A FEW MONTHS after the events we have related, towards the end of March, 1791, a carriage coming rapidly from Argenteuil to Besson made a detour of a quarter of a league from the latter city, and advanced towards the Chateau du Marais, the gate of which opened before it, and stopped in the inner court-yard immediately in front of the door.
The clock in front of the building announced the hour to be eight a.m.
An old servant, who seemed to await the arrival of this carriage most anxiously, went to the door and opened it, and a man dressed in black got out.
“Ah, M. Gilbert! here you are at last!”
Going before the doctor, he took him through the billiard-room—the lamps of which, doubtless lighted at a late hour of the night, yet burned—thence to the dining—-room, whose table, covered with flowers, uncorked bottles, fruits, and pastry, betokened that supper had been prolonged later than usual.
Gilbert looked at this scene of disorder, which showed how his prescriptions had been followed, with sadness. He then shrugged his shoulders with a sigh, and went up the stairway which led to Mirabeau's room.
“Count,” the servant said, ''here is M. Gilbert.”
“What, the doctor?'' said Mirabeau. “You did not go for him for such a trifle?”
“Trifle!” said Teisch; “judge for yourself, doctor.”
“Doctor,” said Mirabeau, rising from his bed, “believe me, I am sorry that without my consent you have been so disturbed.”
“Count, I am never disturbed when I have an opportunity to see you. You know that I only attend a few friends, to whom I belong entirely. Tell me what has happened?—above all, have no secrets from your physician. Teisch, draw the curtains aside and open the window.”
This order having been obeyed, light shone on Mirabeau. The doctor was able to see the change which a month had wrought in the celebrated orator. “Ah, ha!” said he involuntarily.
“Yes!” said Mirabeau, “am I not changed? I am going to tell you why.”
Gilbert smiled sadly. But as a skilful physician always profits by what his patient says, even though he lie to him, he listened.
“You know what question was considered yesterday?”
“The matter is not at all understood or measured; the interests of the owners and of the government are not sufficiently distinct. The Count de la Marck, my intimate friend, is very deeply interested in the matter, and the half of his fortune depends upon it. His purse has always been mine, and I must be grateful. I spoke, or rather I charged, three times; at the last charge, I routed the enemies, but was myself taken a little aback. When I came home I resolved to celebrate the victory. I had a few friends to supper, and we laughed and jested until three in the morning. At five I was taken with a violent pain in my bowels, and I cried like an imbecile. Teisch, like a fool, became terrified, and sent for you. Now you know as much as I do. Here is my pulse, here is my tongue; cure me if you can, for I tell you I know nothing of the mutter.”
Gilbert was too shrewd a physician not to be able to see, without looking at pulse or tongue, the peril of Mirabeau's condition. He seemed in danger of suffocation, and his face was swollen from the stoppage of blood in his lungs. He complained of excessive cold in the extremities, and from time to time pain wrung from him a sigh or a cry. His pulse was convulsive and intermittent.
“Come,” said Gilbert, “this time it will be nothing, but, my dear count, I came only just in time.”
He took his book from his pocket with the rapidity and calmness which tire the distinguishing traits of true genius.
“Ah-ha!” said Mirabeau, “you are going to bleed me?”
“In neither. Your lungs are too full. I intend to open a vein in the foot, and Teisch must go to Argenteuil for mustard and cantharides—you must be blistered. Take my carriage, Teisch.”
“Diable,” said Mirabeau, “then you were just in time.”
Gilbert at once bled him, and soon black thick blood, which at first did not flow freely, gushed from the patient's foot. He was relieved instantly.
“Morbleu, doctor,” said he, “you are a great man.”
“And you are worse than a fool, to risk a life so valuable to your friends and to all Frenchmen, for the sake of a few hours of false enjoyment.”
Mirabeau smiled sadly, almost ironically. “Bah, doctor! you exaggerate the number of my friends, and the condition of France,” said he.
“On my honour; great men always complain of the ingratitude of others, but it is they who really are ungrateful. Be really sick, and to-morrow all Paris will be beneath your window. Die the next day, and all France will wear mourning.”
“Do you know, doctor, what you say is very consoling?” said Mirabeau, with a smile.
“The reason that I say this is, that you may see the one case without risking the other. You need some great demonstration to reinstate you, in a moral point of view. Let me take you back to Paris in two hours; let me but tell the policeman at the first corner that you are sick, and you will see.”
“Think you I could go to Paris?”
“Yes, at once! Where do you suffer?”
“I breathe more freely, my head is clear, the mist before my eyes is gone, but my bowels—”
“Ah! the blisters will correct that. The bleeding was well, and the blisters will do their duty. Ah! here is Teisch.”
The valet came in with the ingredients he had been sent for. In a quarter of an hour the improvement the doctor had predicted was perceptible.
“Now,” said Gilbert, “sleep for an hour, and then I will take you to Paris.”
“Doctor,” said Mirabeau, “suffer me not to leave until evening, and give me a rendezvous at my hotel in the Chaussee d'Antin at eleven.”
Gilbert looked at Mirabeau. The patient saw that his physician wished to know why he desired this delay.
“Why!” said Mirabeau, “I have a visit to receive.
“My dear count, I saw many flowers on the table of your dining-room. You did not give a supper yesterday merely to your friends.”
“You know I cannot do without flowers: it is a passion.”
“Yes, but you had not flowers alone.”
“Dame! if flowers be required, I must at least submit to their consequences.”
“Count, you will kill yourself.”
“At least, doctor, in a pleasant manner.”
“Doctor, I have given you my word, and will not break it.”
“You will come to Paris this evening?”
“I told you I would expect you at eleven. Is that enough?”
“Have I not made a conquest of Juliet, Talma's wife? Doctor, I feel perfectly well.”
“Well, you are right! I live in the Quartier des Tuileries.”
“Ah! you will see the queen?” said Mirabeau, growing moody.
“Probably. Have you any message for her?”
“Because she will ask if I have saved your life, as I promised to, for I will have to say it was more your fault than mine. You do not wish me to say that your labour and toil are killing you?”
Mirabeau reflected for an instant. “Yes,” said he, “say that—make me, if you please, sicker than I really am.”
“Nothing—curiosity—to say something.”
“Do you promise this, doctor?”
“And you will tell me what she says?”
“Adieu then, doctor! a thousand good wishes!” and he gave his hand to Gilbert.
Gilbert looked fixedly at Mirabeau, whom his glance appeared to disturb.
“Apropos! Before you go, your prescription.”
“Warm, soothing drinks. No wine—not a drop; and above all—”
“No nurse under fifty. Do you understand, count?”
“Doctor, rather than violate your orders, I will take two of twenty-five.”
At the door Gilbert met Teisch. The poor man wept. “Monsieur,” said he, “why do you go?”
“Because, my dear Teisch, your master has driven me away,” said Gilbert, smiling.
“All this is for a woman,” said the old man; “and because the woman looks like the queen! A man who, they say, has so much genius, my God! must he be a brute?”
He opened the door to Gilbert, who got in, saying: “What on earth has he to do with that woman who is so like the queen?” He took Teisch by the arm, as if to question him, but let it go, saying: “What was I about to do? It is Mirabeau's secret, not mine—driver, to Paris.”
Gilbert scrupulously discharged the promise he had made to Mirabeau. As he entered Paris he met Camille Desmoulins, the living journal, the incarnation of a newspaper. He told him of the illness of Mirabeau, which he did gravely as possible, for he did not know if Mirabeau might not commit some new indiscretion, though he thought him then in no danger.
He then went to the Tuileries and informed the king of Mirabeau's condition. The king said: “Poor count! Has he lost his appetite?”
“Then he is in a bad way,” said the king.
His majesty then talked of other matters.
Gilbert left the king and went into the queen's apartments, where he repeated what he had told the king. The haughty Austrian brow was lighted up, and she said: “Why was he not thus attacked on the day he made his fine address about the national tricolor?”'
Then, as if she regretted having suffered these words to escape her—expressive as they were of hatred to French nationality—she said: “It matters not. It would be most unfortunate for us and for France if he should be really sick.”
“I had the honour to tell the queen that he was not indisposed, but ill.”
“But you will cure him, doctor?”
“Doctor, I rely on you, you know, to give me news of M. de Mirabeau.”
And then she spoke of other things.
That night, at the appointed hour, Gilbert went to Mirabeau's hotel. Mirabeau was waiting for him, and sat on a couch. As the doctor had been made to wait a moment, under the pretext of informing the count of his presence, he had an opportunity to look around the room into which he was shown. The first thing that met his eyes was a cashmere shawl.
As if to divert Gilbert's attention, or because he attached great importance to the first words interchanged between himself and the doctor, Mirabeau said: “Ah! is it you? I know you have already kept a portion of your promise. Paris knows that I am sick, and for two hours poor Teisch has had, every ten minutes, to tell somebody how I am. That was your first promise; now about the second?”
Gilbert shrugged his shoulders to say he did not.
“Have you been to the Tuileries?”
“And you told them they would soon be rid of me?”
“I told them you were dangerously ill.”
“The king asked how your appetite was.”
“And he pitied you sincerely.”
“Kind king! 'Like Leonidas,' he will say, when he dines to-night, 'he sups with Pluto.' But the queen?”
“Pitied, and asked kindly after you.”
“How, though?” said Mirabeau, who evidently attached much importance to the question. “Kindly?—you promised to repeat her words verbatim.”
“Doctor! you have not forgotten our syllable?”
“Doctor! you gave me your word, and you would not have me treat you as a faithless man.”
“Do you insist that I repeat what the queen said?”
Gilbert repeated the conversation between himself and the queen, and looked at Mirabeau, to see the influence it had on him.
“Kings are ungrateful,” said he. “This speech sufficed to make her forget the civil list of eighty millions for the king over her dower of four millions.”
Mirabeau ran over the long series of his triumphs in the cause of the queen, and sank back in his chair exhausted.
Ten minutes after, Mirabeau was in a bath, and as usual, Teisch escorted Gilbert down.
Mirabeau arose from his bath to look after the doctor, and when he was out of sight, listened to hear his footsteps. He then stood motionless until he heard the door open and close.
He then rang violently, and said: “Jean, have a table fixed in my room, and ask Mdlle. Oliva if she will sup with me.”
As he left, Mirabeau said: “Flowers! flowers! You know how I love them.”
At four o'clock Dr. Gilbert was awakened by a violent ringing of the bell. “Ah!” said he, “I am sure Mirabeau is worse.”
The doctor was not wrong. After supper Mirabeau had sent Jean and Teisch to bed. He had then closed all the doors except the one which admitted the unknown woman whom he called his evil genius. The servants, however, did not go to bed, for Jean slept in the antechamber, in a chair, and Teisch kept awake.
At a quarter before four the bell rang violently. Both rushed to Mirabeau's rooms. The doors were fastened. They went round to the room of the unknown woman, and thus reached his bed-chamber. Mirabeau, on the floor, half-fainting, held this woman in his arms, doubtless to keep her from calling for aid. She had rung the bell on the table, being unable to get hold of the bellrope. When she saw the servants, she begged them to assist her as well as Mirabeau. In his convulsions Mirabeau was strangling her. Thanks to the efforts of the two servants, the dying man's grasp was torn apart. Mirabeau fell on a chair, and, all in tears, she entered her room.
Jean then went for Doctor Gilbert, while Teisch attended to his master.
Gilbert did not wait to send for a carriage. It was not far from his house to the Chaussee d'Antin, and in ten minutes he was at Mirabeau's house.
Teisch was in the vestibule. “Ah, sir!” said he, “that woman! That cursed woman! You will see, you will see!”
Gilbert was at the foot of the stairway, when something like a sob was heard, and a door opposite Mirabeau's opened. A woman, in a white veil, appeared and fell at the doctor's feet. “Gilbert! Gilbert!” said she, folding her arms. “for mercy's sake save him.”
“Nicole!” said Gilbert, “is it you?”
Gilbert paused a moment. A terrible idea flitted across him. “Ah!” murmured he, “Beausire sells pamphlets against him, and Nicole is his mistress. All is lost, for Cagliostro's finger is visible.”
He hurried into Mirabeau's room, being aware there was not a moment to be lost. It is not our intention to follow all the various phases of this terrible disease. In the morning a report of it got into the city, and—this time more seriously than before—he had a relapse, it was said, and this relapse threatened death.
It was then that one could judge of the great space occupied by one man in the midst of a nation. All Paris was moved as if a general calamity threatened the community. All the day, as before, the street was guarded by the people, in order that the noise of carriages might not disturb him. From hour to hour the groups assembled under the windows asked the news. Bulletins were issued, which passed at once from the Chausee d'Antin to the extremities of Paris. The door was besieged by citizens in every station, of every opinion, as if every party, however opposed to each other, had something to lose in losing Mirabeau. During all this time the relations and particular friends of the great orator filled the hall and chambers without his knowing anything about the matter.
On the evening of this first day of the relapse, a deputation, with Barnave at the head, came from the Society of the Jacobins, to inquire as to the health of their ex-president.
Doctor Gilbert never quitted Mirabeau for twenty-four hours. On Wednesday evening, he was sufficiently well for Gilbert to consent to seek a few hours' repose in a neighbouring chamber.
Before going to bed, the doctor ordered that at the least change he should be called at once. At break of day he awoke; no one had disturbed his sleep, and yet he rose half afraid; for he thought it impossible some change had not taken place.
On going downstairs, Teisch announced to the doctor, with his eyes full of tears, that Mirabeau was worse, but had forbidden any one disturbing Doctor Gilbert.
The patient had suffered severely; the pulse had become bad again, the pains had developed themselves with greater ferocity—in fine, the spasms had returned.
“My dear doctor,” he said to Gilbert, “I shall die to-day. When one is as I am, one has nothing to do but to perfume and crown one's self with flowers, so as to enter on the last sleep as agreeably as possible.—May I do as I like?”
Gilbert made a sign implying that he was his own master.
He then called his two domestics. “Jean,” said he, “get me the most beautiful flowers you can find, while Teisch dresses me as well as he can.”
Teisch seemed to ask permission with his eyes of Gilbert, who nodded his head in assent. He went out. As for Teisch, who had been very ill from watching, he began to shave and dress his master.
When Jean, on whom, as he left the hotel, everybody rushed to learn the news, had said that he was going to fetch flowers, men rushed down the streets calling for flowers for M. de Mirabeau; and every door opened, each offering what he had, whether in the house or conservatory. By nine o'clock in the morning, M. de Mirabeau's chamber was transformed into a beautiful bed of flowers, and Teisch had finished his toilet.
“My dear doctor,” said Mirabeau, “I ask you for a quarter of an hour to bid good-bye to some one who ought to leave the hotel before I do. If any one should wish to insult this person, I recommend her to your care.”
Gilbert understood. “Good!” said he, “I will leave you.”
“Yes, but you will wait in the adjoining chamber, and this person once gone, you will not leave me until death?” Gilbert signed his assent.
“Give me your word,” said Mirabeau. Gilbert gave it, sobbing. This stoic was quite astonished to find himself in tears; he had believed himself, through force of philosophy, to be insensible. He then went toward the door. Mirabeau stopped him.
“Before going out,” said he, “open my secretary and give me the little casket you will find there.”
Gilbert did as Mirabeau wished. This casket was heavy. Gilbert thought it contained gold. Mirabeau made him a sign to put it on the toilet-table. He then gave him hold of his hand.
“Will you have the goodness to send Jean to me?” he asked. “Jean, not Teisch. It fatigues me to call or ring.”
Gilbert went out. Jean was waiting in the next chamber, and entered as Gilbert left. Gilbert heard the door bolted behind him. The half hour that followed was employed by Gilbert in giving information to those who were in the house. A carriage stopped before the gate of the hotel. For a moment his idea was that a carriage of the court had been allowed to pass. He ran to the window. It would have been a sweet consolation to the dying man to know that the queen had thought of him. It was a hackney coach, which Jean had been to fetch. The doctor guessed for whom. In fact, some minutes afterwards, Jean came out, conducting a lady, veiled in a large mantle. The lady got into the carriage. The crowd, without troubling themselves as to who the lady was, respectfully retired. Jean went into the hotel.
A moment after, the door of the chamber opened, and the feeble voice of the invalid was heard inquiring for the doctor. Gilbert ran to him.
“Look!” said Mirabeau. “Put this casket in its place, my dear doctor.” Then, as he seemed astonished to find it as heavy as at first, “Yes,” said Mirabeau: “it is curious, is it not? Where the devil will disinterestedness come from at last?”
In approaching the bed, Gilbert found a handkerchief on the ground, embroidered and trimmed with lace. It was wet with tears. “Ah!” said he to Mirabeau, “if she has not taken anything, she has left something.”
Mirabeau took the handkerchief, and feeling it was wet, applied it to his forehead.
“Oh!” murmured he, “she is the only one who has a heart!” He fell hack on the bed; his eyes closed as if he were already dead; but the rattle in his chest showed that he was still on his way to the grave.
From this time the few hours that Mirabeau had still to live were painful and agonizing. Gilbert kept his word, and remained near his bed till the last minute.
He took a glass, poured in a few drops of that green liquid of which he had already given a phial to Mirabeau, arid without mixing it this time with any brandy, he put it to the lips of the invalid.
“Oh, dear doctor,” said the latter, smiling, “if you wish the elixir to have any effect upon me, give me a glassful, or the whole phial.”
“Why so?” asked Gilbert, looking fixedly at Mirabeau.
“Do you believe that I, who have abused every treasure through life, would have this in my hands and not abuse it too? No! I caused your liquor, my dear sir, to be analysed, and I learned that it was drawn from the root of the Indian hemp; and I have taken it not by drops, but by glassfuls—not to live alone, but to dream.”
“Unhappy one!” murmured Gilbert, “without doubt I have poisoned you!”
“Sweet poison, dear doctor, by whose aid I have doubled, quadrupled the last hours of my existence—by which, in dying at forty-two, I have lived the life of a century. Oh, doctor, doctor! do not repent, but rather be glad! God gave me but a life, sad, discoloured, unhappy, deserving of little regret, and which man ought always to be ready to give up. Doctor, do you know I doubt whether I ought to thank God for my life, but I am sure I ought you for presenting me with your poison? Fill the glass, doctor, and give it me!”
The doctor did as Mirabeau wished, and presenting him the liquid, he drank it with pleasure.
“Thanks!” murmured he. And he sank again on his pillow.
This time Gilbert no longer doubted his death. The abundant dose of hashish which Mirabeau had taken, like the effects of the voltaic pile, had given the invalid, with speech, the play of his muscles; but now that he had ceased to speak, the muscles grew stiff, and death already began to show itself in his face.
During three hours his cold hand remained between Gilbert's. During these three hours, that is, from four to seven o'clock, the agony was calm; so calm that one could easily have thought he slept.
But towards eight o'clock, Gilbert felt his cold hand start in his. The starting was violent. He could no longer deceive himself. “Allons,” said he, “now the struggle, the true agony begins.”
And indeed the face of the invalid was covered with sweat. He made a motion as if he would drink. They hastened to offer him brandy, orangeade, water; but he shook his head. He wished for none of these. He made a sign, and they brought him pen, ink and paper.
He took the pen, and in a scarcely legible hand wrote—“Fly! fly! fly!”
He would have signed it; but he could only write the first two or three letters of his name, and stretching his arms towards Gilbert, “ For her,“ he murmured. And he fell back on his pillow without a motion, without a look, without a groan. He was dead!
Gilbert came to his bedside, looked at him, felt his pulse, put his hand on his heart, then, turning to the spectators of this last scene, “Gentlemen,” said he, “Mirabeau no longer breathes.”
And putting his lips for the last time on the forehead of the dead, he took the paper, whose destination he only knew, folded it carefully, put it in his breast, and went—not thinking it right to detain a single instant longer than necessary to go from Chaussee d'Antin to the Tuileries, the recommendation of the illustrious departed.
Some seconds after the doctor left the chamber of death, a great clamour was raised in the street. This was the report of the death of Mirabeau, which was beginning to spread.
Soon a sculptor entered; he was sent by Gilbert, to preserve for posterity the features of this great orator. Some minutes of eternity had already given serenity to those features. Mirabeau was not dead. Mirabeau seemed to sleep—a sleep full of life and pleasant dreams.
The grief was immense—universal. In one moment it spread from the Chaussee d'Antin to the barriers of Paris. It was eight o'clock in the morning. The people raised one terrible cry. They ran to the theatres, they tore down the affiches, they shut the doors.
A ball had taken place the same evening in an hotel of the Rue Chaussee d'Antin. They went to the hotel, dispersed the dancers, and broke the instruments.
The loss which had just happened was announced to the National Assembly by the president.
Barrere immediately ascended the tribune, and demanded the Assembly should record, in the minutes of the day, its regret for the loss of this great man, and insisted, in the name of the country, that all the members of the Assembly should assist at his funeral.
The next day, the 3rd of April, the Department of Paris presented itself to the National Assembly, and demanded and obtained that the church of Sainte Genevieve should be erected into a pantheon, and consecrated as a sepulchre for great men, and that the first one buried there should be Mirabeau.
Let us give here the magnificent decree of the Assembly:
“ARTICLE I. The new edifice of Genevieve shall be destined to receive the ashes of great men, and date from the epoch of French liberty.
“ARTICLE II. The legislature shall decide to whom this honour shall be decreed.
“ARTICLE III. The honoured Riquetti Mirabeau is judged worthy of this honour.
“ARTICLE IV. The legislature cannot confer this honour on one of its members; it can only be bestowed by the following one.
“ARTICLE V. The exceptions for those great men, who died before the revolution, can only be determined by the legislature.
“ARTICLE VI. The directory of the city of Paris shall be charged to put the edifice of Sainte Genevieve into a proper state for this object, and cause to be engraved on the front these words: 'Our country dedicates this to her great men.'
“ARTICLE VII. Meanwhile, the body of Riquetti Mirabeau shall be deposited by the side of the ashes of Descartes, in the vaults of the church of Sainte Genevieve.”
The next day, at four in the evening, the National Assembly left the salle of the Manege and went to the hotel of Mirabeau. It was attended by the directors of the departments, by all the ministers, and two hundred thousand people.
But of these two hundred thousand people, no one had come on behalf of the queen.
The cortege commenced to move.
Lafayette marched at its head, as Commander-General of the National Guard. Then the President of the National Assembly—Tronchet. Then the ministers. Then the Assembly, without any party distinctions, Sicyes giving his arm to Charles de Lameth. After the Assembly, the Jacobin club, like a second assembly, which had decreed eight days of mourning, and Robespierre, too poor to buy a dress, had hired one, as he had already done for the death of Franklin. And last came the entire population of Paris.
A funeral march in which, for the first time, until then unknown instruments were heard—the trombone and the tomtom marked the time for this numerous cortege.
When they reached Saint Eustache it was eight o'clock. The funeral oration was pronounced by Cerutti; at the last word ten thousand National Guards discharged their muskets.
They continued their route with flambeaux. Darkness had fallen, and not only on to the streets, but on to the hearts that passed through them.
The death of Mirabeau, in effect, was a political obscurity. Mirabeau dead—who knew whither things would tend? All felt that he had carried with him something that was wanting in the Assembly. The spirit of peace watched even in the midst of war, the goodness of the heart lay concealed under the violence of the mind. All the world had lost by this death: the royalists no longer had a rallying point, the revolutionists no curb. Besides, the carriage would roll more rapidly, and the descent be longer. Who could say towards what it rolled—whether to triumph or an abyss?
Three years afterwards, on a dark day in autumn, not in the salle of the Manege, but in the salle of the Tuileries—when the Convention, after having killed the king, killed the queen; after having killed the Girondists, after having killed the Jacobins, the Montagnards, after having killed itself, had nothing left to kill—it killed the dead. This was when, with a savage joy, it declared that in the judgment it had rendered upon Mirabeau it had been mistaken, and that in its eyes corruption could not be pardoned to genius.
A new decree was made, which excluded Mirabeau from the Pantheon.
An usher came, and from the steps of the temple read the decree which declared Mirabeau unworthy to share the sepulchre of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Descartes, and summoned the guardian of the church to deliver up the body.
Then a voice, more terrible than that which will be heard in the valley of Jehosbaphat, cried:
“Pantheon! deliver up the dead!”
The Pantheon obeyed. The body of Mirabeau was handed over to the usher, who caused it, as he said, to be taken and deposited in the usual place of burial.
The usual place of burial was Clamart, the cemetery of the executed.
And, without doubt to render the punishment which pursued him even after death more terrible, he was buried without cross, stone, or inscription.
