M. De Jussieu.
WE MUST again transport the reader to the house in the Rue Plastriere where M. de Sartines had sent his agent, and there, on the morning of the 31st of May, we shall once more find Gilbert stretched upon a mattress in Therese’s room, and, standing around him, Therese and Rousseau with several of their neighbors, contemplating this specimen of the dreadful event at the remembrance of which all Paris still shuddered.
Gilbert, pale and bleeding, opened his eyes; and, as soon as he regained his consciousness, he endeavored to raise himself and look round as if he were still in the Place Louis XV. An expression of profound anxiety, followed by one of triumphant joy, was pictured in his features; then a second cloud flitted across his countenance, which resumed its somber hue.
“Are you suffering, my dear child?” inquired Rousseau, taking his hand affectionately.
“Oh! who has saved me?” asked Gilbert. “Who thought of me, lonely and friendless being that I am?”
“What saved you, my child, was the happy chance that you were not yet dead. He who thought of you was the same Almighty Being who thinks of all.”
“No matter; it is very imprudent,” grumbled Therese, “to go among such a crowd.”
“Yes, yes, it is very imprudent,” repeated all the neighbors with one voice.
“Why, ladies,” interrupted Rousseau, “there is no imprudence when there is no manifest danger, and there is no manifest danger in going to see fireworks. When danger arrives under such circumstances, you do not call the sufferer imprudent, but unfortunate. Any of us present would have done the same.”
Gilbert looked round, and seeing himself in Rousseau’s apartment, endeavored to speak; but the effort was too much for him, the blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils, and he sank back insensible. Rousseau had been warned by the surgeon of the Place Louis XV., and was therefore cot alarmed. In expectation of a similar event, he had placed the invalid on a temporary mattress without sheets.
“In the mean time,” said he to Therese, “you may put the poor lad to bed.”
“Where?”
“Why here, in my bed.”
Gilbert heard these words. Extreme weakness alone prevented his replying immediately, but he made a violent effort, and, opening his eyes, said, slowly and painfully, “No, no; upstairs.”
“You wish to return to your own room?”
“Yes, yes, if you please; “and he completed with his eyes, rather than with his tongue, this wish, dictated by a recollection still more powerful than pain, and which with him seemed to survive even his consciousness.
Rousseau, whose own sensibility was so extreme, doubtless understood him, for he added:
“It is well, my child; we will carry you up. He does not wish to inconvenience us,” said he to Therese, who had warmly applauded the resolution. It was therefore decided that Gilbert should be instantly installed in the attic he preferred.
Toward the middle of the day, Rousseau came to pass the hours he usually spent in collecting his favorite plants by the bedside of his disciple; and the young man, feeling a little better, related to him, in a low and almost inaudible voice, the details of the catastrophe. But he did not mention the real cause why he went to see the fireworks. Curiosity alone, he said, led him to the Place Louis, XV. Rousseau could not suspect anything farther, unless he had been a sorcerer, and he therefore expressed no surprise at Gilbert’s story, but contented himself with the questions he had already put, and only recommended patience. He did not speak either of the fragment of muslin which had been found in Gilbert’s hand, and of which Philip had taken possession.
Nevertheless, this conversation, which, on both sides, bordered so narrowly on the real feelings of each, was no less attractive on that account; and they were still deeply absorbed in it, when, all at once, Therese’s step was heard upon the landing.
“Jacques!” said she, “Jacques!”
“Well, what is it?”
“Some prince coming to visit me, in my turn,” said Gilbert, with a feeble smile.
“Jacques!” cried Therese, advancing and still calling.
“Well! What do you want with me?”
Therese entered.
“M. de Jussieu is below,” said she; “he heard that you were in the crowd during that night, and he has come to see if you have been hurt.”
“The good Jussieu!” said Rousseau. “Excellent man, like all those who, from taste or from necessity, commune with nature, the source of all good. Be calm, do not move, Gilbert; I will return.”
“Yes, thank you,” said the young man,
Rousseau left the room.
But scarcely was he gone when Gilbert, raising himself as well as he could, dragged himself toward the skylight from which Andree’s window could be seen.
It was a most painful effort for a young man without strength, almost without the power of thought, to raise himself upon the stool, lift the sash of the skylight, and prop himself upon the edge of the roof. Gilbert, nevertheless, succeeded in effecting this, but once there, his eyes swam, his hand shook, the blood rushed to his lips, and he fell heavily upon the floor.
At that moment the door of the garret was opened, and Rousseau entered, followed by Jussieu, to whom he was paying great civility.
“Take care, my dear philosopher; stoop a little here,” said Rousseau. “There is a step there — we are not entering a palace.”
“Thank you; I have good eyes and stout limbs,” replied the learned botanist.
“Here is some one come to visit you, my little Gilbert,” said Rousseau, looking toward the bed. “Oh! good heavens! where is he? He has got up, the unfortunate lad!”
And Rousseau, seeing the window open, commenced to vent his displeasure in affectionate grumblings. Gilbert raised himself with difficulty, and said, in an almost inaudible voice, “I wanted air.”
It was impossible to scold him, for suffering was plainly depicted in his pale and altered features.
“In fact,” interrupted M. de Jussieu, “it is dreadfully warm here. Come, young man, let me feel your pulse; I am also a doctor.”
“And better than many regular physicians,” said Rousseau, “for you are a healer of the mind as well as of the body.”
“It is too much honor—” murmured Gilbert feebly, endeavoring to shroud himself from view in his humble pallet.
“M. de Jussieu insisted on visiting you,” said Rousseau, “and I accepted his offer. Well, dear doctor, what do you think of his chest?”
The skillful anatomist felt the bones, and sounded the cavity by an attentive auscultation.
“The vital parts are uninjured.” said he. “But who has pressed you in his arms with so much force?”
“Alas! sir, it was death!” said Gilbert.
Rousseau looked at the young man with astonishment.
“Oh! you are bruised, my child, greatly bruised; but tonics, air, leisure will make all that disappear.”
“So leisure; I cannot afford it,” said the young man, looking at Rousseau.
“What does he mean?” asked Jussieu.
“Gilbert is a determined worker, my dear sir,” replied Rousseau.
“Agreed; but he cannot possibly work for a day or two yet.”
“To obtain a livelihood,” said Gilbert, “one must work every day; for every day one eats.”
“Oh! you will not consume much food for a short time, and your medicine will not cost much.”
“However little they cost, sir,” said Gilbert, “I never receive alms.”
“You are mad,” said Rousseau, “and you exaggerate. I tell you that you must be governed by M. de Jussieu’s orders, who will be your doctor in spite of yourself. Would you believe it,” continued he, addressing M. de Jussieu, “he has begged me not to send for one?”
“Why not?”
“Because it would have cost me money, and he is proud.”
“But,” replied M. de Jussieu, gazing at Gilbert’s fine expressive features with growing interest, “no matter how proud; he is, he cannot accomplish impossibilities. Do you think yourself capable of working, when you fell down with the mere exertion of going to the window?”
“It is true,” sighed Gilbert, “I am weak; I know it.”
“Well, then, take repose, and, above all, mentally. You are the guest of a man whom all men obey, except his guest.”
Rousseau, delighted at this delicate compliment from so great a man, took his hand and pressed it.
“And, then,” continued M. de Jussieu, “you will become an object of particular care to the king and the princes.”
“I!” exclaimed Gilbert.
“You, a poor victim of that unfortunate evening. The dauphin, when he heard the news, uttered cries of grief; and the dauphiness, who was going to Marly, remained at Trianon to be more within reach of the unfortunate sufferers.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Rousseau.
“‘ Yes, my dear philosopher; and nothing is spoken of but the letter written by the dauphin to M. de Sartines.”
“I have not heard of it.”
“‘It is at once simple and touching. The dauphin receives a monthly pension of two thousand crowns. This morning his month’s income had not be>-n paid. The prince walked to and fro quite alarmed, asked for the treasurer several times, and as soon as the latter brought him the money, sent it instantly to Paris with two charming lines to M. de Sartines, who has just shown them to me.”
“Ah, then you have seen M. de Sartines to-day?” said Rousseau, with a kind of uneasiness, or rather distrust.
“Yes; I have just left him,” replied M. de Jussieu, rather embarrassed. “I had to ask him for some seeds. So that,” added he quickly, “the dauphiness remained at Versailles to tend her sick and wounded.”
“‘Her sick and wounded?” asked Rousseau.
“Yes; Monsieur Gilbert is not the only one who has suffered. This time the lower classes have only paid a partial quota to the accident; it is said that there are many noble persons among the wounded.”
Gilbert listened with inexpressible eagerness and anxiety. It seemed to him that every moment the name of Andree would be pronounced by the illustrious naturalist. But M. de Jussieu rose.
“So our consultation is over?” said Rousseau.
“‘ And henceforward our science will be useless with regard to this young invalid; air, moderate exercise, the woods — ah! by-the-by, I was forgetting—”
“What?”
“Next Sunday I am to make a botanical excursion to the forest of Marly; will you accompany me, my illustrious fellow laborer?”
“Oh!” replied Rousseau, “say rather your unworthy admirer.”
“Parbleu! that will be a fine opportunity for giving our invalid a walk. Bring him.”
“So far?”
“The distance is nothing; besides, my carriage takes me as far as Bougival, and I can give you a seat. We will go by the Princess’s Road to Luciennes, and from thence proceed to Marly. Botanists stop every moment; our invalid will carry our camp-stools; you and I will gather samples; he will gather health.”
“What an amiable man you are, my dear Jussieu!” said Rousseau.
“Never mind; it is for my own interest. You have, I know, a great work ready upon mosses, and as I am feeling my way a little on the same subject you will guide me.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Rousseau, whose satisfaction was apparent in spite of himself.
“And when there,” added the botanist, “we shall have a little breakfast in the open air, and shall enjoy the shade and the beautiful flowers. It is settled?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“For Sunday, then?”
“Delightful. It seems to me as if I were fifteen again. I revel beforehand in all the pleasure I have in prospect,” replied Rousseau, with almost childish satisfaction.
“And you, my young friend, must get stronger on your legs in the meantime.”
Gilbert stammered out some words of thanks, which M. Jussieu did not hear, and the two botanists left Gilbert alone with his thoughts, and above all with his fears.