The Mesmerist's Victim

Rousseau was helped in placing Gilbert on the table.

Then Rousseau gave a glance to the surgeon whose succor he invoked. He was a youth of the patient’s own age, but no feature spoke of youth. His yellow skin was wrinkled like an old man’s, his flaccid eyelid covered a serpent’s glance, and his mouth was drawn one side like one in a fit. With his sleeves tucked up to the elbow and his arms smeared with blood, surrounded by the results of the operation he seemed rather an enthusiastic executioner than a physician fulfilling his sad and holy mission.

But the name of Rousseau seemed to influence him into laying aside his ordinary brutality. He softly opened Gilbert’s sleeve, compressed the arm with a linen ligature and pricked the vein.

“We shall pull him through,” he said, “but great care must be taken with him for his chest was crushed in.”

“I have to thank you,” said Rousseau, “and praise you – not for the exclusion you make on behalf of the poor, but for your devotion to the afflicted. All men are brothers.”

“Even the rich, the noble, the lofty?” queried the surgeon, with a kindling look in his sharp eye under the drooping lid.

“Even they, when they are in suffering.”

“Excuse me, but I am like you a Switzer, having been born at Neuchatel; and so I am rather democratic.”

“My fellow-countryman? I should like to know your name.”

“An obscure one, a modest man who devotes his life to study until like yourself he can employ it for the common-weal. I am Jean Paul Marat.”

“I thank you, Marat,” said Rousseau, “but in enlightening the masses on their rights, do not excite their revengeful feelings. If ever they move in that direction, you might be amazed at the reprisals.”

“Ah,” said Marat with a ghastly smile, “if it should come in my time – should I see that day – ”

Frightened at the accent, as a traveler by the mutterings of a coming storm, Rousseau took Gilbert in his arms and tried to carry him away.

“Two willing friends to help Citizen Rousseau,” shouted Marat; “two men of the lower order.”

Rousseau had plenty to choose among; he took two lusty fellows who carried the youth in their arms.

“Take my lantern,” said the author to Taverney as he passed him: “I need it no longer.”

Philip thanked him and went on with his search.

“Poor young gentleman,” sighed Rousseau, as he saw him disappear in the thronged streets.

He shuddered, for still rang over the bloody field he surgeon’s shrill voice shouting:

“Bring in the poor – none but the poor! Woe to the rich, the noble and the high-born!”

CHAPTER III

THE RESTORATION

WHILE the thousand casualties were precipitated upon each other, Baron Taverney escaped all the dangers by some miracle.

An old rake, and hardened in cynicism, he seemed the least likely to be so favored, but he maintained himself in the thick of a cluster by his skill and coolness, while incapable of exerting force against the devouring panic. His group, bruised against the Royal Storehouse, and brushed along the square railings, left a long trail of dead and dying on both flanks but, though decimated, its centre was kept out of peril.

As soon as these lucky men and women scattered upon the boulevard, they yelled with glee. Like them, Taverney found himself out of harm’s reach. During all the journey, the baron had thought of nobody but his noble self. Though not emotional, he was a man of action, and in great crises such characters put Caesar’s adage into practice – Act for yourself. We will not say he was selfish but that his attention was limited.

But soon as he was free on the main street, escaped from death and re-entering life, the old baron uttered a cry of delight, followed by another of pain.

“My daughter,” he said, in sorrow, though it was not so loud as the other.

“Poor dear old man,” said some old women, flocking round ready to condole with him, but still more to question.

He had no popular inclinations. Ill at ease among the gossips he made an effort to break the ring, and to his credit got off a few steps towards the square. But they were but the impulse of parental love, never wholly dead in a man; reason came to his aid, and stopped him short.

He cheered himself with the reasoning that if he, a feeble old man had struggled through, Andrea, on the strong arm of her brave and powerful brother, must have likewise succeeded. He concluded that the two had gone home, and he proceeded to their Paris lodging, in Coq-Heron street.

But he was scarcely within twenty paces of the house, on the street leading to a summerhouse in the gardens, where Philip had induced a friend to let them dwell, when he was hailed by a girl on the threshold. This was a pretty servant maid, who was jabbering with some women.

“Have you not brought Master Philip and Mistress Andrea?” was her greeting.

“Good heavens, Nicole, have they not come home?” cried the baron, a little startled, while the others were quivering with the thrill which permeated all the city from the exaggerated story of the first fugitives spreading.

“Why, no, my lord, no one has seen them.”

“They could not come home by the shortest road,” faltered the baron, trembling with spite at his pitiful line of reasoning falling to pieces.

There he stood, in the street, with Nicole whimpering, and an old valet, who had accompanied the Taverneys to town, lifting his hands to the sky.

“Oh, here comes Master Philip,” ejaculated Nicole, with inexpressible terror, for the young man was alone.

He ran up through the shades of evening, desperate, calling out as soon as he saw the gathering at the house door:

“Is my sister here?”

“We have not seen her – she is not here,” said Nicole. “Oh, heavens, my poor young mistress!” she sobbed.

“The idea of your coming back without her!” said the baron with anger the more unfair as we have shown how he quitted the scene of the disaster.

By way of answer he showed his bleeding face and his arm broken and hanging like a dead limb by his side.

“Alas, my poor Andrea,” sighed the baron, falling, seated on a stone bench by the door.

“But I shall find her, dead or alive,” replied the young man gloomily.

And he returned to the place with feverish agitation. He would have lopped off his useless arm, if he had an axe, but as it was, he tucked the hand into his waistcoat for an improvised sling.

It was thus we saw him on the square, where he wandered part of the night. As the first streaks of dawn whitened the sky, he turned homeward, though ready to drop. From a distance he saw the same familiar group which had met his eyes on the eve. He understood that Andrea had not returned, and he halted.

“Well?” called out the baron, spying him.

“Has she not returned? no news – no clew?” and he fell, exhausted, on the stone bench, while the older noble swore.

At this juncture, a hack appeared at the end of the street, lumbered up, and stopped in front of the house. As a female head appeared at the window, thrown back as if in a faint, Philip, recognizing it, leaped that way. The door opened, and a man stepped out who carried Andrea de Taverney in his arms.

“Dead – they bring her home dead,” gasped Philip, falling on his knees.