 ing line a race of doctors. 
 
 Together with the O'Briens, the Mac-Mahon 
 family was one of the most important and most 
 considered in Ireland. '-^ 
 
 John Mac-Mahon, the youngest of the family, 
 was horn in Ireland, in the County of Limerick, 
 in 1710. t According to Chereau, § whom we 
 shall often have occasion to rectify, he should he 
 the second son of Terence Mac-Mahon and of a 
 
 To this the XIXe Siede, of 13 August 1877, replied: "We 
 maintain, without fear of contradiction or of law-suit, that Mar- 
 shal Mac-Mahon, President of the Republic, is the grandson of 
 John Baptist Mac-Mahon, M.D. of the University of Reims, 
 established at Autun in 1741, and enriched by marriage." 
 It was not ventured to push indiscretion further. 
 * In a memoir on the nobility of J. B. Mac-Mahon, we have 
 noticed the following filiation: the seventh ancestor was called 
 Terence Mac-Mahon, and was Prince of Cloindirala. His seventh 
 youngest son, Donat Mac-Mahon, married an O'Brien. The 
 son of Donat (fifth ancestor) was a certain Terence O'Brien. 
 The great-grandfather of J. B. Mac-Mahon, Moriart Mac-Mahon, 
 was dispossessed of all his properties for having testified his 
 attachment to the King of England, Charles the Second. His son 
 Maurice married a Fitz-Gerald ; and his grandson Moriart was 
 father to Patrick Mac-Mahon, the father of one of the two physi- 
 cians of whom we are tracing the biography. 
 
 t Journal des Connaissances pratkiues et de Pharmacologic, 
 15th July 1875. Chereau has drawn most of his information from 
 sources which he takes care not to quote : Journal de Medecine 
 militaire, T. VI. number for October 1787. 
 
 § The information given by Chereau is open to suspicion, as 
 he does not inform us at what sources he has obtained them. 
 They are, besides, in contradiction with those procured by us from 
 journals of the period. 
 
 According to a necrological notice, published in the Journal 
 de Paris of 17th January 1787, John Mac-Mahon would have 
 been born in 1719 (and not in 1710) in the County Clare, and 
 not in the County Limerick. Dr. Guyton, in a memoir on the .
 
 195 
 
 Miss Springham Clarke. He came to Paris about 
 1735 or 1736. Destined first of all for the 
 priesthood, he for some time entered the Ii'ish 
 Clerical Community (now known as the Irish College). 
 According to his biographer, he is supposed there to 
 have made good progress in the humanities, although 
 his tastes inclined him more to mathematics and 
 to physical science. Theology had also tempted 
 him, but only temporarily. He then turned his 
 attention to medicine, of Avliich he was made doctor 
 at Reims. From there he returned to Paris and 
 obtained an appointment as surgeon in the army, 
 being sent in that capacity to the military hospital 
 of Neu-Brisach, near Colmar. On the 3rd Sep- 
 tember he presented to the Paris School of Medicine 
 a thesis on cutaneous diseases, * which having 
 successfully sustained, he obtained his degree. 
 
 We now lose trace of him, until a few years 
 afterwards, at Berlin, Avhere he occupies a confi- 
 dential post Avith Lord Tyrconnel, British ambassador 
 to Prussia, At that period he appears to have 
 been very closely acquainted Avith Frederick II and 
 Avith Yoltah'e. We have, hoAvever, been able to 
 
 physicians of Autun, which appeared in the Memoires de la 
 Societe Eduenne (nouvll« Serie, T. II, p. 144) styles him John 
 Baptist Mac-Mahon of Leadmore (?) and affirms that he was only 
 a distant relative of the John Baptist Mac-Mahon, of whom we 
 shall presently relate in detail the adventurous existence. Accord- 
 ing to the same author, this John Baptist Mac-Mahon of Lead- 
 more was really born in the County Clare, hut in 1718, where 
 he was baptized on the 8th December of the same year 1718. 
 * An ciitaneorum affectuum communis sit causa? Tlierapia?
 
 196 
 
 find but one fugitive trace of Ms connection with 
 the author of Candide. In a letter addressed by 
 the prince of scoffers to Ms faithful Colini, dated 
 from Plombi^res, 12th July 1754, we find this 
 simple phrase which, to our liking-, unfortunately 
 says far too little : '' Mr. Mac-Mahon, a physician 
 from Colmar, has brought me your packet." 
 
 Returned to France, in 1770, Dr. Mac-Mahon 
 is appointed physician to the Military School. TMs 
 school, founded in 1751, was destined to receive 
 pupils of from eight to tliirteen years of age, the 
 orphans of officers having died from the effects of 
 war, or from natural death during active service, 
 or else after their retirement on pension, on .con- 
 dition of their having possessed four male genera- 
 tions of nobility. * Dr. Mac-Mahon remained without 
 interruption during sixteen years physician to the 
 school, f Only once did he tender his resignation, 
 but by order of the minister, he was obliged al- 
 most immediately to resume Ms functions. § Mean- 
 wMle Dr. John Mac-Mahon had married a ffiss 
 Springham Clarke, born in America, Avho died in 
 child-bed. The cliild born of this imion entered, 
 
 * Chereau, loc. cit. 
 
 t The predecessor of Mac-Mahon at tlie Military School had 
 been Dr. Murry, doctor regius of the Faculty of Medicine of 
 Paris, who, having conceived a great regard for Mac-Mahon, 
 resigned his functions in order to procure the survival of his 
 charge to his prot^gt^. 
 
 § Count Vaublanc, Minister of the Interior under Louis XVIII, 
 relates, that being a pupil of the Military School, he remembers 
 Dr. Mac-Mahon, who had threatened to resign on account of the 
 detestable quality of the food served out to the pupils.
 
 197 
 
 in 1785, into the company of gentlemen cadets, 
 resident pupils of the Eoyal Military School. He 
 became later doctor of medicine and librarian of 
 the Faculty of Medicine of Paris. He bore the 
 christian name of Patrick. * His thesis, which, 
 however, presents nothing interesting, was a Dis- 
 
 * Madame Le Delion, residing' at Lannion (Cotes du Nord), 
 drew our attention to the folio-wing paragraph, which appeared 
 in the Gaidois of the 19th July 1875. It concerns evidently 
 Patrick Mac-Mahon, former librarian to the Faculty of Medicine : 
 
 * The head keeper of the cemetery of Montparnasse, M. Mor- 
 nigue, who is besides a protegt^ of Jules Ferry, has just com- 
 mitted an abuse of authority which may certainly entail some 
 annoyance to him. There was in the old cemetery a tomb en- 
 tirely covered over with earth, at the corners of which stood four 
 large cypress-trees. One fine day, M. Mornigue, to whom prob- 
 ably the sight of these trees was annoying, had them cut down 
 on his own authority. That operation completed, the earth sur- 
 rounding the tomb was cleared away and the tomb-stone exposed, 
 upon which was the following inscription, which we have copied 
 textually : 
 
 Perpetual-Sepulture concession in the South Cemetery. 
 2nd Division, 1st Section. 
 
 Here lies 
 MAC-MAHON (Patrick). 
 Doctor of Medicine and Librarian of the Faculty of Medicine 
 of Paris, born at Monaghan, the 25th September 1772, deceased 
 the 23rd December 1833. 
 
 The worthy life of this sincerely devoted friend was dedicated 
 to study, to piety and to benevolence. 
 
 And until his last breath his aspirations were for the indepen- 
 dance and prosperity of Ireland. 
 
 De Profundis. 
 
 * We know not whether this Patrick Mac-Mahon belongs to the 
 same family as the Marshal, Duke of Magenta. What is certain 
 is that the similitude of the name awoke the attention of the 
 workmen employed in the cemetery and caused them to relate 
 the anything but preserving measure adopted by M. Mornigue, 
 towards the tomb of the Irish doctor."
 
 198 
 
 sertation on contagious ataxic fever. Patrick Mac-Ma- 
 hon died about 1833. 
 
 Dr. John Mac-Mahon was a much esteemed 
 physician. * At the time when the yalue of in- 
 oculation was under discussion, the most learned 
 professors of the Faculty did not disdain his wise 
 counsels, and his consultations laid down the law. 
 He was one of the free-thinkers of his time, and 
 his name appears in the Dictionnaire des Atliees. f 
 
 * Here is wheat we read conoeniirg him in the Clironique se- 
 crete de Paris sous Louis X VI, under date of 29th June 1788 : 
 
 " The physician to the Military School, by name Mac-Mahon, 
 had protested vehemently against the physician Richard and the 
 surgeon Jauherthon, who had got themselves appointed inocula- 
 tors for small-pox to the King and royal family, he having been 
 formerly charged by the Minister Choiseul to inoculate the pupils 
 of the Military School. The truth is that it was Gatti, who 
 performed that operation, but he left all the honour of it to 
 Dr. Mac-Mahon ; for the wily Italian cared only for the money 
 paid him, which he went to enjoy in his own country when 
 Choiseul was exiled to Chanteloup, far different from his other 
 confidant, the Abb<^ Barth^lemy, who was then a more faithful 
 companion to him than before. 
 
 " Gatti, therefore, left all the pride in the matter to Dr. Mac- 
 Mahon, who kept the record of all the inoculations. This record 
 proves that Eichard sometimes came, as well as ten or twelve 
 other Paris doctors, to obtain information concerning the inoc- 
 ulations, and he, together with all the others, though not so 
 often, signed ihe register kept by Mac-Mahon. 
 
 "As for J.'.v' ithon, he inoculated two pupils with the consent 
 of the surgeon of the school. 
 
 " Madame Louise, « who is always meddling, ferreted out this 
 MacMahon, and got him to relate the affair, after which she 
 exclaimed: 'Adelaide has then been deceived.' Great marvel 
 indeed to deceive two old aunts, confined to the domain of Choisy 
 by their small-pox, or by intrigues, in a Carmelite convent!" 
 
 t Secciul svppJfVKvt du Diciionnaire des Athces, of Sylvain 
 Mar^chal, revised by Lalande. 
 
 « Princess Louise, aunt to Louis XVL
 
 199 
 
 It is in the society of the Encyclopa3dists that he 
 must have known Franklin, Avho made him his me- 
 dical adviser, and who presented him with a golden 
 snuff-box ornamented with his portrait, as a token 
 of his gratitude. 
 
 On the 7 th September 1786, John Mac-Mahon 
 ended a career, which he had worthily if not glo- 
 riously accomplished. This excellent man breathed 
 his last in the building itself of the Military School, 
 in the rue de Grrenelle-Saint-Germain, opposite the 
 superb allegorical fountain representing the two 
 rivers the Seine and the Marne, the Avork of the 
 sculptor Bouchardon. He died as quietly as he 
 had lived. '* 
 
 His elder brother, on the contrary,! John Bap- 
 
 * His simplicity of character, his modesty and sensibility of 
 soul were generally vaunted. " When he had serious maladies 
 to watch," writes one of his panegyrists [Journal de Paris, loc. 
 cit.), " he could take no rest, became agitated, uneasy and gloomy. 
 "When he had some benevolent action to do, he considered it as 
 a happy opportunity which he hastened to seize. He abhorred 
 quacks and believed that it was the duty of the medical man to 
 unmask their rascality and their ignorance. .. he was passionately 
 fond of science and of polite literature." 
 
 He had expressed the wish that his place be given, after his 
 death, to a physician whom he designated. But the King had 
 already, since April 1784, promised it to a Mr. Kenens, physician 
 to the late King of Poland and to the military hospital at Nancy 
 (^Journal de Paris and Journal de mcdecine militaire, loc. cit.). 
 t There was another brother of John Baptist Mac-Mahon, 
 named Maurice Mac-Mahon. He became a lay brother of the 
 Knights of Malta, captain in the Fitz-James cavalry regiment, lord 
 of the manors of Magnien, le Puiset and Lauronne (V. La JS^oblesse 
 ovx Etats de Botirgcgne, by H. Bcaunet d'Arbaumont, Dyon, 
 1864, article Mac-Mahon, and linue NobUiaire, 1867, p. 17 — 18). 
 In 1760 he was received member of the States of Burgundy.
 
 200 
 
 tist Mac-Mahon, the grandfather of the marshal, 
 created some sensation in the world. Born in Li- 
 merick on the 23rd June 1715, of Patrick Mac- 
 Mahon and Margaret O'Sullivan, he was haptized, 
 in the church of Saint John the Baptist in that 
 town, under the names of John Baptist Mac-Mahon. 
 He was brought up in Ireland hy his family until 
 the age of sixteen, when his parents sent him to 
 Paris to complete his education at the college of 
 La Marche. They gave him a yearly allowance of 
 800 livres, which were paid to him through hank- 
 ers in the capital. He had at once chosen the 
 medical profession, proposing as he said to go and 
 practise it in his native country, * where medical 
 science was particularly in honour. He was fond 
 of citing the Duke of Richmond, to whom the 
 London College of Physicians had granted, honoris 
 causa, a doctor's degree, the Duke of Montague, 
 the Duke of Somerset, who had been chancellors 
 of the University of Cambridge, of which the Duke 
 of Manchester was Grand Master. Such illustrious 
 examples were of a nature to overcome his hesita- 
 tions; on the 4th August, 1739 or 1740, he re- 
 ceived the doctor's hood at the School of Medi- 
 cine at Reims. 
 
 A lingering illness with which he was soon af- 
 terwards affected, obliged him to take some rest. 
 
 * Ill-health did not permit him. Besides, could he have been 
 permitted to practise in London, having obtained no degree in 
 any British University?
 
 201 
 
 He then accepted the hospitality of a worthj^ country 
 parish-priest, an Irishman by birth, who had been 
 his master at the college of La Marche. 
 
 In July 1742, * he became an a§:gregate of the 
 College of Physicians of Autun. As his means 
 were but limited, he boarded -with the son of a 
 cobbler, an ecclesiastic of Autun, and chaplain at 
 the cathedral. His situation Avas so precarious that 
 at one moment he Avas thinking of taking an 
 apothecary's shop at Mont-Cenis, a small village of 
 Burgundy. He was obliged to give up this pro- 
 ject, because he did not possess the 200 livres 
 required for the purchase of the business. 
 
 He had barely been able to pay the 60 livres 
 demanded of him as fee for the right of being a 
 member of the corporation of physicians as Avell as 
 of that of surgeons and apothecaries. From that 
 time forAvard he ceased to add a title to his name, 
 and he is presented at the Hotel-de-Ville (ToAvn- 
 Hall) under the simple name of Mr. Jean Baptiste 
 Mac-Mahon. 
 
 After having vegetated for some time, f he sud- 
 denly emerges from obscurity. Several unexpected 
 cures, perhaps the absence of serious competitors, 
 and Avith that physical advantages Avhich were highly 
 
 * On the 26th July 1742, on being presented by Antoine 
 Guyton, phj-sician to the King, he was enrolled among the town 
 physicians. Minutes of the municipal deliberations. 
 
 t In Mav 1743, the municipal authorities appointed him phy- 
 sician to the Saint-Gabriel hospital, but he only retained this 
 post for a short time. 
 
 /
 
 202 
 
 appreciated, particularly by tis lady patients, "bring 
 the young doctor into notice. The higher ranks 
 of society, which until then had given him the 
 cold shoulder, now open their doors to him. * 
 Thanks to his connections, he is appointed physi- 
 cian to the Abbey of Saint-Andoche of Autun, of 
 which the Lady of Tavannes was abbess. This 
 was the first step on the road to success, but his 
 ambition aimed higher still. 
 
 * He was on the best of terms with the clergj', as may be 
 seen from the following' very flattering certificate delivered to 
 him by the chapter of the cathedral of Autmi: 
 
 " We, dean, canons and chapter of the cathedral church of 
 Autun, hereby certify to all vs'hom it may concern, that since 
 about a year ago, Mr. Mac-Mahon, doctor of medicine of the 
 Faculty of Eeims, a pupil of Messrs. Hunault and Astruc, fulfils 
 in the town of Autun the duties of his profession, he has done 
 so with equal probity and skill, devoting himself as well to the 
 poor as to the rich, having obtained among both a great number 
 of cures which are a proof of his science, rendering it recommendable 
 and desirable that he should fix his residence in this city, in order 
 to continue to render to the public those services that he had 
 there so well commenced; further, that his conduct and morals 
 were not only above reproach, but so edifying as to render him 
 as estimable by his religion and piety as by his enlightenment 
 and science; in token whereof we have ordained that an abstract 
 of this present certificate be delivered to the said Mr. Mac-Mahon 
 to be of use and service to him as may beseem him, sealed with 
 the stamp of our arms and signed by our secretary. Given at 
 our capitular hall, we being assembled in chapter at sound of 
 bell, in the accustomed manner, this IBtli day of February in the 
 year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-two." 
 {History of the Church, Qity and Diocese of Autun, under the 
 povernment of its bishops). French M.S. in two volumes, by 
 Degoux, prebendary of the cathedral of Autun. This manuscript, 
 which in 1873, was in the possession of the Marquis of Ganay, 
 has been made use of by Dr. L. M. Guyton in his Study of the 
 Physicians and of Medicine at Autuv, published in the Mtmoires 
 de la Socii'te Eduenne, new series, T. II, 1873, p. 107 — 108.
 
 203 
 
 At that time there lived in Aiitim three bro- 
 thers, three old men, the possessors of immense 
 wealth ; they were known in the country under the 
 name of the Ricli men of Burgundy. Besides a 
 very considerable income, they were known to pos- 
 sess a magnificent mansion in the town, called the 
 liaison de Bretagne, the castle of Sully, form.er 
 residence of the Tavannes family, the marquisate 
 of Yianges, landed property in the Nivernais, without 
 counting sumptuous fiu'nitiu'e, a splendid service 
 of plate, in short, all that constituted the comfort 
 of a grand household of the last century. Dr. 
 John Baptist Mac-Mahon was well acquainted with 
 all these details, and had but one secret desire: 
 to be called in by the brothers de Morey. 
 
 Of the three brothers, the eldest, Jean Baptiste 
 Lazare de Morey, Governor of Vezelai, over seventy- 
 five years of age, was married to a young woman 
 who had abandoned all hope of seeing her union 
 become fruitful. 
 
 The next brother, Claude de Morey, Marquis of 
 Yianges, was a widower Avith an only daughter, a 
 nun in a convent at Avallon. 
 
 The youngest brother, Jacques, was dean of the 
 cathedral, and therefore condemned to perpetual 
 celibacy. 
 
 A fourth brother, who had died some years 
 previously, had been provided with the Abbey of 
 la Bussiere, one of the most important in the 
 province.
 
 204 
 
 The Governor of Yezelai having fallen ill in 
 1746, recourse was had to the science of Dr. 
 Mac-Mahon. His seductive manners, a certain air 
 of self-confidence, a noble bearing, won the good 
 graces of the old man. In a short time the doctor 
 became an assiduous guest at the mansion and 
 successively gave his professional services to the 
 three brothers. From that moment the best families 
 in Autun and its neighbourhood contended to have 
 him, and his reputation increased accordingly. At 
 this conjuncture, Lazare de Morey, the eldest brother, 
 died. Scarcely eight days after his death, the 
 young widow went to the notary to have 90,000 
 francs paid into her hands and to obtain from her 
 brothers-in-law their consent to her marrying again. 
 A clause in her marriage-contract stipulated that 
 in case she should again marry, the redemption of 
 her endowment should not exceed 30,000 francs. 
 The two brothers-in-law consented to give her 
 50,000 Avith the liberty of contracting a new 
 marriage according to her OAvn choice. 
 
 The old governor had not been dead more than 
 two months, before Dr. Mac-Mahon was lodged in 
 the house of the two brothers-in-law, admitted to 
 their table * and doing his best, according to the 
 chronicle of the day, to console the lamenting 
 widoAV. 
 
 A premature interesting situation on the part of 
 
 * He received moreover from them, as present, a splendid horse, 
 named: the Mac-Mahon.
 
 205 
 
 the lady, precipitated matters and liasteued a solu- 
 tion which he ardently desired. On the 9th April 
 1750, Dr. John Baptist Mac-Mahon married Char- 
 lotte le Belin d'Egiiilly, the widoAv of Lazare de 
 Morey, Governor of Yezelai." The contract was 
 signed in the presence of a village notary, and the 
 marriage ceremony was performed very modestly in 
 the parish chiu'ch of Sully. The two brothers-in- 
 law si^ied neither the marriage contract nor the 
 official record of the religious celebration. The 
 only other persons Avho signed this official document, 
 together with the married couple, were a lyradlden 
 {sic) (whatever that may be), and a village labourer. 
 The name of J. B. Mac-Mahon does not figure on 
 this document together Avith his quality as doctor, 
 but with the title of chevalier. The married couple 
 were united under the law of community, " in all 
 properties, movables and acquisitions." The hus- 
 band furnished a marriage portion of 50,000 livres, 
 the lady brought 210,000 livres ''free of all 
 debts." Mr. Mac-Mahon constituted himself donee 
 (or recipient), by half, or eventually, of all that 
 might later be given or bequeathed to his Avife. 
 
 These details are not devoid of importance, for 
 the comprehension of what is to follow. By his 
 marriage, Dr. Mac-Mahon had become a member 
 of one of the richest families in the country round- 
 about. We shall see by what manoeuvres he 
 contrived to obtain the biggest landed and per- 
 sonal estate in Burgundy. Let it not be imagined
 
 206 
 
 that we wish to penetrate into family secrets. Tlic 
 facts which we now disclose gave rise to one of 
 the most considerable law-suits that Avas pleaded 
 at the end of the last centmy, the hearing of 
 which did not occupy less than fourteen sittings, 
 and the result of which interests us the more that 
 the principal party therein concerned is a physician 
 and, therefore^ by reason of the legal incapacity of 
 a doctor of medicine to inherit from a patient, 
 gave rise in this circumstance, to a broadly extended 
 discussion. * 
 
 * The Memoire, from wliich we have drawn our information 
 bears a title not devoid of a certain archaic perfume: 
 
 " Memorial of Dame Eeine Cortelet, widow of Messire Hugues 
 de Maizieres, kuight lord of the manors of Valves and Vanteaux, 
 and of Dame Anne Cortelet, widow of Messire Charles Richard, 
 counseller to the Parliament of Burgundy, the nieces and heiresses 
 of the late Messire Claude de Morey, marquis of Vianges, real 
 lord of the manors of Cliaunay, Perigny-la-Bondue, Cuzy, Vi^vy, 
 Ledesend, Thoreilles, Morey, Auxeraines, etc. 
 
 " Versus Monsieur J. Baptiste Mac-Mahon, an Irishman, doctor 
 in medicine of the University of Reims, and admitted as fellow 
 of the College of Physicians of the city of Autun, styling himself 
 Knight, Count and Marquis of Eguilly, Marquis Mac-Mahon, Lord 
 of the Marquisate of Vianges, Baron of Vouvenay, Lord of the 
 manors of Sully, Civry, Blangey, Chanvirey, Reuhon, Chape, 
 Sanceray en partie, Barnay, Igornay, Mansigny, Champeculion, 
 Petit-MolaiS; Repas-des-Bas, Canadia, Dudetfand, Thoreilles, Morey, 
 Auxeraines, Lacave, Latour, d'Uchey, Ponay en Bourgogne, and 
 further Lord of the lands of Luzy, Lavaux, Montigny, Champoux- 
 en-Nivernais, and pretending also, by virtue of the last will and 
 testament of the late Marquis of Vianges, to the lands and lord- 
 sliips of Charnay, Labondiie, Saint- Agnan, Perigny-la-Ville, Perigny- 
 la-Tour, the property of Montgeliard, the domain of Monthelie, 
 and other lands, quitrents, tenements, vineyards and other belong- 
 ings pertaining to the estate of the late Marquis of Vianges, and 
 to the general appurtenance of the said estate. 
 
 "And versus Dame Charlotte Le Belin, spouse of the said 
 Messire Mac-Mahon, and widow in first espousals of the late
 
 207 
 
 The terms of the accusation are most precise. 
 We find them drawn up at length in the memorial 
 of the plaintiffs, the ladies de Maizieres and Richard, 
 the nieces and natural heiresses of the brothers de 
 Morey. We merely give here the most prominent 
 passage : " A considerable marquisate, seven par- 
 ishes, more than twenty-five properties and lordships, 
 3000 acres of woods, a superb chateau, an immense 
 personal estate, in short, the biggest property in 
 the Province of Burgundy became the prey of one 
 of those men who, isolated in their native country, 
 unknown elsewhere, expatriated by reason of poverty, 
 carrying along with them the resources of their 
 first obscurity, together with the feeling of pressing 
 wants and an ardent desire to satisfy them. Two 
 aged men, verging on the age of ninety, and hold- 
 ing the more to life that they could less enjoy it, 
 bent their heads to the yoke of a greedy stranger, 
 who to them seemed alone capable of holding up the 
 thread of their existence: they saw him, without 
 daring to complain, sully the memory of their brother 
 by a criminal connection with his widow; they 
 suffered him to drag that deluded woman into a 
 marriage which had become necessary; they sacri- 
 
 Messire Jean Baptiste Lazare de Morey, governor of the town 
 and castle of Vezelai." 
 
 This memorial contains not less than one hundred and ten 
 pages in 4to. It was followed by two abstracts and memoirs, 
 one of twenty-six and the other of seventy-seven pages. Thanks 
 to these documents, we have been able to have before us all 
 the elements of a case most interesting from so many points 
 of view.
 
 208 
 
 ficed to him the claims of blood, and the just 
 expectations of their two nieces, whom they banished 
 from their affection. They abandoned to him their 
 estates, their persons, their will, their whole being ; 
 and the inheritance of a distinguished family, amount- 
 ing in value to more than two millions, has become 
 his spoil." 
 
 How was this captation accomplished ? The sequel 
 of this Memoire mil fully enlighten us without 
 going roundabout. 
 
 In 1749, the year before his marriage, Mac- 
 Mahon had obtained Ms letters of naturalization. 
 The following year, on the 3rd of January 1750, 
 his titles of nobility * were verified and recognized 
 by decree of the Council, and royal letters patent 
 
 * John Baptist Mac-Mahon obtained, in 1750, a decree in Coun- 
 cil, maintaining him in his nobility by birth, on producing a 
 genealogical charter which had been delivered to his uncle, 
 Maurice Mac-Mahon, knight of the order of Christ, major in the 
 cavalry of the Guards of the King of Portugal, by John Haf kins. 
 King at arms at Dublin. 
 
 This charter recorded that the seventh ancestor of Maurice, 
 Terence Mac-Mahon, prince of Cloindirala, had been buried in the 
 monastery of Hashelin, where his superb tomb was still visible; 
 that Bernard, his sixth ancestor, had been despoiled of his estates 
 by confiscation under Queen Elizabeth, and that his ancestors 
 had been allied by marriage with the best families in Ireland. 
 It further resulted, from this same decree of 1750, that the name 
 of Mac-Mahon, in its diiferent branches was known in France 
 since the unhappy days of James II, and had not ceased, from 
 that period, to figure on our army-lists {La Noblesse aux Etats 
 de Boxirgogne, loc. cit.). 
 
 The coat of arms of the Mac-Mahons is. according to the Revue 
 Nobiliaire (1867): Argent with three lions passant-gardant gules, 
 armed and langued azure, the head contourne, posed one above 
 the other; they are sometimes blazoned: armed langued and vilene 
 azure.
 
 209 
 
 of the same were duly recorded according to usage. * 
 From this moment the title of doctor was abandoned 
 and replaced by those more high-sounding ones of 
 chevalier, baron, count and marquis. In reality, he 
 had ceased the practice of Ms profession since 1748, 
 although, in that same year, he had given a sick 
 certificate to the Marquis of Yianges, to dispense 
 him from a journey on ofiicial business. This is an 
 important point, the entire action at law depending 
 on the legal incapacity of a physician to inherit 
 from one of his patients. But we shall see how 
 the difficulty was turned by the lucky husband of 
 the widow of the Governor de Morey. All the 
 properties that will successively fall into his hands 
 Avill proceed from donations or bequests made to 
 Ms wife, and as Ms marriage contract stipulated 
 that the doctor should be beneficiary by half in all 
 eventual sums and properties, by this fact he par- 
 ticipated by right in all the liberalities accruing to 
 his wife. Undoubtedly, at the moment of Ms 
 marriage Dr. Mac-Mahon ceased to be the medical 
 attendant of the de Morey family. He will urge 
 in Court that from the day of Ms marriage he has 
 not signed a single prescription ; that the care of 
 the health of Ms new relations has been entrusted 
 
 * He was maintained in his nobility by letters-patent, dated Ver- 
 sailles, 23rd July 1750 and filed in the records of the accounts 
 of Burgundy and of Bresse, 10th July 1753. (The above is 
 taken from an unpublished letter communicated to us by Madame 
 Veuve Le Delion, of Lannion, to whose kindness we are indebted 
 for a number of interesting documents, which have enabled us 
 to establish the genealogy of the Mac-Mahons). 
 
 u
 
 210 
 
 to one of his colleagues, Dr. Guyton, a physician at 
 Autun. Besides, from 1748 to 1763, the date of 
 the death of the Marquis of Yianges, the latter had 
 only three slight indispositions, for wliich he was 
 prescribed "three doses of manna and of tincture 
 of rhubarb." Therefore the crime cannot be im- 
 puted to him of haying abused his influence to 
 weigh upon the decisions of these aged men. 
 
 It was in perfect cognizance of their acts and 
 in order to oblige their amiable cousin, the wife of 
 Dr. John Baptist Mac-Mahon, that these latter good- 
 naturedly allowed themselves to be despoiled. And 
 now comes a whole series of acts that betray the 
 hand of the artful man. In 1752, he piu'chases 
 the barony of Vouvenay, for the sum of 155,000 
 livres, of which 50,000 livres are to be paid to 
 three creditors, 72,000 livres in stock of the 
 public funds of Burgundy, and the remainder 
 in cash. 
 
 On the 25th September of the same year, Mac- 
 Mahon induced the Marquis of Vianges to sell him 
 a house, situated in the suburb of Talus, at Autun, 
 for 100,000 livres. 
 
 On the 9th November 1754, a donation to Dame 
 Mac-Mahon of the marquisate of Vianges and of 
 the lands of Darnay, Sully, etc. This donation 
 was estimated to be worth at least 1,250,000 
 livres. 
 
 In 1755, Mac-Mahon purchases the lands of 
 Sivry for 61,800 livres, probably with the money
 
 211 
 
 of the two old men, for he was not himself pos- 
 sessed of any personal property. Then come next 
 the lordships of Lalley and of Blangey, which he 
 purchases for 82,000 livres. 
 
 On the 7th March 1755, he dictates a will to 
 the Abbe de Morey, * but as it is observed to him 
 that the old gentlemen possess a revenue fi'om 
 funds in the Nivernais, but of which they can 
 only legally dispose of one fifth by will, he gets 
 them to grant to him the lands and lordships of 
 Cuzy, Lavaux, Montigny and Champoux, including 
 the chateau of Cuzy, the whole Avorth at least 
 100,000 livres. He offers, it is true, in exchange, 
 an annuity of 3000 livres to the old men, one aged 
 ninety and the other more than eighty years 
 of age. t 
 
 He then dictates to the Marquis of Vianges § 
 an act similar to that which he had dictated to 
 his brother, the Abbs de Morey. By virtue of this 
 act, all the properties of the marquis are reversible 
 after his death and that of Ms brother, to Dame 
 Mac-Mahon, and in her default to her male descent, 
 the doctor retaining the right of usufruct. A few 
 insignificant legacies are to be deducted from this 
 enormous estate: the abbe leaves 400 livres to the 
 poor of his priory of Maivres; the marquis leaves 
 an annuity of 60 livres to one of his cousins, a 
 
 * Vide Memoir of the 2)laintiffs. 
 
 t Also, to omit nothing, a wooded property for 103,200 livres. 
 
 § V. Memoir of the i)laintiffs.
 
 212 
 
 nun, a legacy of 400 livres a year to a female 
 relation specified in his Avill, and a third annuity 
 of 300 livres to a nun in the convent of the Visitation 
 at Avallon. 
 
 And even these legacies were not to he dis- 
 tributed until after the decease of the residuary 
 legatee, Dr. Mac-Mahon, although he is not so desig- 
 nated by name. 
 
 The ahhe was the first to die, in December 1759. 
 His brother, the Marquis of Vianges, survived him 
 nearly two years, dying on the 4th October 1761, 
 at the age of ninety-four years. By this death 
 the Irish doctor became Count of Eguilly, Lord of 
 the marquisate of Vianges, Baron of Vouvenay, 
 Lord of the manors of Cuzy, Sully, Blangey and 
 other places. 
 
 As may readily be imagined, tliis sudden elevation 
 of fortune, this progressive increase of riches, excited 
 loud murmurs. Captation and spoliation were hinted 
 at, and the matter was brought before the law- 
 courts. The widoAVS Richard and de Maizieres, the 
 nieces of the brothers de Morey, contested the 
 inheritance. The validity of their arguments seemed 
 to be unanswerable. The incapacity of the donors, 
 they pleaded, must invalidate the donations and 
 testaments; the inveiglement, proven by the docu- 
 ments and facts of the cause, must motive the 
 annulment of the said acts. They at the same 
 time dreAV attention to the legal incapacity of Dr. 
 Mac-Mahon to inherit, his position as doctor estab-
 
 213 
 
 lisliing in fact the said incapacity, according to 
 the Eonian legislation, to the ordinances and customs 
 and to constant jurisprudence. 
 
 To that Mac-Mahon replied: that he had given 
 up practice since 1748, two years previous to his 
 marriage ; that a physician ought not to he deemed 
 " incapahle " , because he Avas connected by marriage 
 "with the donor, or Avas his relation and friend, 
 imless the donation had been made during the 
 donor's illness ; and that even in such case, it Avas 
 valid, if the donor, restored to perfect health, per- 
 severed in his former intentions. 
 
 The judges decided in favour of the pretended 
 captator, Avhose triumph Avas confirmed by a solemn 
 decision. Curious to relate, all the acts by Avliich 
 the doctor Avas enriched had been draAvn up in the 
 office of Master Changarnier, notary. And, as the 
 attorney-general Oscar de Yallee remarked in a 
 celebrated case, * tried in Paris towards the 
 end of the Empire: "the grandson of the doctor, 
 the Marshal Mac-Mahon, and the grandson of the 
 notary, the General Changarnier, Avere destined to 
 find themselves comrades in arms in Africa." 
 
 History has indeed sometimes very singular tui'n- 
 ings! 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 John Baptist Mac-Mahon died at Spa, on the 
 
 * The law-suit brought against Dr. Declat by the heirs of the 
 Duke of Gramont-Caderousse, and -which was decided in the 
 doctor's favour.
 
 214 
 
 15th November 1775, aged sixty years (Meraire 
 de France, Nov.— Dec. 1775, p. 237). He left 
 three daughters. Tlie eldest was born after fom* 
 and a half months of marriage, and was named 
 Frangoise Claudine Mac-Mahon. One of the three 
 was married, the 5th September 1773, to Count 
 Roiigrass, colonel a la suite of the cavalry regiment 
 Eoyal-Allemand. The King and the royal family 
 signed the marriage contract (Ifercure de France, 
 1773, p. 213). 
 
 According to Dr. Chereau, John Baptist Mac- 
 Mahon had tAvo sons: Charles Laure de Mac-Mahon, 
 Marquis of Vianges, mareclial de caonp and peer 
 of France (1752 — 1828); and Maurice Francois de 
 Mac-Mahon, Baron of Sully, Lord of the manor of 
 Vouvenay, lieutenant-general (1754 — 1841). This 
 latter would be the father of the marshal. He 
 is said to have married at Brussels, during the 
 emigration (1792), Marie Riquet de Caraman. 
 
 We are in a position to rectify and moreover to 
 complete, by means of valuable unpublished docu- 
 ments placed at our disposal, the barely-outlined 
 article of Dr. Chereau. 
 
 The following are the descendants of John 
 Baptist Mac-Mahon, the grandsire of the mar- 
 shal: 
 
 Four daughters. 
 
 1. FranQoise Claudine, married to the Count 
 d'Urre or d'Urse. 
 
 2. Anne Jacqueline, born 18th May 1753,
 
 215 
 
 chanoinesse of the noble chapter of Alix, married, 
 30 August 1777, to Jean Charles Alexander, Mar- 
 quis d'Adhemar de Monteil de Brunier, captain 
 in the light horse cavahy regiment Royal-Lorraine. 
 
 3. Gale Marie Theodorine, twin-sister of Mau- 
 rice FranQois, born 13th October 1751, chanoinesse 
 of Alix. 
 
 4. Antoinette, bom 5 April 1757, chanoinesse 
 of Alix. 
 
 Three sons: 
 
 1. Charles Laure, born at Autun, 8th May 
 1752, Marquis of Yianges and of Eguilly, Lord of 
 the manor of Vouvenay, received member of the 
 States of Burgundy of 1763, mareclial des camps 
 et armees dit rol, grand-cross of the order of 
 Saint Louis, Marquis and Peer of France the 5th 
 November 1827, died at Nancy without alliance 
 in 1828. He had belonged to the haillage * of 
 Autun, assembled the 28th March 1789 {La No- 
 blesse aux Etats de Boiirgogne, p. 88). 
 
 He had married at Brussels, in 1792, as we 
 have already said above, Pelagie Marie Edme, the 
 daughter of Marie Jean Louis Riquet de Caraman, 
 Marquis de Caraman, mareclial des camps et armees 
 die roi, and of Charlotte Eugenie Bernard de 
 Montessus de Paimblanc. 
 
 From this union there issued nine children: 
 
 * District subject to the jurisdiction of the bailli, or judicial 
 representative of the crown, who commanded the local nobility, 
 which he could convoke on occasion. To belong to the haillage 
 meant to be on the rolls of the local nobility. {Transl.)
 
 216 
 
 a. Charles Marie de Mac-Mahon, captain of hus- 
 sars in the garde royale, born in 1793 or in 
 1792, marquis by substitution on the 18th July 
 1828, killed at the races of Autun, the 5th Sep- 
 tember 1845. 
 
 The Marquis Mac-Mahon was riding a horse. 
 Glaums, which after carrying his rider a flying 
 leap over an obstacle, fell on the other side, 
 on the top of the rider, Avhose head came into 
 violent contact with the ground. He was picked up 
 insensible, and expired shortly afterwards. It is 
 supposed that he had suffered fracture of the base of 
 the skull and rupture of one of the cervical vertebrte. * 
 
 Charles Marie had married, in 1823, Marie Hen- 
 riette Lepelletier de Eosambo. By her he had 
 one son: Charles Henry Paul Marie, Marquis Mac- 
 Mahon, born at the castle of Sully, canton of 
 Epinac (Saone-et-Loire), in 1828, and there deceased, 
 in 1863. He had married, in 1853, Henriette 
 Eadegonde de Perusse des Cars. 
 
 1). AdMe Marie Madeleine Frangoise de Mac-Mahon, 
 born 13th July 1796, died 23rd December 1872, 
 married to M. de la Selle. She had three sons. 
 
 c. Marie Josephine Adelaide Fanny de Mac-Mahon, 
 died before 1829, had been married, the 14th 
 December 1813, to Augustin Arnout Cesar Poute, 
 Marquis de Nieul, by whom one son: George, and 
 two daughters; the Countess Marie de Sarcus and 
 
 * Vide Fvenement of 15th September 1876.
 
 217 
 
 Celine, a mm of the order of the Visitation. 
 
 d. Bonaventure Marie Pierre Joseph, Count Mac- 
 Mahon, captain of hussars, counsellor-general of 
 Saone-et-Loire, born at Munster, the 14th July 
 1799, died at KiA^ault-les-Autun, the 11th July 
 1866, without issue by Alexandrine Marie Anne 
 Eudoxie de Montaigu, whom he had married in 
 1829, and who died in 1863. 
 
 e. CecHe de Mac-Mahon, deceased as wife of the 
 Marquis of Rogiiefeuille, by whom one son and two 
 daughters : the Countess of Chastellier and the Vis- 
 countess of Louveucourt. 
 
 f. Nathalie Marie Frangoise de Mac-Mahon, mar- 
 ried to Adalbert Viscount of Sarret and Baron of 
 Cousergues, by whom one son. 
 
 g. Elisabeth de Mac-Mahon, born in 1807, died 
 in 1835, a nun in the convent of the Sacred 
 Heart at Autim. 
 
 h. Marie Edme Patrice, Viscount ]\Iac-Mahox, Duke 
 OF Magenta and Marshal of France, the 6th June 
 1859, President of the French Eepublic the 24th 
 May 1873, born at the castle of Sully (Saone-et- 
 Loire) the 13th June 1808; married the 4th March 
 1851, to Elisabeth Charlotte Sophie de Lacroix de 
 Castries; by whom: 1st, Patrice, born the 8th June 
 1855; 2nd, Eugene, born in 1857; 3rd, Emmanuel, 
 born in 1859; 4th, Marie, born in 1864. 
 
 V^e reproduce herewith, as a document of his- 
 torical interest, the certificate of birth of Marshal 
 Mac-Mahon :
 
 218 
 
 "This Htli June 1808, at 7 o'clock in tlie 
 morning. 
 
 '' Certificate of birth of M. de Mac-Mahon, of 
 the male sex, born at Sull]^ yesterday, at the hour 
 of noon; son of Maurice Francois de Mac-Mahon, 
 by profession a proprietor, residing in the said 
 Sully, and Madame Marie Edme Pelagie Riquet de 
 Caraman, to which child were given the christian 
 names of Marie Edme Patrice Maurice. 
 
 " First witness : Francois Garraut, by trade a 
 carpenter, residing at Sully, aged 50 years. 
 
 " Second ^vitness : Claude Beaune, profession of 
 clerk to the justice of the canton of Epinac, residing 
 at Sully, aged 47 years. 
 
 " The present act, drawn up at the demand of 
 the said Mr. Maurice Francois de Mac-Mahon, father 
 of the cliild, having been read to the parties and 
 witnesses here present, the sincerity of the same 
 having been proved by me Francois Mereau, adjunct 
 to the commune of Sully, fulfilling the functions 
 of public officer, I have signed the same together 
 with the witnesses and the demander. 
 
 ''Signed: F. Garraut, Beaune, M. F. de Mac- 
 Mahon, Mereau. 
 
 " Marginal note : In accordance with a judgment 
 of the tribunal of Autun, of the 30th September 
 last, duly registered, and Avliich has been tliis day 
 transcribed in the records, the annexed certificate 
 of birth has been rectified. According to order that 
 there be added thereto after the words : Madame Marie
 
 \ 
 
 219 
 
 Edme Pelagie Riqiiet de Caraman, the following: 
 'his wife.' 
 
 "At Sully, the 1st October 1825 
 
 " Beaime, Ilayor. " 
 
 Figaro, 10th September 1876. 
 
 The Duke of Mag:enta has added to Ms family 
 arms a chief ducal of the Empire, wliich is gules, 
 spangled ivitli stars argent. Motto: Sic nos, sic 
 sacra tuemur. 
 
 i. Eugene, Viscount Mac-Mahon, born in 1810, 
 sub-lieutenant, resigned service in 1830, deceased 
 about 1860, without issue by Mademoiselle de Cham- 
 peaux. 
 
 We here add, that in I' Universite de Paris, 
 by Ch. Desmaze, there is mention of a Thomas 
 Mac-Malion, whom we have been unable to connect 
 with the family with Avhich we are concerned. In 
 the above work we find : "1751, Mac-Mahon (Thomas 
 Louis Alexandre), Irishman, of the Sorbonne College, 
 obtained, at the general competition, founded by 
 Canon Louis Legendre, an accessit for French com- 
 position." The laureat of 1751, is not, as the 
 Moniteur Universel insmuated, the grandfather of 
 the marshal, whose name was John Baptist Mac- 
 Mahon. 
 
 We have not had better success in establishing 
 the filiation of another Mac-Mahon, of Avhom mention 
 is made in the France of 20th August 1877,
 
 220 
 
 according to the Bepertoire of Merlin, at the Avord 
 Divorce, edition of 1827, p. 664, Sect. IV, §10: 
 
 "In 1781, Terence Mac-Mahon, horn at New- 
 castle, in Ireland, quits his parents, abandons his 
 country and comes to France. 
 
 "On the 8th June 1782, he enters as lieutenant 
 the Walsh regiment (Irish), belonging to "what was 
 then known as the Irish Brigade. 
 
 "The 10th July 1788, he is appointed second 
 lieutenant, and the 16th November 1789, being 
 in garrison at Port-Louis (Ile-de-France), * he marries 
 a Demoiselle de Latour-Saint-Ygest. His marriage- 
 act designates him as the son of Terence Mac-Mahon 
 and of the late Christine O'Eourke. 
 
 " Shortly after the marriage the Walsh regiment 
 returns to Europe, and in January 1791, the young 
 married couple land at Lorient. 
 
 " In this same year Lieutenant Mac-Mahon takes 
 the civic oath at Yanves. 
 
 "On the 5th February 1792, he is promoted 
 to the rank of captain. 
 
 "In March 1792, he is at Toulouse, with his 
 wife at the house of M. de Cambon, former first 
 president (cliief presiding judge), and on the 2nd 
 May 1792, he leaves that town with a passport 
 from the municipality, in which he is styled a 
 foreigner, of Irish nationality. Soon afterwards, the 
 23rd May 1792, he is noted down on the rolls of 
 the 92nd infantry regiment, formerly Walsh, as 
 
 * Now known as the Island of the Mauritius. (Transl.)
 
 22t 
 
 having deserted to the enemy. (He had evidently 
 emigrated). 
 
 "The 14th Thermidor of the year YIII, Dame 
 Mac-Mahon, living retired in Paris, rue de la Con- 
 corde, obtains, before notary, an official act attesting 
 that her husband has been absent more than five 
 years and that she has never received any news 
 of him. 
 
 " By reason of these facts, Dame Mac-Mahon 
 obtains her divorce. Her husband then attacks 
 the divorce pronounced against Mm, l)ut the Court 
 of Dijon, after a decision ot the Court of Cassation 
 (in full assembly of all sections), and judging con- 
 formably to the decision of that Court, declares 
 the divorce to be good and valid." 
 
 We produce finally as siipplenientary documents: 
 
 1. A letter of recommendation written by a 
 Mr. Lechevalier, first librarian of the Bibliotlieque 
 Sainte-Genevi^ve, in favour of a nephew of Dr. John 
 Mac-Mahon, physician to the Military School. This 
 unpublished letter is followed by a statement of 
 the qualifications of his protege. Dr. Mac-Mahon. 
 
 2. A letter, also unpublished, on the subject 
 of inoculation, addressed to two different persons 
 by Dr. John Mac-Mahon. 
 
 I. — Letter from Mr. Leclievalier, first librarian 
 of the Bibliotlieque Sainte- Genevieve, concerning a 
 Br. Mac-Mahon, nephew of the physician to the 
 Military School.
 
 222 
 
 Paris, this 29th December 1817. 
 
 General, 
 
 You will take me for the most indefatigable 
 and determined busy-body. Two days since I was 
 recommending- you the son of my learned friend, 
 the astronomer Mechain, yesterday, I solicited your 
 interest in ])ehalf of Mr. Lecoq, commissary at the 
 arsenal; and again to-day, I beg to entreat your 
 good-will in favoiu* of Dr. Mac-Mahon, a nephew 
 of the celebrated physician of that name, who died 
 while in the King's service at the Military School. 
 What encourages me in this third appeal to you, 
 is the complete success of the two previous ones. 
 I ImoAV your equity and your love for what is 
 right : not only do I not dread being indiscreet in 
 presenting worthy subjects to you, but I am assured 
 that you are grateful to me for pointing them out. 
 
 I am, General, respectfully 
 
 Your very humble and very obedient servant 
 
 Signed: Lechevalier. 
 
 Chief librarian of the Biblioth^que Sainte-Genevi6ve. 
 
 II. — Note concerning the Dr. Mac-Mahon, who 
 was the subject of the preceding letter. 
 
 Mr. Mac-Mahon, doctor of medicine of the Faculty 
 of Paris, member of the Athenseum of that city, 
 solicits of His Excellency the Minister of War, the 
 situation of physician to the Eoyal Military School 
 of Paris, now about to be organized.
 
 223 
 
 In the month of October 1815, when the 
 Military School of Saiut-Cyi* was established, he 
 had already addressed a petition to tliat effect to 
 His Excellency the Minister, accompanied by docu- 
 ments in support of liis claim, which seemed to 
 have been accepted and the success of which was 
 prevented only because this situation required the 
 physician to reside at Saint-Cyr, and that it was 
 presumed that Dr. Mac-Mahon Avould not willing-ly 
 abandon Ms connection in Paris. 
 
 With regard to the above, we may consult the letter 
 of the Minister to Mr. Pele, comptroller of the former 
 military school, and which reached him the 3rd 
 November 1815. We may safely conclude that the 
 claims of Dr. Mac-Mahon appeared to be founded and 
 that he may noAV hope to see his wish realized. 
 
 His qualifications are the folloAving: 
 
 He is a nephew of Dr. Mac-Mahon, physician 
 to the old military school, from the moment of its 
 foundation until his death in 1786. His maternal 
 uncle, Dr. O'Reilly, was physician in ordinary to the 
 late Madame Louise of France at Saint-Denis, and 
 after the death of that princess, he became a pen- 
 sioner of King Louis XVI; a letter written by 
 Louis XVI, in his own hand, to his aunt Madame 
 Louise, and actually in possession of Dr. Mac- 
 Mahon, attests the kindnesses of the King towards 
 his family and serves him as a recommendation, 
 particularly for the situation he now solicits. 
 
 Dr. Mac-Mahon has other and personal qualifications.
 
 224 
 
 Having left with the first battalion of the Paris 
 requisition, he served several years in our armies 
 on the Rhine, as a soldier and as health-officer, in 
 the military hospitals as Avell as on field service 
 with the army corps; the most honourable certifi- 
 cates, from all his chiefs, attest his moral conduct, his 
 zeal, his application and his sentiments of humanity. 
 
 While he was thus serving usefully, his name 
 was inscribed on the list of emigres, * and what 
 belonged to him was sold off. He thinks he may 
 also recommend himself as having been physician 
 to the late General Count Songis, chief inspector- 
 general of artillery, and for many years past he 
 enjoys the confidence of General Count Maresco, 
 former chief inspector-general of engineers. 
 
 (Signature wanting.) 
 
 HI. — Letter of Br. John Mac-Malion, physician 
 to the MUitary School, concerning inoculation, 
 and addressed to two persons : 1st, to Mr. de Lepine, 
 regent doctor of medicine, rue de Berry; 2nd, to 
 Mr. Vendehain, regent doctor of medicine of the Fa- 
 culty of Medicine, at the Hotel de Conde. 
 
 Tliis 25th January 1765. 
 
 Sir and dear colleague, 
 
 I shall reply as exactly as my memory will 
 permit me, to the question you have put to me on 
 
 * Noblemen who went abroad to escape persecution, i.e. the 
 guillotine. {Transl.)
 
 225 
 
 the subject of what Mr. Maty said at Mr. ChomePs. 
 First of all I do uot remember having questioned 
 Mm concerning the persons inoculated by Mr. Reuby, 
 nor that he had specially mentioned that gentleman ; 
 he merely said that inoculation had sufficient real 
 and averred advantages, without attributing to it 
 other and imaginary ones; that the lists, which 
 several surgeons gave of their uninterrupted suc- 
 cesses, were not probable, and that the evasion they 
 had recoui'se to in order to mask the mishaps that 
 sometimes occiu-red to them, was to call in a phy- 
 sician in unlucky cases, and to erase from theii' 
 lists those who fell victims to artificial small-pox: 
 that amounts pretty nearly to what your note con- 
 tains. 
 
 Secondly, I asked liim if it was true that three 
 brothers had died about two years ago in London, 
 fi'om inoculation; he answered me frankly, that 
 the fact, extraordinary as it may appear, was per- 
 fectly true, but that one might be mlling, however, 
 in this case, to slightly diminish or palliate the 
 fault of inoculation, because, in fact, four other 
 children, brothers or sisters to the above, had pre- 
 viously died of natural small-pox, that these inoc- 
 ulated children were cacochymic and tended by a 
 surgeon only, without the necessary preparation 
 conducted under the eyes * of an enlightened phy- 
 
 * Mr. Plimouth (sic) says (if I mistake not) that they had 
 been inoculated by a skilful operator and under the direction of 
 an able physician. 
 
 15
 
 226 
 
 sician, that they were all three shut up in a dark 
 and dirty room. 
 
 That is, Sir, and dear colleague, all that I can 
 remember of my conversation Avith Mr. Maty on 
 that subject; notwithstanding- these facts, he 
 appeared astonished that our Faculty should have 
 been so long divided on the utility of inoculation, 
 of which he was assured that every one in Eng- 
 land was perfectly convinced. 
 
 I see in your note that Messrs. Thony, Lony 
 and Mabel are mentioned as having dined with us 
 at Mr. Chomel's. I am sure that Mr. Lony was 
 not there and I rather doubt also of the presence 
 there of oiu' other two colleagues. 
 
 I have the honour to be, with most perfect 
 esteem and all possible consideration. Sir and dear 
 colleague. 
 
 Yoiu' very humble and obedient servant 
 
 Mac-Mahon. 
 
 P.S. It seems to me that Mr. Maty has said 
 that a physician had been called in for the thi'ee 
 brothers, but too late.
 
 GIAMBETTA'S EYE.
 
 'Many see more with one eye 
 than others with two." 
 
 German Provekb.
 
 GAMBETTA'S EYE. 
 
 Are there any who remember the noise that was 
 raised at the time, by the indiscreet question, 
 opened by one of our wittiest reviews : * What has 
 become of Gamletta^s heart; which was in the 
 possession of Paul Bert? 
 
 To tell the truth, Ave saw nothing particularly 
 piquant in the matter. 
 
 Travelling one day in company with an old 
 college chum, Mr. R . . . , we learned from him the 
 following unknown facts : Paul Bert, f who had 
 come to Cahors to inaugurate the monument raised 
 there to the memory of Gambetta, had taken with 
 him the tribune's heart, preserved, like a common 
 anatomical specimen, in a bottle, filled Avith spirits 
 of wine. When this divulging notice appeared, 
 there was at once a vast explosion of indignation, 
 feigned ... or genuine. Madame Paul Bert, being 
 questioned on the subject, had no hesitation in 
 admitting that she had indeed foimd, in the inhe- 
 
 * L' Intermediaire des Chercheurs etc., 1890. 
 
 t A most eminent French physiologist, who, unfortunately 
 abandoning science for politics, died at Hanoi, Tonquin-China, 
 governor-general of that colony. {Transl.). 
 
 229
 
 230 
 
 ritance of lier hiisljand, the precious viscus and that 
 she preserved it religiously. "In order to preserve 
 it from any accident," she said, "my husband, to whom 
 the guardianship of it had been confided, purchased 
 a fire-proof safe. This was placed in our apart- 
 ment, and in this safe Avas deposited the precious 
 relic. The relic belonged to France," added the 
 Avorthy widow, " and could not be exposed to any 
 risk." 
 
 As for its being a relic, there could be no doubt 
 whatever that it was one. For indeed, the god 
 being dead, a new religion sprung up from his 
 ashes. The least vestige of the great man became 
 a fetich, an object of adoration to his disciples. 
 One of them took liis brain ; * another, the intes- 
 tines ; Paul Bert had reserved to himself the most 
 precious portion, the heart, f How then explain 
 that the eye of the apostle of the BevancJie could 
 have been permitted to escape, and that this organ 
 can now be found neither in any private collection, 
 nor in any of our museums? For, by Gambetta's 
 eye, we of course mean that w'hich w^as enucleated 
 in 1867, and which now wanders o'er hill and 
 vale, without a single one of the admirers or of the 
 
 * The brain is in the Paris ]\ruseum of Anthropology. 
 
 t After the campaign led by the Inter mediaire, the heart of 
 Gambetta was placed in the monument erected to his memory at 
 the Jar dies (his country-house), by subscription of the Alsaciens- 
 Lorruins, Cth Nov. 1891. According to the minute of the pro- 
 ceedings, the glass bottle which contained it was enclosed in a 
 double envelope, a leaden casket and a trunk of a fir-tree from 
 Alsace, containing the record of the proceedings.
 
 231 
 
 frieuds of the illustrious deceased liaviug- ever thought 
 to claim the right of giving it hospitality. 
 
 It amounts quite to a history, much aldn to a 
 fairy tale, this ''false legend" of Gamhetta's eijc. 
 We have endeavoured to elucidate this little histo- 
 rical detail, and if our researches have not led to 
 what Ave hoped, we flatter ourselves that they have 
 not been without advantage and utility. Most of 
 the details that Avill follow are as yet unpublished 
 or but little known; they are, at all events, of 
 most indisputable authority. 
 
 First of all, how did the accident arise, Avhich 
 necessitated enucleation of the eye, of wliich we 
 propose to relate the odyssey? Gambetta, then a 
 child, of eight or nine years old, strolling along 
 the streets of Cahors, his native town, stopped 
 before the shop of a cutler, by name Galtie, one 
 of his father's neighbours, to see him at work. 
 " Galtie Avas busied boring holes in knife-handles. 
 For this purpose he used a sort of drill-bow with 
 a gut-string to work the drill; the string, turned 
 several times round the drill, served to impart to 
 it a rapid movement of revolution at each pull of 
 the arm. The boy, leaning on the bench, was 
 watching with interest the backward and forward 
 working of the tool, Avhen suddenly the boAv broke 
 and the iron came and struck his right eye. * Blood 
 flowed, and the wounded boy Avas taken to the 
 
 * According to Mr. de AA'ecker, it was a plier, from the cutler's 
 turning-lathe that flew into the boy's eye.
 
 232 
 
 apothecary Kouqiiette, who declared that the eye 
 was not injured."* However, there bemg no sign 
 of cure, the parents decided to journey to Toulouse, 
 in order to consult a specialist. The malady, mis- 
 understood by the Toulouse practitioner, was none 
 other than traumatic cataract, with prominence of 
 the ocular globe: the eye had soon enlarged exces- 
 sively ; it seemed indeed sometimes on the point of 
 jumping out of its orbit. This abnormal condition 
 was accompanied by most violent pains, so much so 
 that finally Gambetta was fain to seek in surgical 
 aid an end to his torture. An operation was the 
 more urgent that the left eye threatened to be 
 attacked in its turn, by sympathy (a phenomenon 
 familiar to medical men); it therefore became ne- 
 cessary no longer to defer the extraction of the 
 diseased organ in order to save the other still 
 healthy one. 
 
 One of the friends of Gambetta's youth. Dr. 
 Fieuzal, who from the first had seen the urgency of the 
 operation, offered to introduce his friend to an oculist 
 of great reputation, the Baron D. de Wecker. 
 
 This was in the spring of 1867. "One even- 
 ing, returning home for my consultations," as Mr. 
 de Wecker related to us, " I saw walking before me 
 two gentlemen, one of whom said to me: 'Dear 
 colleague, we have waited for you here, to ask you 
 to be so kind as to admit us at once. Allow me 
 to present you a friend concerning whom I wish to 
 
 * Barbou, Vie de Ganibeiia, }•. \o et seq.
 
 233 
 
 have your opinion.' I ushered the gentlemen into 
 my consulting-room," continues Mr. de Wecker, " and 
 after requesting the patient to take a seat at the 
 side of the lamp, in the dark chamber, I asked my 
 colleague what Avas the matter. 'You can easily 
 see that yourself,' he replied, 'only we heg of jmi 
 to give us your candid opinion.' " * 
 
 The affection was of a common order, which 
 Mr. de Wecker had no difficulty in recognizing. 
 " The forepart of the globe of the eye, streaked 
 with dilated blood vessels, had acquired such a 
 volume that the distended eyelids could barely 
 succeed in covering this distorted organ." Gambetta 
 had gone to consult Dr. de Wecker on a Friday. It 
 was at once decided that an operation should be 
 performed on the following Tuesday. " The incon- 
 venience caused by this deformed and totally lost 
 eye for the purpose of vision was sufficient to 
 decide upon immediate ablation, without referring 
 back to the circumstances connected with the 
 wounding of the eye." 
 
 Dr. de Wecker had been struck by the deter- 
 mination of the young man, who so coolly agreed 
 to undergo an operation, to which so many others 
 would only consent after nuich hesitation. He was 
 not aware that he had before him a man who 
 would later display so much moral energy under 
 never to be forgotten circumstances. 
 
 * The phrases between inverted commas are those of Dr. de 
 Wecker himself, in a letter he was kind enough to write to us.
 
 234 
 
 It Avas decided that the operation should be 
 performed on Tuesday at ten in the morning. 
 
 Punctual to the hour, Dr. de Wecker, accompanied 
 by his assistant, Dr. Borel (of Eouen), came into 
 tlie modest apartment occupied by Gambetta. He 
 then resided in the rue Bonaparte, near to Saint- 
 Germain-des-Pres, in a very small apartment on the 
 fifth floor, having- to wait upon Mm, a very old 
 woman "Avhom I took," says Dr. de Wecker, "for 
 a servant of all work, but who I was informed, to 
 prevent any possible want of respect on my part, 
 was Gambetta's aunt." There Avere also present: 
 Dr. Fieuzal and some friends of the young barrister. 
 Although in much request in the society of the 
 rising young men of the day, Gambetta's name 
 had not overstepped a certain circle. Let us not 
 forget that this was in the month of June 1867, 
 consequently five month before the celebrated Ban din 
 prosecution, * Avhich, as is Avell knoAvn, Avas the 
 ground-work of the fame and fortune of the great 
 orator. 
 
 The several introductions over, the doctors pro- 
 ceeded to business. Gambetta laid himself down 
 resolutely and he Avas immediately subjected to 
 inhalations of ether. In less than one minute the 
 
 * This was a political press prosecution, in which Gambetta, 
 for the defence, pronounced a violent and magnificent philippic 
 against the authors of the Coup-d'itat and against the Empire. 
 This splendid piece of oratorj', worthy of Cicero, made the throne 
 of Napoleon tremble, and brought Gambetta into the front rank 
 of politics. (Transl.).
 
 235 
 
 patient was plunged in insensibility. " The opera- 
 tion was simple enough, and Avas executed Avith 
 the greatest rapidity, although the ablation Avas 
 required of an eye shaped like a pear, and double 
 its normal length ; " the antero-posterior diameter 
 was not less than fiA'e centimetres (about tAvo inches). 
 The rapidity Avith Avhich the eye was taken out 
 surprised the operators themselves. " Gambetta had 
 supported the first suffocations, produced by the 
 auiBsthetic, Avithout exhibiting the distress usually 
 felt at the beginning of the inhalations." Three 
 days had barely elapsed since the operation than 
 the patient was again on foot. 
 
 During the first few days, numbers of his friends 
 came, as on a pilgrimage, to the chamber of the 
 convalescent. " I could not understand such 
 devotion, " says ]\Ii-. de Wecker, " the more so that I 
 had recommended to my patient calm and silence. 
 Incited by curiosity, I Avent so far as to address 
 the folloAving question to one of his faithful com- 
 panions : 
 
 " ' Now, do tell me, please, who is this Gambetta 
 of yours?' . 
 
 " ^Ah!' he ansAvered, 'you do not knoAv him yet, 
 but you shall see what he Avill be some day ! ' " 
 
 This prophecy haunted the mind of Dr. de 
 Wecker, Avhen the folloAving September, he handed 
 to one of the most skilful histologists of the period, 
 Dr. Ivan off, then professor at Kief, the eye he had 
 enucleated. " Here is an object which I prize a
 
 236 
 
 good deal, '' said he ; "it is tlie eye of a man destined, 
 I am sure, to play a most important part in the 
 world, I be§^ you therefore to take the greatest 
 care of it." 
 
 Year after year, Dr. de Wecker asked for this 
 eye to be returned to him, hut in vain: Dr. 
 Ivanoff turned a deaf ear to his repeated requests. 
 " In vain did I solicit Ivanoff to send me a de- 
 scription of the eye I had confided to him ; it was 
 to no purpose that during the Ferry ministry I 
 exerted myself to the utmost to obtain for my 
 Eussian colleague the authorization to practise in 
 the South of France; it was all of no use. I 
 obtained neither the details nor the object itself, 
 which I so regretted having alloAved to escape out 
 of my hands." 
 
 What had become of Gambetta's eye? Into 
 whose hands had it fallen ? This is the mystery 
 which remains to be elucidated. 
 
 Ivanoff, who had felt the first symptoms of 
 phthisis, had gone to the South of France to seek 
 in that genial climate the recovery of his shattered 
 health. Dmng several winters he remained in 
 Mentone, in the company of his friend and favour- 
 ite pupil, the Duke Charles Theodore of Bavaria,* 
 brother to the Empress of Austria and to the 
 Queen of Naples. In ah article which he published 
 
 * The Duke Charles of Bavaria, abandoning his high position, 
 devoted himself to the study of medicine, became doctor, and 
 attained to a well-merited reputation as a skilful practitioner, 
 more especially in the treatment of diseases of the eye. {Transl).
 
 237 
 
 in the Gazette hehdomadaire, * Mr. de Wecker 
 expressed the hope that Dr. Ivaiihoff's collection 
 had fallen into the hands of the Duke Charles of 
 Bavaria. "I feel now authorized to believe," said 
 he, " having- had many proofs of the same, that our 
 colleague the duke took lessons from his master, 
 not only in ophthalmology in general, but also 
 concerning the means of indefinitely preserving 
 ophthalmological specimens ; and it is very doubtful 
 whether we shall ever again hear speak of the 
 micrographic characteristics of an eye, now interesting 
 from more than one point of view." 
 
 The reply was not long in coming. Shortly 
 after the publication of the article in which he 
 was so sorely taken to task, the Duke Charles caused 
 a most formal denial to be given to the assertions 
 of the French oculist. He denied having had 
 possession of the eye of Gambetta ; Ivanoff had not 
 given it to him during Ms life-time, nor had he 
 bequeathed to him at his death tliis " document, " 
 as historical as it is human. 
 
 Since then Mr. de Wecker has been several times 
 the guest of the Duke Charles at his castle at 
 Tegernsee, f and being then able to visit the mu- 
 seum of the doctor prince, he convinced himself that 
 the object he was looking for Avas not there. 
 
 But then where could it definitively have found 
 
 * About 1884. 
 
 t A lovel}- romantic lake in the Bavarian Alps, within easy 
 distance from Munich, a favourite resort for holiday folk in the 
 summer. {Transl.).
 
 238 
 
 a refuge? "It is very probable," Dr. de Wecker 
 tells us, " that it may be in the clinical collection 
 at Heidelberg, to which a great number of the 
 anatomical preparations of Ivanhoff were given after 
 his death, but of that I am not quite certain." 
 Possessed of this information, we wrote to Professor 
 Leber, the successor of Professor Becker, to whom, 
 as Dr. de Wecker presumed, part of Ivanhoff' s 
 inheritance had fallen. With a readiness that we 
 are glad to acknowledge, and for which we tender 
 him oui* thanks, our learned colleague replied that 
 he regretted being unable to give us any useful 
 information. According to him the Ivanhoff collec- 
 tion had been at one moment in the hands of Duke 
 Charles, but had since then become the property 
 of Professor Everbusch, the present rector of the 
 University of Erlangen. Mr. Everbusch, to whom 
 we wrote, replied that it was true that he had 
 received a part of the Ivanhoff collection, " but all 
 the specimens were mixed up together, without any 
 sort of designation." To sum up, he concludes, 
 "I do not know where Ivanhoff has left his ma- 
 croscopic preparations of pathological anatomy, nor 
 do I know into whose hands they have passed." 
 Is the truth systematically hidden from us? Will 
 the enigma always remain undecipherable? Time 
 will no doubt enlighten us. At any rate, this 
 enquiry sufficiently enlightens us on the slightly 
 astute discretion of these excellent Teutons... 
 We will noAV end this narration mih. a detail
 
 239 
 
 made known to us by Mr. de Wecker : as a token 
 of gratitude, Gambetta presented to the operator a 
 paper-cutter from Barbedienne's, having for handle 
 a carved Venus of Milo. "That was," said the 
 eminent specialist, " all I ever got from the great 
 man. xis he rose up in fame, I avoided him, 
 detesting the part of office-seeker, among the many 
 of whom surrounding him I should infallibly have 
 been placed, had it been known that I had been 
 intimate with the great popular leader." 
 
 * Barbedienne, the most celebrated Paris dealer in all kinds of 
 objects of artistic value. (TransL), 
 
 FINIS.
 
 I 
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 A. 
 
 Abbe suggests cure for impotence of Louis XVI, 76. 
 Accouchement of the Empress Marie-Louise, 181. 
 Ancestors, The, of Marshal Mac-Mahon, 193. 
 Andouille, surgeon, ordered to embalm Louis XV, 60. 
 Angouleme, Duchess of, faints, 136. 
 Artois, Countess of, confinement of, 71 ; pregnancy, 75. 
 Attendants at confinement of Marie- Antoinette^, 99. 
 
 B. 
 
 Baudeau, Abbe, his version of the ilhiess of Louis XV, 49. 
 
 Beauvais, Madame de, seduces the King, 3. 
 
 Bessieres, recommends operation on King, 22. 
 
 Bistoury invented for Louis XIV, 24. 
 
 Bonaparte, behaviour during confinement of Marie-Louise, 185 
 
 et scq. 
 Bordeu, Dr., predicts King's death, 48. 
 Bourdois de la Motte, Dr., 158; befriended by Bonaparte, 160; 
 
 his influence with Talleyrand, 166. 
 
 Cat, absurd adventure of Louis XVI with, 112. 
 
 Cats, aversion of Louis XVI to, 112. 
 
 Chase, Louis XVI's love of the, 65. 
 
 Chateauroux, Duchess of, dismissed, 38; returns, 40. 
 
 Coldness of nature of Louis XVI, 66. 
 
 Come, Brother, celebrated surgeon, 128 (note). 
 
 Corvisart, jealousy of, 162. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dames de la Halle insult the Queen, 71,
 
 IV INDEX 
 
 Daubiere, Madame de, invents plaster for King, 20. 
 Diary of Louis XVI, 108. 
 
 Du Barry, Madame, said to have found a victim for the King, 
 49; receives her dismissal, 57. 
 
 E. 
 
 Epigrams on death of Louis XV, 61. 
 
 , on Souberbielle, 135. 
 Eye, Gambetta's, 229. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fage, Dr., 169. 
 
 F^lix, studies fistulas, 23. 
 
 First Pregnancy op Marie-Antoinette, The, 83. 
 
 Fistula of Louis XIV, 19. 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville's "solid" jurors, 131. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gambetta's Eye, 229; operation described, 235. 
 
 Gambetta's heart, 230. 
 
 Gerard's picture of "Day of 10th August", 118. 
 
 H. 
 
 Helvetius, cures Louis XV, 35. 
 H^zecques, Comte d', story related by, 112. 
 Honoraria given by Louis XIV to his surgeons, 27. 
 Hugo, Victor, on death of Talleyrand, 172. 
 Hymen et la Naissance, 190. 
 
 Indiscretion, a youthful, of Louis XIV, 3. 
 Ivanhoif, the possessor of Gambetta's eye, 236. 
 
 Joseph II, visits Paris, 77. 
 
 Journal de la SanU de Louis XIV, 8.
 
 INDEX 
 
 La Martiiiiere, Dr., physician to Louis XV, 59. 
 
 La Porte, valet of Louis XIV, anecdote relating to King's illness, 7. 
 
 Lassone, offers to bet Marie-Antoinette is pregnant, 87. 
 
 Lithotomy, skill of Souberbielle in, 140. 
 
 Louis XIV, youthful indiscretion of, 3 ; fistula, 19 ; cauterized, 20. 
 
 Louis XV, maladies of, 31 ; puberty, 32 ; first illness of, 33 ; 
 attacked with fever at Metz, 37; sends away his mistress, 38; 
 is cured by a quack, 39 ; tormented by dyspepsia, 41 ; attacked 
 by small-pox, 42 ; how supposed to be acquired, 49 : death, 59 ; 
 funeral. 60; interrogates his grandson, 67. 
 
 Louis XV and fataliUj, pamphlet by Voltaire, 48. 
 
 Louis XVI, semi-impotency of, 65; accession, 71; operation pro- 
 posed, 73; delayed, 74; performed, 77; announces birth of 
 child to sovereigns, 101 ; consults Vermond about renewal of 
 cohabitation with the Queen, 104; Private Life of, 107; his 
 diary, 108; narrow escape from fall. 111; antipathy to cats, 
 112; instance of his cruelty, 113; intoxicated, 115; gluttony, 
 115, 117; flight to Varennes, 116; inoculated, 120. 
 
 M. 
 
 Mac-Mahon, Marshal, ancestors of, 193. 
 
 Mac-Mahon, Dr. John, 194; death, 199. 
 , Dr. J. B., 199. 
 
 , family, 214 et seq. 
 
 Maladies of Louis XV, The, 31. 
 
 Mancini, Mademoiselle de, first love of Louis XIV, 6. 
 
 Marat, what was his disease, 147; insanitary condition of his 
 life, 151 ; his thirst, 152. 
 
 Mardoux, King's confessor sent for, 58. 
 
 Masses, falling off in, for King's recovery, 53. 
 
 Maria- theresa, anxiety about Louis XVI, 67; correspondence 
 quoted, 69, 70; recommends speedy operation, 75; expresses 
 confidence in Lassone, 88; on the care of children, 91 ; inquires 
 after Marie-Antoinette, 96. 
 
 Marie-Antoinette complains of having no family, 68 ; false report 
 of her pregnancy, 69 ; present at confinement of Countess of 
 Artois, 71; insulted by dames de la halle, 71; complains of 
 her husband's coldness, 72; announces her pregnancy, 79; first 
 pregnancy of, 83 ; hopes she is pregnant, 87 ; feels quickening, 
 92; bled, 93, 95; pains of labour, 96; scene at her delivery, 
 97 ; her disappointment, 99 ; her trial, 134.
 
 TI INDEX 
 
 Marie-Louise, accouchement of, 181; pregnancy announced, 182; 
 
 confinement, 183. 
 Maurepas and Louis XVI, Epigrams on, 72. 
 Mercy Argenteau, announces delivery of Marie-Antoinette, 100. 
 Micard, embalms body of Talleyrand, 175. - 
 Motte Argencourt, Mile de, amorous advances of Louis XIV to, 7. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nothing! 122. 
 
 Nurses chosen for Marie-Antoinette's child, 93. 
 
 0. 
 
 One of the Judges of Marie-Antoinette, 127. 
 
 Phimosis, operation for, performed on King, 77. 
 
 Pracontal, Marquise of, anecdote concerning, 110 (note). 
 
 Pregnancy, first, of Marie-Antoinette, 83. 
 
 Printems, a charlatan, pretends to predict sex of Queen's child, 99. 
 
 Private expenses of Louis XVI, 121. 
 
 Private Life of Louis XVI, 116. 
 
 Prurigo of Hebra, 150. 
 
 Psoriasis, was it Marat's disease, 153. 
 
 Pulse, peculiarity of Talleja-and's, 169. 
 
 B. 
 
 Kich Men of Burgundy, The, 203. 
 
 Kobespierre, anecdote of, 132 (note); fears for his life, 182. 
 
 School of Mars, 137; rumours regarding it, 138. 
 Semi-impotency of Louis XVI, 65. 
 Small-pox, prevalence of, at Versailles, 51. 
 
 Souberbielle, surgeon, 127; comes to Paris, 129; employed as a 
 juror, 181; presents himself at Court, 136; becomes doctor of
 
 INDEX Vlt 
 
 surgery. 140; skill in lithotomy, 141; visits Ens^lanil, 141 ; 
 freedom from infirmity, 143; refused admission to Academy, 144. 
 Soulavie, on small-pox of Louis XV, 50. 
 
 Talleyrand and his Doctors, 157. 
 Talleyrand's regimen, 168; death, 172; embalmed, 173. 
 Te Deum ordered for King's recovery, 36 ; for pregnancy of Marie- 
 Antoinette, 92; for Marie-Louise, 183. 
 Trianon, Louis XV token there, 50. 
 
 Vallot, Dr., record of illnesses of Louis XIV, 8; his anxiety, 12 ; 
 
 prescriptions used, 13. 
 Varennes, flight to, 116. 
 
 Ventadour, Duchesse de, fears King is poisoned, 34. 
 Verniond, chosen as accoucheur to Marie-Antoinette, 89, 91 ; 
 
 presence of mind of, 99; success and popularity, 103; envy of 
 
 the doctors, 103; consulted by King, 104. 
 
 w. 
 
 What was Marat's Disease ? 147. 
 
 Whey, favourite medicine of Louis XVI, 119, 
 
 Y. 
 
 Youthful Indiscretion of Louis XIV, A, 3.
 
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