composing delicious messes. I was so abstemious that, remarking my
moderation, he said: "In good sooth, Gil Bias, I marvel not that you
are no better than you are: you do not drink enough, my friend. Water
taken in a small quantity serves only to separate the particles of
bile and set them in action; but our practise is to drown them in a
copious drench. Fear not, my good lad, lest a superabundance of liquid
should either weaken or chill your stomach; far from thy better
judgment be that silly fear of unadulterated drink. I will insure you
against all consequences; and if my authority will not serve your
turn, read Celsus. That oracle of the ancient makes an admirable
panegyric on water; in short, he says in plain terms that those who
plead an inconstant stomach in favor of wine, publish a libel on their
own viscera, and make their constitution a pretense for their
sensuality."
As it would have been ungenteel in me to run riot on my entrance into
the career of practise, I affected thorough conviction; indeed, I
thought there was something in it. I therefore went on drinking water
on the authority of Celsus, or to speak in scientific terms, I began
to drown the bile in copious drenches of that unadulterated liquor;
and tho I felt myself more out of order from day to day, prejudice won
the cause against experience. It is evident therefore that I was in
the right road to the practise of physic. Yet I could not always be
insensible to the qualms which increased in my frame, to that degree
as to determine me on quitting Doctor Sangrado. But he invested me
with a new office which changed my tone. "Hark you, my child," said he
to me one day: "I am not one of those hard and ungrateful masters who
leave their household to grow gray in service without a suitable
reward. I am well pleased with you, I have a regard for you; and
without waiting till you have served your time, I will make your
fortune. Without more ado, I will initiate you in the healing art, of
which I have for so many years been at the head. Other physicians make
the science to consist of various unintelligible branches; but I will
shorten the road for you, and dispense with the drudgery of studying
natural philosophy, pharmacy, botany, and anatomy. Remember, my
friend, that bleeding and drinking warm water are the two grand
principles--the true secret of curing all the distempers incident to
humanity. Yes, this marvelous secret which I reveal to you, and which
Nature, beyond the reach of my colleagues, has failed in rescuing from
my pen, is comprehended in these two articles; namely, bleeding and
drenching. Here you have the sum total of my philosophy; you are
thoroughly bottomed in medicine, and may raise yourself to the summit
of fame on the shoulders of my long experience. You may enter into
partnership at once, by keeping the books in the morning and going out
to visit patients in the afternoon. While I dose the nobility and
clergy, you shall labor in your vocation among the lower orders; and
when you have felt your ground a little, I will get you admitted into
our body. You are a philosopher, Gil Blas, tho you have never
graduated; the common herd of them, tho they have graduated in due
form and order, are likely to run out the length of their tether
without knowing their right hand from their left."
I thanked the doctor for having so speedily enabled me to serve as his
deputy; and by way of acknowledging his goodness, promised to follow
his system to the end of my career, with a magnanimous indifference
about the aphorisms of Hippocrates. But that engagement was not to be
taken to the letter. This tender attachment to water went against the
grain, and I had a scheme for drinking wine every day snugly among the
patients. I left off wearing my own suit a second time, to take up one
of my master's and look like an experienced practitioner. After which
I brought my medical theories into play, leaving those it might
concern to look to the event. I began on an alguazil in a pleurisy; he
was condemned to be bled with the utmost rigor of the law, at the same
time that the system was to be replenished copiously with water. Next
I made a lodgment in the veins of a gouty pastry-cook, who roared like
a lion by reason of gouty spasms. I stood on no more ceremony with
his blood than with that of the alguazil, and laid no restriction on
his taste for simple liquids. My prescriptions brought me in twelve
rials: an incident so auspicious in my professional career, that I
only wished for the plagues of Egypt on all the hale subjects of
Valladolid....
II
AS AN ARCHBISHOP'S FAVORITE[33]
I had been after dinner to get together my baggage, and take my horse
from the inn where I had put up; and afterward returned to supper at
the archbishop's palace, where a neatly furnished room was got ready
for me, and such a bed as was more likely to pamper than to mortify
the flesh. The day following his Grace sent for me quite as soon as I
was ready to go to him. It was to give me a homily to transcribe. He
made a point of having it copied with all possible accuracy. It was
done to please him; for I omitted neither accent, nor comma, nor the
minutest tittle of all he had marked down. His satisfaction at
observing this was heightened by its being unexpected. "Eternal
Father!" exclaimed he in a holy rapture, when he had glanced his eye
over all the folios of my copy, "was ever anything seen so correct?
You are too good a transcriber not to have some little smattering of
the grammarian. Now tell me with the freedom of a friend: in writing
it over, have you been struck with nothing that grated upon your
feelings? Some little careless idiom, or some word used in an improper
sense?" "Oh, may it please your Grace," answered I with a modest air,
"it is not for me, with my confined education and coarse taste, to aim
at making critical remarks. And tho ever so well qualified, I am
satisfied that your Grace's works would come out pure from the essay."
The successor of the apostles smiled at my answer. He made no
observation on it; but it was easy to see through all his piety that
he was an arrant author at the bottom: there is something in that dye
that not heaven itself can wash out.
[Footnote 33: From "Gil Blas."]
I seemed to have purchased the fee simple of his good graces by my
flattery. Day after day did I get a step farther in his esteem; and
Don Ferdinand, who came to see him very often, told me my footing was
so firm that there could not be a doubt but my fortune was made. Of
this my master himself gave me a proof some little time afterward; and
the occasion was as follows: One evening in his closet he rehearsed
before me, with appropriate emphasis and action, a homily which he was
to deliver the next day in the cathedral. He did not content himself
with asking me what I thought of it in the gross, but insisted on my
telling him what passages struck me most. I had the good fortune to
pick out those which were nearest to his own taste--his favorite
commonplaces. Thus, as luck would have it, I passed in his estimation
for a man who had a quick and natural relish of the real and less
obvious beauties in a work. "This indeed," exclaimed he, "is what you
may call having discernment and feeling in perfection! Well, well, my
friend! it can not be said of you,
'_Beatum in crasso jurares aëre natum._'"
In a word, he was so highly pleased with me as to add in a tone of
extraordinary emotion, "Never mind, Gil Bias! henceforward take no
care about hereafter: I shall make it my business to place you among
the favored children of my bounty. You have my best wishes; and to
prove to you that you have them, I shall take you into my inmost
confidence."
These words were no sooner out of his mouth than I fell at his Grace's
feet, quite overwhelmed with gratitude. I embraced his elliptical legs
with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself as a man on the
high-road to a very handsome fortune. "Yes, my child," resumed the
archbishop, whose speech had been cut short by the rapidity of my
prostration, "I mean to make you the receiver-general of all my inmost
ruminations. Harken attentively to what I am going to say. I have a
great pleasure in preaching. The Lord sheds a blessing on my homilies;
they sink deep into the hearts of sinners; set up a glass in which
vice sees its own image, and bring back many from the paths of error
into the high-road of repentance. What a heavenly sight, when a miser,
scared at the hideous picture of his avarice drawn by my eloquence,
opens his coffers to the poor and needy, and dispenses the accumulated
store with a liberal hand! The voluptuary, too, is snatched from the
pleasures of the table; ambition flies at my command to the wholesome
discipline of the monastic cell; while female frailty, tottering on
the brink of ruin, with one ear open to the siren voice of the seducer
and the other to my saintly correctives, is restored to domestic
happiness and the approving smile of heaven, by the timely warnings of
the pulpit.
"These miraculous conversions, which happen almost every Sunday, ought
of themselves to goad me on in the career of saving souls.
Nevertheless, to conceal no part of my weakness from my monitor, there
is another reward on which my heart is intent--a reward which the
seraphic scrupulousness of my virtue to little purpose condemns as too
carnal--a literary reputation for a sublime and elegant style. The
honor of being handed down to posterity as a perfect pulpit orator has
its irresistible attractions. My compositions are generally thought to
be equally powerful and persuasive; but I could wish of all things to
steer clear of the rock on which good authors split who are too long
before the public, and to retire from professional life with my
reputation in undiminished luster. To this end, my dear Gil Blas,"
continued the prelate, "there is one thing requisite from your zeal
and friendship. Whenever it shall strike you that my pen begins to
contract, as it were, the ossification of old age, whenever you see my
genius in its climateric, do not fail to give me a hint. There is no
trusting to one's self in such a case: pride and conceit were the
original sin of man. The probe of criticism must be entrusted to an
impartial stander-by, of fine talents and unshaken probity. Both those
requisites center in you: you are my choice, and I give myself up to
your direction."
"Heaven be praised, my lord," said I, "there is no need to trouble
yourself with any such thoughts yet. Besides, an understanding of your
Grace's mold and caliber will last out double the time of a common
genius; or to speak with more certainty and truth, it will never be
the worse for wear, if you live to the age of Methusaleh. I consider
you as a second Cardinal Ximenes, whose powers, superior to decay,
instead of flagging with years, seemed to derive new vigor from their
approximation with the heavenly regions." "No flattery, my friend!"
interrupted he. "I know myself to be in danger of failing all at once.
At my age one begins to be sensible of infirmities, and those of the
body communicate with the mind, I repeat it to you, Gil Bias, as soon
as you shall be of opinion that my head is not so clear as usual, give
me warning of it instantly. Do not be afraid of offending by frankness
and sincerity: to put me in mind of my own frailty will be the
strongest proof of your affection for me. Besides, your very interest
is concerned in it; for if it should, by any spite of chance toward
you, come to my ears that the people say in town, 'His Grace's sermons
produce no longer their accustomed impression; it is time for him to
abandon his pulpit to younger candidates'--I do assure you, most
seriously and solemnly, you will lose not only my friendship, but the
provision for life that I have promised you. Such will be the result
of your silly tampering with truth."
Here my patron left off to wait for my answer, which was an echo of
his speech, and a promise of obeying him in all things. From that
moment there were no secrets from me; I became the prime favorite. All
the household, except Melchior de la Ronda, looked at me with an eye
of envy. It was curious to observe the manner in which the whole
establishment, from the highest to the lowest, thought it necessary to
demean themselves toward his Grace's confidential secretary; there was
no meanness to which they would not stoop to curry favor with me: I
could scarcely believe they were Spaniards. I left no stone unturned
to be of service to them, without being taken in by their interested
assiduities.
DUC DE SAINT-SIMON
Born in France in 1675, died in 1755; served in the army in
the time of Louis XIV; member of the Council of Regency in
the reign of Louis XV; ambassador to Spain to 1721; his
"Memoirs," first published in twenty volumes it 1829-30; not
to be confounded with the Count of Saint-Simon, the
philosopher and socialist, the memoir writer being a duke.
I
THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN[34]
Monseigneur le Dauphin, ill and agitated by the most bitter grief,
kept his chamber; but on Saturday morning of the 13th, being prest to
go to Marly to avoid the horror of the noise where the Dauphine was
lying dead, he set out for that place at seven o'clock in the morning.
Shortly after arriving he heard mass in the chapel, and thence was
carried in a chair to the window of one of his rooms. Madame de
Maintenon came to see him there afterward. The anguish of the
interview was speedily too much for her, and she went away. Early in
the morning I went uninvited to see M. le Dauphin. He showed me that
he perceived this with an air of gentleness and of affection which
penetrated me. But I was terrified with his looks, constrained, fixt
and with something wild about them; with the change of his looks and
with the marks there, livid rather than red, that I observed in good
number and large; marks observed by the others also.
[Footnote 34: From the "Memoirs on the Reign of Louis XIV and the
Regency." Translated by Bayle St. John, traveler and Author, his
"Village Life Egypt" appearing in 1852.]
The Dauphin was standing. In a few moments he was apprized that the
King had awaked. The tears that he had restrained now rolled from his
eyes; he turned round at the news, but said nothing, remaining stock
still. His three attendants proposed to him once or twice that he
should go to the King. He neither spoke nor stirred. I approached and
made signs to him to go, then softly spoke to the same effect. Seeing
that he still remained speechless and motionless, I made bold to take
his arm, representing to him that sooner or later he must see the
King, who expected him, and assuredly with the desire to see and
embrace him. He cast upon me a look that pierced my soul and went
away. I followed him some few steps and then withdrew to recover
breath. I never saw him again. May I, by the mercy of God, see him
eternally where God's goodness doubtless has placed him!
The Dauphin reached the chamber of the King, full just then of
company. As soon as he appeared the King called him and embraced him
tenderly again and again. These first moments, so touching, passed in
words broken by sobs and tears. Shortly afterward the King, looking at
the Dauphin, was terrified by the same things that had previously
struck me with affright. Everybody around was so also, the doctors
more than the others. The King ordered them to feel his pulse, that
they found bad, so they said afterward; for the time they contented
themselves with saying that it was not regular, and that the Dauphin
would do wisely to go to bed. The King embraced him again, recommended
him very tenderly to take care of himself, and ordered him to go to
bed. He obeyed and rose no more!
It was now late in the morning. The King had passed a cruel night and
had a bad headache; he saw at his dinner the few courtiers who
presented themselves, and then after dinner went to the Dauphin. The
fever had augmented, the pulse was worse than before. The King passed
into the apartment of Madame de Maintenon, and the Dauphin was left
with attendants and his doctors. He spent the day in prayers and holy
reading.
On the morrow, Sunday, the uneasiness felt on account of the Dauphin
augmented. He himself did not conceal his belief that he would never
rise again, and that the plot Pondin had warned him of had been
executed. He explained himself to this effect more than once and
always with a disdain of earthly grandeur and an incomparable
submission and love of God. It is impossible to describe the general
consternation. On Monday the 15th the King was bled. The Dauphin was
no better than before. The King and Madame de Maintenon saw him
separately several times during the day, which was passed in prayers
and reading.
On Tuesday, the 16th, the Dauphin was worse. He felt himself devoured
by a consuming fire, which the external fever did not seem to justify,
but the pulse was very extraordinary and exceedingly menacing. This
was a deceptive day. The marks in the Dauphin's face extended all
over the body. They were regarded as the marks of measles. Hope arose
thereon, but the doctors and the most clear-sighted of the court could
not forget that these same marks had shown themselves on the body of
the Dauphine, a fact unknown out of her chamber until after death.
On Wednesday, the 17th, the malady considerably increased. I had news
at all times of the Dauphin's state from Cheverney, an excellent
apothecary of the King and of my family. He hid nothing from us. He
had told us what he thought of the Dauphine's illness; he told us now
what he thought of the Dauphin's. I no longer hoped therefore, or
rather I hoped to the end against all hope.
On Wednesday the pains increased. They were like a devouring fire, but
more violent than ever. Very late into the evening the Dauphin sent to
the King for permission to receive the communion early the next
morning and without display at the mass performed in his chamber.
Nobody heard of this that evening; it was not known until the
following morning. I was in extreme desolation. I scarcely saw the
King once a day. I did nothing but go in quest of news several times a
day, and to the house of M. de Chevreuse, where I was completely free.
M. de Chevreuse--always calm, always sanguine--endeavored to prove to
us by his medical reasonings that there was more reason to hope than
to fear; but he did so with a tranquillity that roused my impatience.
I returned home to pass a cruel night.
On Thursday morning, the 18th February, I learned that the Dauphin,
who had waited for midnight with impatience, had heard mass
immediately after the communion, had passed two hours in devout
communication with God, and that his reason then became embarrassed.
Madame de Saint-Simon told me afterward that he had received extreme
unction; in fine that he had died at half-past eight.
These memoirs are not written to describe my private sentiments. But
in reading them--if long after me they shall ever appear--my state and
that of Madame de Saint-Simon will only too keenly be felt. I will
content myself with saying that the first days after the Dauphin's
death scarcely appeared to us more than moments; that I wished to quit
all, to withdraw from the court and the world, and that I was only
hindered by the wisdom, conduct and power over me of Madame de
Saint-Simon, who yet had some trouble to subdue my sorrowful desire.
II
THE PUBLIC WATCHING THE KING AND MADAME[35]
The King wished to show the court all the maneuvers of war; the siege
of Compiègne was therefore undertaken, according to due form, with
lines, trenches, batteries, mines, etc. On Saturday, the 13th of
September, the assault took place. To witness it, the King, Madame de
Maintenon,[36] all the ladies of the court, and a number of
gentlemen, stationed themselves upon an old rampart, from which the
plain and all the disposition of the troops could be seen. I was in
the half-circle very close to the King. It was the most beautiful
sight that can be imagined to see all that army, and the prodigious
number of spectators on horse and foot, and that game of attack and
defense so cleverly conducted.
[Footnote 35: From the "Memoirs."]
But a spectacle of another sort--that I could paint forty years hence
as well as to-day, so strongly did it strike me--was that which from
the summit of this rampart the King gave to all his army, and to the
innumerable crowd of spectators of all kinds in the plain below.
Madame de Maintenon faced the plain and the troops in her sedan-chair,
alone, between its three windows drawn up; her porters having retired
to a distance. On the left pole in front sat Madame la Duchesse de
Bourgogne; and on the same side, in a semicircle, standing, were
Madame la Duchesse, Madame la Princesse de Conti, and all the
ladies--and behind them again, many men. At the right window was the
King, standing, and a little in the rear a semicircle of the most
distinguished men of the court. The King was nearly always uncovered;
and every now and then stooped to speak to Madame de Maintenon, and
explain to her what she saw, and the reason of each movement.
[Footnote 36: At the period of which Saint-Simon here writes, Madame
de Maintenon had acquired that ascendency over Louis XIV which
resulted in her marriage to him. She had been born in a prison, and
was three years the senior of the King. Her first husband was the poet
Scarron, at whose death, after a marriage of nine years, she had found
herself in poverty. She secured a pension from Anne of Austria, the
mother of the King, but at the queen-mother's death the pension was
discontinued. She was placed in charge of the King's natural son, to
whom she became much devoted, and was advanced through the King's
favor to various positions at court, receiving in 1678 the title of
marquise. Five years later the queen of Louis XIV died, and Louis
married Madame de Maintenon, whose influence over him in matters of
church and state became thereafter very great. She was a patroness of
art and literature, intensely orthodox in religion, and has been held
largely responsible for the King's revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
which occurred during the year of their marriage, tho she opposed the
violent persecutions which followed.]
Each time that he did so she was obliging enough to open the window
four or five inches, but never half-way; for I noticed particularly,
and I admit that I was more attentive to this spectacle than to that
of the troops. Sometimes she opened of her own accord to ask some
question of him: but generally it was he who, without waiting for her,
stooped down to instruct her of what was passing; and sometimes, if
she did not notice him, he tapped at the glass to make her open it. He
never spoke save to her, except when he gave a few brief orders, or
just answered Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, who wanted to make him
speak, and with whom Madame de Maintenon carried on a conversation by
signs, without opening the front window, through which the young
princess screamed to her from time to time. I watched the countenance
of every one carefully: all exprest surprize, tempered with prudence,
and shame that was, as it were, ashamed of itself; every one behind
the chair and in the semicircle watched this scene more than what was
going on in the army. The King often put his hat on the top of the
chair in order to get his head in to speak; and this continual
exercise tired his loins very much. Monseigneur was on horseback in
the plain with the young princes. It was about five o'clock in the
afternoon, and the weather was as brilliant as could be desired.