Here several voices exclaimed that the bet was lost. Some said there
must be a confederacy between the challenger and the challenged, and
others asked whether any money had been deposited? The fire-king
called a Mr. White forward, who deposed that he held the stakes, which
had been regularly placed in his hands, by both parties, before twelve
o'clock that morning.
The fire-king here turned round with great exultation to the company,
and pulling a bottle out of his pocket, exclaimed, "I did never see
this gentleman before this morning, and I did not know but that he
might be bold enough to venture to take this quantity of poison. I was
determined not to let him lose his life by his foolish wager, and
therefore I did bring an antidote in my pocket, which would have
prevented him from suffering any harm." Mr. Smith said his object was
answered by seeing twenty grains of genuine phosphorus swallowed. He
had conceived it impossible, as three grains were quite sufficient to
destroy life. The fire-king then withdrew into another room for the
professed purpose of putting on his usual dress for entering the oven,
but in all probability for the purpose of getting the phosphorus out of
his stomach.
After an absence of twenty minutes, he returned, dressed in a coarse
woolen coat, to enter the heated oven. Before he entered it, a medical
gentleman ascertained that his pulse was vibrating ninety-eight times a
minute. He remained in the oven five minutes, during which time he
sung Le Vaillant Troubadour, and superintended the cooking of two
dishes of beef steaks. At the end of that time he came out, perspiring
profusely, and with a pulse making one hundred and sixty-eight
vibrations in a minute. The thermometer, when brought out of the oven,
stood at three hundred and eighty degrees; within the oven he said it
was above six hundred.
Although he was suspected of trickery by many, was often challenged,
and had an army of rivals and imitators, all available records show
that Chabert was beyond a doubt the greatest fire and poison resister
that ever appeared in London.
Seeking new laurels, he came to America in 1832, and although he was
successful in New York, his subsequent tour of the States was
financially disastrous. He evidently saved enough from the wreck,
however, to start in business, and the declining years of his eventful
life were passed in the comparative obscurity of a little drug store in
Grand Street.
As his biographer I regret to be obliged to chronicle the fact that he
made and sold an alleged specific for the White Plague, thus enabling
his detractors to couple with his name the word Quack. The following
article, which appeared in the New York Herald of September 1st, 1859,
three days after Chabert's death, gives further details of his
activities in this country:
We published among the obituary notices in yesterday's Herald the death
of Dr. Julian Xavier Chabert, the "Fire King," aged 67 years, of
pulmonary consumption. Dr. C. was a native of France, and came to this
country in 1832, and was first introduced to the public at the lecture
room of the old Clinton Hall, in Nassau Street, where he gave
exhibitions by entering a hot oven of his own construction, and while
there gave evidence of his salamander qualities by cooking beef steaks,
to the surprise and astonishment of his audiences.
It was a question to many whether the Doctor's oven was red-hot or not,
as he never allowed any person to approach him during the exhibition or
take part in the proceedings. He made a tour of the United States in
giving these exhibitions, which resulted in financial bankruptcy. At
the breaking out of the cholera in 1832 he turned Doctor, and appended
M.D., to his name, and suddenly his newspaper advertisements claimed
for him the title of the celebrated Fire King, the curer of
consumption, the maker of Chinese Lotion, etc.
While the Doctor was at the height of his popularity, some wag
perpetrated the following joke in a newspaper paragraph: "During some
experiments he was making in chemistry last week, an explosion took
place which entirely bewildered his faculties and left him in a
condition bordering on the grave. He was blown into a thousand atoms.
It took place on Wednesday of last week and some accounts state that it
grew out of an experiment with phosphoric ether, others that it was by
a too liberal indulgence in Prussic acid, an article which, from its
resemblance to the peach, he was remarkably fond of having about him."
The Doctor was extensively accused of quackery, and on one occasion
when the Herald touched on the same subject, it brought him to our
office and he exhibited diplomas, certificates and medical honors
without number.
The Doctor was remarkable for his prolific display of jewelry and
medals of honor, and by his extensive display of beard. He found a
rival in this city in the person of another French "chemist," who gave
the Doctor considerable opposition and consequently much trouble.
The Doctor was famous, also, for his four-horse turnouts in Broadway,
alternating, when he saw proper, to a change to the "tandem" style. He
married an Irish lady whom he at first supposed to be immensely rich,
but after the nuptials it was discovered that she merely had a life
interest in a large estate in common with several others.
The Doctor, it appears, was formerly a soldier in the French Army, and
quite recently he received from thence a medal of the order of St.
Helena, an account of which appeared in the Herald. Prior to his death
he was engaged in writing his biography (in French) and had it nearly
ready for publication.
Here follows a supposedly humorous speech in broken English, quoted
from the London Lancet, in which the Doctor is satirized. Continuing,
the articles says:
"The Doctor was what was termed a 'fast liver,' and at the time of his
death he kept a drug store in Grand Street, and had very little of this
world's goods. He leaves three children to mourn his loss, one of them
an educated physician, residing in Hoboken, N. J.
Dr. C. has 'gone to that bourne whence no traveller returns,' and we
fervently trust and hope that the disembodied spirits of the tens of
thousands whom he has treated in this sphere will treat him with the
same science with which he treated them while in this wicked world."