On the seventeenth of September, I proposed to Roche to call in another
physician, naming M. Guerard, a man of acknowledged ability, but old and
deaf. On account of these natural defects of Guerard, and out of
friendship for Roche, I did not discharge this latter. Roche said, "I
will call myself on M. Guerard, and bring him to the house." I saw
nothing in this proposal, but an act of civility towards Guerard. I have
since understood that this man sheltered himself, under the character of
_consulting_ physician, from the reproach of a treacherous abuse of my
confidence in him. It is possible that Roche called him in as such, from
unwillingness to seem to be superseded. But on his second visit, when he
came alone, on his observing, "M. Roche est votre medecin," I replied,
"vous l'etes aussi,"[71] and explained to him, that I expected from him
the service of a physician just as much as if Roche was not in
attendance; adding that, if I had been perfectly satisfied with Roche, I
should not have called in another. Besides he received his fee; a
circumstance which, if I understand aright, technically nullifies a
technical defence of a conduct too atrocious for me to suspect at the
time, and including too much cruelty to be justified by any
considerations.
He came, accompanied by Roche. He said, "M. Roche has explained to me in
detail your son's illness and the treatment of it: we will go and see
him." He examined his patient with great attention. On leaving the room
he said, "this is a very serious malady, but I see no immediate danger."
He prescribed musk and bark: these medicines being proper for the
typhus, prove what indeed has never been questioned, that he knew, from
the first, the nature of the complaint. The languid state of my younger
son was mentioned to him; he smiled on him good-naturedly, took his
hand, but made no remark, giving at the same time a significant look at
Roche.
The servant met them descending the stairs; Guerard wringing his hands,
and Roche looking, as the man expressed himself, like a scolded child,
"un enfant gronde." By some fatality, Antoine did not speak of this
till some days after the death of Kenelm: had it been mentioned at the
time, it might have changed the whole state of things.
The next morning, Antoine asked Roche on his first visit, "Is M. Kenelm
worse, Sir? M. Guerard seemed much disturbed yesterday." Roche said, "O
no: all is going on well: he is better."
Guerard did not even order Roche's treatment, though contrary to the
malady, to be discontinued; and Roche went on with his barley-water and
calming potion conjointly with Guerard's prescribed medicines. After
visiting four days, Guerard fell ill of the gout and was confined to his
house: it was then agreed that Roche should report to him daily the
state of the patient, and consult with him on the treatment.
My eldest daughter, subsequently to Guerard's first visit, was ill of a
sore throat: had she taken the infection of the typhus, would these
medical men still have persevered in their silence? A good providence
was merciful. She recovered; we were less alarmed, as unaware of the
extent of the danger; and it is not proved that the medical men were
willing to assassinate more than two of the family.
Kenelm appeared to be somewhat benefited by Guerard's medicines; and the
external application of camphor, now prescribed by Roche, mitigated the
delirium, though it did not remove the cause. His brother said one day,
"Let us try how far his mind is free:" and, taking the drawing
before-mentioned of the infant Jesus, which had been framed and hung up
in the first salon, he placed it at the foot of his brother's bed.
Kenelm looked at it for a short time with seeming pleasure, and then
said, "Perhaps that may hereafter do me some little honour." Other
indications he gave, that he thought his end to be near: he said to me,
with a pensive and composed look,--"Monument? what monument shall I
have?" He heard the bell of the church of St. Agricol, and cried, "Why
do they ring that bell? I am not dead yet." On the twenty-fourth of
September he said to his mother, "I dreamed last night that Mr. Roche
took me into a church, and left me there, promising to bring me every
day bread and water. He did so for some time; but one day he failed of
coming, and I died. I thought in my dream that I made a very happy
death: I am certain it is a very easy thing to make a happy death."
This dream evidently tranquillized and spoke peace to his soul: it was a
merciful dispensation, when other means of spiritual comfort were
rendered impossible by the delirium, which however left to his pious
thoughts their direction and energy.
He had been, for some days before, a little better. The delirium was
somewhat abated, and he seemed to have more strength; but on the
twenty-fifth these favourable symptoms disappeared; this lightening
before death vanished. On the evening of that day, the surgeon took upon
himself to apply healing plasters to the blisters, without asking the
opinion of Roche, who was present, and who, though unasked, to keep
himself in countenance, gave his assent, saying, "C'est tres bien fait
de M. Busquet."[72] Roche had evidently now lost all presence of mind:
he knew not what to do; and no confidence could longer be placed in one
who ceased even to affect to have any in himself. The next morning I
sent him his discharge: he wrote me a letter full of respect and
sensibility, complaining of this measure, and returning the fee. The
custom of France is, that the physician is not paid till the termination
of the malady: had Roche retained the fee, he would have acceded to his
own dismissal, which he earnestly wished to be recalled, foreseeing
that all must inevitably be known on the arrival of another physician.
Guerard too, who was still confined by the gout, made strong objections
to the calling in another physician, whom I named to him, and who had
studied with credit at Paris. He requested me to be contented that the
surgeon, an able man, should make his report as Roche had done, and
promised to call the next day in a "chaise a porteurs"--sedan-chair.
I had taken with me my younger son, intending to consult Guerard about
him. In my confusion and anxiety, I forgot to do so; but Guerard, who
knew the nature of the malady, and that I had been kept in the dark
concerning it;--who knew that my younger son, ten days before, had been
ill for some days--must have apprehended his state, even from his looks,
and to this state consigned him. Roche, during his latter visits, had
sedulously avoided paying attention to the younger son; and so slow at
first was the advance of the illness, that we had neglected to call his
attention that way. Roche too knew all. Had he continued his visits, I
cannot tell what he would have done: perhaps he could not tell himself.
He could hardly have talked of a second "catarrhal nervous fever;" nor
could Guerard have borne him out in it.
The next morning, the 27th, I called again on Guerard. On seeing me, he
cried out, "Sir, I should have come to your house yesterday, but for the
difficulty of mounting the stairs."--"You might have been carried up in
an armchair by the porters."--"That shall be done to-morrow, if I am not
strong enough to mount by myself: at any rate I will come to-morrow." He
now, by my desire, felt my younger son's pulse. "He has some fever: he
must be taken care of: I will come to-morrow." He well knew, though I
did not, how urgent the case was: though regularly called upon to
prescribe for my younger son, he thus evaded his duty. He added,
referring to the elder son,--"M. Busquet is a clever man: he has my
method, and will treat your son according to it. Another physician will,
very likely, wish to try experiments."
If I admitted with such credulous facility the delays of this
cold-hearted man and the fear of empiricism, which he artfully threw in,
it was because I foresaw not the calamities that awaited me: could I
even have foreseen them, I should not have suspected any one capable of
thus trifling with a father of a family, who, in that quality, had
thrown himself on his good faith, and, in his quality of stranger, in
some sort on the good faith of his nation.
I acted even worse on the morrow. Guerard failed to come; I waited for
him the whole day, and then did not even send to inquire after him. I do
not pretend to excuse a conduct so inconsistent with my principles and
feelings; yet be it remembered, sorrow and perturbation of mind are bad
counsellors. Desponding and sick at heart, overcome by lassitude--I
speak not of corporeal fatigue, for a messenger would have ascertained
the failure of Guerard, and brought a physician in his stead--but
overborne by the disappointment of the efforts I had made, and, later in
the day, becoming sensible of the danger of Kenelm, I felt as if, like
the father of Thessalonica, I could not help one son without abandoning
the other. I acted wrong: it is some consolation to reflect that,
whereas, on the following day, I found the physician who saved the life
of my younger son; had I this day sent for one, that one might not have
had the same success. For Kenelm, the delay imported not; his days were
numbered. It may also be a palliation that, when his mother asked the
surgeon what news she might send to her friends in England, he
replied,--"You may tell them, Madam, that there is no danger."
In the evening of the same day, this same man said to me, "Your son is
worse: your younger son also requires attention: I will go immediately
to M. Guerard, and tell him it is absolutely necessary that a physician
should visit them." He said also, "It would be better that the young
ladies should not stay in their brother's chamber." I said, "We have
been assured that there is no danger of contagion."--"There is always
some danger." He spoke of the sisters who were present, and whose
presence had always seemed to give pleasure to Kenelm. His brother was
so weakened by the now rapid progress of his own malady, that, for two
days, he had hardly passed into this room, and had gone early to bed. It
was now with him, as was known afterwards, the twelfth day of the fever.
He himself, from his own feelings asserted that his disorder was the
same as his brother's. The medical diagnosis was the same; yet to me,
who could judge by appearances only, it seemed a perfectly different
illness; the prostration of all the strength of the body was the only
visible symptom, and this had come on gradually and quietly, had brought
with it loss of spirits and of appetite, had even affected the
eye-sight, but without any occasional excitement, without delirium.
Towards midnight I took my station to watch by the bed-side of Kenelm
with a presentiment, very naturally to be accounted for, that it was
for the last time. He passed the night in tolerable tranquillity, but,
at day-break, he began to disturb and alarm us by loud and continued
talking. At the same time his understanding seemed to be returning, as,
amidst the extravagancies he uttered, he spoke of an occurrence in the
life-time of his eldest sister, (little Mary he called her,) "but that
was a long time ago; she has been dead fifteen years:" this was exact.
He said also, "I would give the world to be able to hold my tongue, but
I seem to have something within me that forces me to talk." He talked in
fact incessantly for six hours, till his voice even became hoarse. This
was the last effort of the victorious typhus: the gangrene of the bowels
was now in operation; sickness came on.
Guerard had not rendered himself to the summons of the surgeon the
evening before, nor to the repeated summons of the same messenger this
morning. I hastened to his house: at eleven o'clock he was sitting in
his arm chair: he had not even sent word that he could not come. I
addressed him in a hurried manner:--"Is my son to take the bark, since
he is vomiting?" Guerard, being deaf, and supposing my question to be a
reiterated invitation, or complaint of his absence, declared his utter
inability to visit me, concluding his excuses, with "Voici le medecin
que je vous recommande,"[73] pointing to a person sitting near him, whom
I had before met with, but did not recognise. Suspecting that Guerard's
recommendation might proceed from jealousy of the other physician whom I
had once named to him, I requested the stranger to give me his address,
which he did; M. Breugne. I then repeated my question to Guerard, who,
not hearing to the end, advised that the bark should be continued. M.
Breugne said, "Puisqu'il vomit?"[74] Guerard then said the bark must be
suspended. I asked him what opinion he had formed on the report of the
surgeon: to this a vague answer was given. M. Breugne said, that a
physician could not judge of a patient's case by report: he gave some
reasons for this opinion, concluding, "the pulse cannot be described." I
took leave hastily and without explaining my intentions as to the
successor to Roche and Guerard. This latter had no claim to know them. I
wished to inform myself respecting M. Breugne.
The physician whom I had in my mind, had a high reputation, but was
young, and consequently as yet had but little practice. I went up to my
younger son's chamber, "Who is this M. Breugne?" said I. "He is the
physician of the family of M. de R. of whom they all speak so highly."
Had the question been proposed to him an hour later, he would have been
incapable of answering it, for then the stupor of the fever was fully
come upon him. Had the stupor come upon him twelve hours later, he must
have known of the death of his brother; and the effect of that
knowledge, in his weak state, would most probably have been fatal to
him.
I now recollected, concerning M. Breugne, what was amply sufficient to
decide me in his favour. By way of making amends for my reserve, I went
to his house myself. He promised to come in ten minutes: that space of
time I employed in helping my younger son to dress, and come down
stairs: the fatigue of these operations was to him excessive; arrived at
the door of the first salon, he looked at the sofa, as if he wished it
to come to meet him, made a few hasty and tottering steps, and threw
himself upon it, quite exhausted. He desired that it might be turned
with its back to the windows, as the light importuned him: this was
done, and the large round table was pushed from the centre of the salon
towards one side, that there might be space between it and the sofa.
This trifling circumstance is not mentioned idly; it will be seen
hereafter to have its meaning.
Who can deny the existence of a superintending, a particular Providence,
when he observes, that the mental faculties of my younger son were
continued to him, as if on purpose that he might assist me in
determining on the choice of the physician who rescued him from death,
and that they were then temporarily suspended precisely at the time when
it became necessary that he should be kept in ignorance of what, if
known, would have retarded or prevented his restoration to health? Is it
presumption in me to think, that even my negligence of the former day,
when I waited so long for Guerard without taking any steps to replace
him, may have been regulated, that the merciful dispensations of a good
Providence might have their way? I advance this conjecture in all
humility, and corrected by a sense of my own unworthiness.