two thousand years before.
CHAPTER VI.
WOMEN AND FLOWERS
Some months after recorded events, about the end of March, 1791, Dr. Gilbert was hurriedly called to his friend Mirabeau, by the latter's faithful servant Deutsch, who had been alarmed.
Mirabeau had spoken in the House on the question of Mines, the interests of owners and of the State not being very clearly defined. To celebrate his victory, he gave a supper to some friends and was prostrated by internal pains.
Gilbert was too skillful a physician not to see how grave the invalid was. He bled him and the black blood relieved the sufferer.
"You are a downright great man," said he.
"And you a great blockhead to risk a life so precious to your friends for a few hours of fictitious pleasure," retorted his deliverer.
The orator smiled almost ironically, in melancholy.
"I think you exaggerate and that my friends and France do not hold me so dear."
"Upon my honor," replied Gilbert laughing, "great men complain of ingratitude and they are really the ungrateful ones. If it were a most serious malady of yours, all Paris would flock under your window; were you to die, all France would come to your obsequies."
"What you say is very consoling, let me tell you," said the other, merrily.
"It is just because you can see one without risking the other that I say it, and indeed, you need a great public demonstration to restore your morale. Let me take you to Paris within a couple of hours, my dear count; let me tell the first man on the street corner that you are ailing and you will see the excitement."
"I would go if you put off the departure till this evening, and let me meet you at my house in Paris at eleven."
Gilbert looked at his patient and the latter saw that he was seen through.
"My dear count, I noticed flowers on the Dining-room table," said he: "it was not merely a supper to friends."
"You know that I cannot do without flowers; they are my craze."
"But they were not alone."
"If they are a necessity I must suffer from the consequences they entail."
"Count, the consequences will kill you."
"Confess, doctor, that it will be a delightful kind of suicide."
"I will not leave you this day."
"Doctor, I have pledged my word and you would not make me fail in that."
"I shall see you this night, though?"
"Yes, really I feel better."
"You mean you drive me away?"
"The idea of such a thing."
"I shall be in town; I am on duty at the palace."
"Then you will see the Queen," said Mirabeau, becoming gloomy once more.
"Probably; have you any message for her?"
Mirabeau smiled bitterly.
"I should not take such a liberty, doctor; do not even say that you have seen me: for she will ask if I have saved the monarchy, as I promised, and you will be obliged to answer No! It is true," he added with a nervous laugh, "that the fault is as much hers as mine."
"You do not want me to tell her that your excess of exertions in the tribune is killing you."
"Nay, you may tell her that," he replied after brief meditation: "you may make me out as worse than I am, to test her feelings."
"I promise you that, and to repeat her own words."
"It is well: I thank you, doctor – adieu!"
"What are you prescribing?"
"Warm drinks, soothing, strict diet and – no nurse-woman less than fifty – "
"Rather than infringe the regulation I would take two of twenty-five!"
At the door Gilbert met Deutsch, who was in tears.
"All this through a woman – just because she looks like the Queen," said the man; "how stupid of a genius, as they say he is."
He let out Gilbert who stepped into his carriage, muttering:
"What does he mean by a woman like the Queen?"
He thought of asking Deutsch, but it was the count's secret, and he ordered his coachman to drive to town.
On the way he met Camille Desmoulins, the living newspaper of the day, to whom he told the truth of the illness because it was the truth.
When he announced the news to the King, the latter inquired if the count had lost his appetite.
"Yes, Sire," was the doctor's reply.
"Then it is a bad case," sighed the monarch, shifting the subject.
When the same words were repeated to the daughter of Maria Theresa, her forehead darkened.
"Why was he not so stricken on the day of his panegyric on the tricolor flag?" she sneered. "Never mind," she went on, as if repenting the expression of her hatred before a Frenchman, "it would be very unfortunate for France if this malady makes progress. Doctor, I rely on your keeping me informed about it."
At the appointed hour, Gilbert called on his patient at his town house. His eyes caught sight of a lady's scarf on a chair.
"Glad to see you," said Mirabeau, quickly as though to divert his attention from it, "I have learnt that you kept half your promise. Deutsch has been busy answering friendly inquiries from our arrival. Are you true to the second part? have you been to the palace and seen the King and Queen?"
"Yes; and told them you were unwell. The King sincerely condoled when he heard that you had lost your appetite. The Queen was sorry and bade me keep her informed."
"But I want the words she used."
"Well, she said that it was a pity you were not ill when you praised the new flag of the country."
He wished to judge of the Queen's influence over the orator.
He started on the easy chair as if receiving the discharge of a galvanic battery.
"Ingratitude of monarchs," he muttered. "That speech of mine blotted out remembrance of the rich Civil List and the dower I obtained for her. This Queen must be ignorant that I was compelled to regain the popularity I lost for her sake; but she no more remembers it than my proposing the adjournment of the annexation of Avignon to France in order to please the King's religious scruples. But these and other faults of mine I have dearly paid for," continued Mirabeau. "Not that these faults will ruin them, but there are times when ruin must come, whether faults help them forward or not. The Queen does not wish to be saved but to be revenged; hence she relishes no reasonable ideas.
"I have tried to save liberty and royalty at the same time; but I am
