The Works of Honore de Balzac Part 45

"No, I dreamed of a people," said he with emphasis, making us laugh. "I was attending a patient whose leg I was to amputate the next day----"

"And you found a people in your patient's thigh?" asked Monsieur de Calonne.

"Exactly so!" replied the surgeon.

"Is not he amusing?" cried Madame de Genlis.

"I was greatly surprised," the speaker went on, never heeding these interruptions, and stuffing his hands into his breeches pockets, "to find some one to talk to in that leg. I had the strange power of entering into my patient. When I first found myself in his skin, I discerned there an amazing number of tiny beings, moving, thinking, and arguing. Some lived in the man's body, and some in his mind. His ideas were creatures that were born, grew, and died; they were sick, gay, healthy, sad--and all had personal individuality. They fought or fondled. A few ideas flew forth and went to dwell in the world of intellect. Suddenly I understood that there are two worlds--the visible and the invisible universe; that the earth, like man, has a body and a soul. A new light was cast on nature, and I perceived its immensity when I saw the ocean of beings everywhere distributed in ma.s.ses and in species, all of one and the same living matter, from marble rocks up to G.o.d. A magnificent sight! In short, there was a universe in my patient. When I inserted my lancet in his gangrened leg, I destroyed a thousand such beings.--You laugh, ladies, at the idea that you are a prey to a thousand creatures----"

"No personalities," said Monsieur de Colonne, "speak for yourself and your patient."

"My man, horrified at the outcry of his animalcules, wanted to stop the operation; but I persisted, telling him that malignant creatures were already gnawing at his bones. He made a motion to resist me, not understanding that what I was doing was for his good, and my lancet pierced me in the side----"

"He is too stupid," said Lavoisier.

"No, he is drunk," replied Beaumarchais.

"But, gentlemen, my dream has a meaning," cried the surgeon.

"Oh, oh!" cried Bodard, waking, "my leg is asleep!"

"Your animalcules are dead," said his wife.

"That man has a vocation," said my neighbor, who had imperturbably stared at the surgeon all the time he was talking.

"It is to Monsieur's vocation what action is to speech, or the body to the soul," said the ugly guest.

But his tongue was heavy, and he got confused; he could only utter unintelligible words. Happily, the conversation took another turn. By the end of half an hour we had forgotten the surgeon to the Court pages, and he was asleep.

When we rose from table, the rain was pouring in torrents.

"The lawyer is no fool," said I to Beaumarchais.

"Oh! he is dull and cold. But you see the provinces can still produce good folks who take political theories and the history of France quite seriously. It is a leaven that will spread."

"Have you a carriage?" Madame de Saint-James asked me.

"No," said I shortly. "I did not know that I should want it this evening.

You thought, perhaps, that I should take home the Controller-General? Did he come to your house _en polisson_?" (the fashionable name at the time for a person who drove his own carriage at Marly dressed as a coachman). Madame de Saint-James left me hastily, rang the bell, ordered her husband's carriage, and took the lawyer aside.

"Monsieur de Robespierre, will you do me the favor of seeing Monsieur Marat home, for he is incapable of standing upright?" said she.

"With pleasure, madame," replied Monsieur de Robespierre with an air of gallantry; "I wish you had ordered me to do something more difficult."

PARIS, _January 1828_.

NOTE.

This is the song published by the Abbe de la Place in his collection of interesting fragments, in which may be found the dissertation alluded to.

[It will be seen that it goes to the old tune of _Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre_.]

THE DUC DE GUISE'S BURIAL.

Qui veut our chanson? (_Bis._) C'est du Grand Duc de Guise; Et bon bon bon bon, Di dan di dan don, C'est du Grand Duc de Guise!

(This last line was spoken, no doubt, in a comic tone.) _Qui est mort et enterre._

Qui est mort et enterre. (_Bis._) Aux quatre coins du poele, Et bon bon bon bon, Di dan di dan don, _Quatre gentilshomm's y avoit_.

Quatre gentilshomm's y avoit. (_Bis._) L'un portoit son grand casque, Et bon, etc.

_Et l'autre ses pistolets._

Et l'autre ses pistolets. (_Bis._) Et l'autre son epee, Et bon, etc.

_Qui tant d'Hugu'nots a tues._

Qui tant d'Hugu'nots a tues. (_Bis._) Venoit le quatrieme, Et bon, etc.

_Qui etoit le plus dolent._

Qui etoit le plus dolent; (_Bis._) Apres venoient les pages, Et bon, etc.

_Et les valets de pied._

Et les valets de pied, (_Bis._) Avecque de grands crepes, Et bon, etc.

_Et des souliers cires._

Et des souliers cires. (_Bis._) Et des beaux bas d'estame, Et bon, etc.

_Et des culottes de piau._

Et des culottes de piau. (_Bis._) La ceremonie faite, Et bon, etc., _Chacun s'alla coucher._

Chacun s'alla coucher: (_Bis._) Les uns avec leurs femmes, Et bon, etc.

_Et les autres tout seuls._

The discovery of these curious verses seems to prove, to a certain extent, the guilt of Theodore de Beze, who tried to mitigate the horror caused by this murder by turning it to ridicule. The princ.i.p.al merit of this song lay, it would appear, in the tune.

GAMBARA

_To Monsieur le Marquis de Belloy_

It was sitting by the fire, in a mysterious and magnificent retreat,--now a thing of the past but surviving in our memory,--whence our eyes commanded a view of Paris from the heights of Bellevue to those of Belleville, from Montmartre to the triumphal Arc de l'etoile, that one morning, refreshed by tea, amid the myriad suggestions that shoot up and die like rockets from your sparkling flow of talk, lavish of ideas, you tossed to my pen a figure worthy of Hoffmann,--that casket of unrecognized gems, that pilgrim seated at the gate of Paradise with ears to hear the songs of the angels but no longer a tongue to repeat them, playing on the ivory keys with fingers crippled by the stress of divine inspiration, believing that he is expressing celestial music to his bewildered listeners.

It was you who created GAMBARA; I have only clothed him. Let me render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, regretting only that you do not yourself take up the pen at a time when gentlemen ought to wield it as well as the sword, if they are to save their country. You may neglect yourself, but you owe your talents to us.

New Year's Day of 1831 was pouring out its packets of sugared almonds, four o'clock was striking, there was a mob in the Palais-Royal, and the eating-houses were beginning to fill. At this moment a coupe drew up at the _perron_ and a young man stepped out; a man of haughty appearance, and no doubt a foreigner; otherwise he would not have displayed the aristocratic _cha.s.seur_ who attended him in a plumed hat, nor the coat of arms which the heroes of July still attacked.