tf ME MOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 65 not wish to inconvenience us," said he to Thérèse, who had warmly applauded thé resolution It was there. tore decided that Gilbert should be instantly installed in the attic he preferred. Towards tiie middle of the day, Rousseau came to cass the hours he usually spent in collecting his favor- ite niants 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 catas- troohe But he did not mention the real cause why he went to see the fireworks. Curiosity alone, he said, led him to tlie Place Louis XV. Rousseau could not euspect anything farther, unless he had been a sor- cerer and he therefore expressed no surprise at Gil- bert'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, Inrdered 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. "Jacquesl" said she, "Jacques! " Well, what is it?" . . . • „ ,. " Some prince coming to visit me, in my turn, said Gilbert, with a feeble smile. . "Jacques!" cried Thérèse, advancing, and still calling. , .,, .,, " Well ! What do you want with me? Thérèse 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 him- self as well as he could, dragged himself towards the skvli-ht from which Andree's window could be seen Itwas 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 to the floor At that moment the door of the garret was opened, and Rousseau entered, followed by Jussieu, to whom he"^ak?caregmyedeaCr philosopher, stoop a little here," said Rousseau. ^ There is a step there-we are not en- te"1Thàlikayout I have good eyes and stout limbs," re- plied the learned botanist. V " Here is some one come to visit you, my little Gil- bert " said Rousseau, looking towards the bed. Oh 1 good heavens i where is he ? He has got up, the unf or- tU\nd6Rousseau, seeing the window open, commenced to'vent his displeasure in affectionate grumblings Gil- bert raised himself with difficulty, and said, in an almost inaudible voice, "I wanted air." . It was impossible to scold him, for suffering was n'airlv demoted in his pale and altered features. "In fact," interrupted M. de Jussieu, "it is dread- fully warm here. Come, young man, let me feel your pulse; I am also a doctor." ... „ -j " And better than many regular physicians, said Housseau, ' for you are a healer of the mind as well as °f-*tete°too"much honor," murmured Gilbert feebly, eudeavering to shroud himself from view m his humble ^Xtf' de Jussieu insisted on visiting you," said Rous- ¦ his offer. Well, dear doctor, seau, " and I ace... what do you think of his chest? The skilful 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 astomsh- m"rOh ! vou are bruised, my child, greatly bruised; but -tonics air leisure—will make all that disappear. "No' leisure-][cannot afford it," said the young man, looking at Rousseau. . " What does he mean?" asked Jussieu. "Gilbert is a determined worker, my dear Sir," re Tilied Rousseau. .., , . , "Agreed; but he cannot possibly work for a day or tW'?Toet'obtain a livelihood," said Gilbert, "one must work every day ; for every day one eats !' "Oh! vou 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 exagger- ate. I tell you that you must be governed by M. de Jussieu's orders, who will be your doctor m spite of yourself Would you believe it," continuedhe, address- ing M. de Jussieu, " he had begged me not to send for ene?" "Because it would have cost me money, and he is Pr"But'" replied M. de Jussieu, gazing at Gilbert's fine expressive features with growing interest, no matter howrfroXd be is. he cannot accomplish impossibilities. Do you think yourself capable of working when you fell down with the mere exertion of going to the win- ^Xt'is true " sighed Gilbert, "I am weak: I know it" "Well then, tike repose, and above all, mentally. You are the guest of a man whom all men obey, ex- ^^^diWtetlattWsdeftàte>ccropltae_t *™m so a-reat a man, took his hand and pressed it. '^And then "continued M. de Jussieu, ' you will be- come an object of particular care to the king and the princes." "!'" 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 '*¦', iX..,------i„ be more within reach of the "Yes, ray dear philosopher, and nothing is spoken of but the letter written by the dauphin to M. de Sar- tines." " I have not heard of it»" " It is at once simple and touching. The dauphin his favor- i receives a monthly pension of two thousand crowns. - This morning his month's income had not been 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. ., y_ "Yes, I have just left him," replied M. 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 lime 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 Andrée 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 i by-the-bye, I was forgetting-----" " What?" " Next Sunday I am to make a botanical excursion to the forest of Marly; wiil you accompany me, my illustrious fellow-laborer?" "Ohl" replied Rousseau, "say rather your unworthy admirer." "Parbleu! that will be a fine opportunity forgiving our invalid a walk. Bring him." "So far?" "The distance is nothing: besides, my carnage takes me as far as Bougival, and I can give you a seat. W e will go by the Princess' Road to Luciennes, and from thence proceed to Marly. Botanists stop every mo- ment; 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." . „ "Ohl" 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 tlie two botanists leit Gilbert alone with his thoughts, and above all with his Chapter LXIX.—Life Returns. In the meantime, whilst Rousseau believed his invalid to be on the high road to health, and whilst Thérèse in- formed all her neighbors that, thanks to the prescrip- tions of il» learned doctor, M. de Jussieu, Gilbert was entirely out of danger—during this period of general confidence the young man incurred the worst danger he bad yet run, by his obstinacy and his perpetual reveries Rousseau could not be so confident, but that he entertained in his inmost thoughts a distrust sohdly founded on philosophical reasonings. Knowing Gilbert to be in love, and having caught him in open rebellion to medical authority, be judged that he would again commit the same faults if he gave him too much libertv. Therefore, like a good father, he had closed the padlock of Gilbert's attic more care- f ullv than ever, tacitly permitting him meanwhile to go to the window, but carefully preventing his crossing the threshold. It may easily be imagined what rage this solicitude, which changed his garret into a prison, aroused in Gilbert's breast, and what hosts ot projects crowded his teeming brain. To many minds constraint is fruitful in invertions. G ilbert now thought only of Andrée, of the happiness of seeing and watching over the progress of her convalescence, even from afar; but Andree did not appear at the windows of the pavilion, and Gilbert, when he fixed his ardent and searching looks on the opposite apartments, or surveyed every nook and corner of the building, could only, see Nicole carrying the invalid's draught on a porcelain plate, or M He Taverney surveying the garden and vigorously taktag snuff"as if to clelr and refresh his intellect Stmtbese details tranquilized him, for they betokened "'"TL^-'tought he, "beyond that door, behind that blind, breathes, sighs, and suffers she whom 1 aclore? whom I idolize-she whose very sight would cause the perspiration to stand upon my forehead and make my limbs tremble-she to whose existence mine "forever riveted-she for whom alone I breathe and llVAnd then, leaning forward out of his window-so that the inquisitive Chon thought, twenty Mines in an „„.,„ that h„ would throw himself out—Gilbert Between the formation of a wish and its accomplish- ment there is a wide gulf; but fertile imaginations can throw a bridge across. They can find the real in the impossible—they know how to cross the broadest rivers and scale the highest mountains, by a plan peculiarly their own. For the first few days Gilbert contented himself with wishing. Then he reflected that these much envied, happy beings, were simple mortals, endowed as he was, with limbs to tread the soil of the garden, and with arms to open the doors. Then, by degrees, he pictured to himself the happiness there would be in secretly glid- ing into this forbidden bouse—in pressing his ears against the Venetian blinds through which the sounds from the interior were, as it were, filtered. With Gil- bert wishing did not long suffice ; the fulfillment must be immediate. Besides, his strength returned rapidly: youth Is fruit- ful and rich. At the end of three days, his veins still throbbing with feverish excitement, Gilbert felt himself as strong as he had ever been in his life. He calculated that, as Rosseau had locked him in, one of the greatest difficulties—that of obtaining an entrance into the hotel of the Taverneys by the street- door—was placed out of the question; for, as the entrance-door opened upon the Rue Coq-Heron, and as Gilbert was locked up in the Rue Plastriere, he could not of course reach any street, and had therefore no need to open any doors. There remained the windows. That of his garret looked down upon a perpendicular wall of forty-eight feet in depth. No one, unless he were drunk or mad, would venture to descend it. "Oh! those doors are happy inventions after all." thought he, clenching his hands "and yet Monsieur Rousseau, a philosopher, locks them!" To break the padlock! That would be easily done; but if so, adieu to the hospitable roof which had shel- tered him. To escape from Luciennes, from the Rue Piastnere, from Taverney—always to escape, would be to render himself unable to look a single creature in the face without fearing to meet the reproach of ingratitude. "No!" thought he, "Monsieur Rousseau shall know nothing of it." Leaning out of his window, Gilbert continued : "With my hands and my legs, those instruments granted to free men by nature, I will creep along the tiles, and, keeping in the spout—which is narrow in- deed, but straight, and therefore the direct road from one end to the other—I shall arrive, if I get on so far, at the skylight parallel to this. Now, this skylight be- longs to the stairs. If I do not reach so far, I shall fall into the garden: that will make a noise, people will hasten from the pavilion, will raise me up, will recog- nize n>e, and I die nobly, poetically, pitied I That would be glorious ! "If I arrive, as everything leads me to believe I shall, I will creep in under tbe skylight over the stairs, and descend barefooted to the first story, the window of which also opens in the garden, at fifteen feet from the ground. 1 jump. Alas my strength, my activity are gone! It is true that there is an espalier to assist me. Yes, but this espalier with its rotten frame work will break, I shall tumble down, not killed nobly and poetically, but whitened with plaster, my clothes torn, ashamed, and looking as if I had come to rob the or- chard ! Odious thought 1 M. de Taverney will order the porter to flog me, or La Brie to pull my ears. "No! I have here twenty packthreads, which- twisted together, will make a rope, according to Men, sieur Rousseau's definition that many straws make a sheaf. I shall borrow all these packthreads iicm Madame Thérèse for one night. I shall knot them together, and when I have reached the window on the first floor, I shall tie the rope to the little balcony, or even to the lead, and slip down into the garden." When Gilbert had inspected the spout, attached and measured the cords, and calculated the height by his remained at Trianon, to unfortunate sufferers. ' "Oh, indeed!" said Rousseau, our t " he would throw himself with' his practised eye took the measure of. the par- titions of the floors, of the depth of the pavilion and constructed an exact plan of them in his brain There M de Taverney slept; there must be the kitchen, there Philip's apartments; there the cabinet occupied bv Nicole- and.' Inst of all. there must be^ Andree's chamb7r7the, sanctuary at the door of which he would have given his life to remain for one day kneeling. ThufsTnctuary, according to Gilbert's plan was a large apartment on the ground floor, guarded by an ante-chamber, from which opened a small cabinet with a XsdoorTwhich, agreeably to Gilbert's arrangement, served as Nicole's sleeping-chamber. " Oh '" exclaimed the excited youth in his fits of iealons'fury, "how happy are the beings who are privilegedI to walk in the garden on which my window and those of the stair-case look! How happy those tbSightless mortals who tread the grave of the Parterre ! for there, during the silence of night, may 6e heard Mademoiselle Andree's plaints and sighs. He twisted the pieces of twine together, and mad» a tolerably strong rope of them, then tried his strength bv hanging to a beam in his garret, and, happy to find that he had only spat blood once during his efforts, he decided upon the noctural expedition. The better to hoodwink Monsieur Jacques and Tlierese he counterfeited illness, and kept his bed until two o'clock, at which time Rousseau went out for his dinner walk and did not return till the evening. When Rousseau paid a visit to his attic, before setting out Gilbert announced to him his wish of sleeping until the next morning; to which Rousseau replied that as he had made an engagement to sup from home that evening he was happy to find' Gilbert inclined to With these mutual explanations they separated. When Rousseau was gone, Gilbert brought ^out his packthreads again, and this time he twisted them per- ™Heeagain examined the spout and the tiles;- then placed himself at the window to keep watch on the garden until evening. Chapter LXX.—The JErul Trip. Gilbert was now prepared for his entrance into the enemy's camp, for thus he mentally termed M. de Taverney's grounds, and from his window he explored the garden with tbe care>nd attention of a skilful strate- gist who is about to give battle, when in his calm and' motionless mansion, an incident occurred which attracted the philosopher's attention. A stone flew over the garden wall and struck against the angle of the house. Gilbert, who had already learned that there can be no effect without a cause, determined to discover the cause, having seen th» 6 But' although he leaned out as far as possible, he could not discover the person in the street who bad thrown the stone. However, he immediately compre- hended that this manœuvre had reference to an event which just then took place; one ofthe outside shutters of the ground floor opened cautiously, and through the opening appeared Nicole's head. ___,_. On seeing Nicole Gilbert made a plunge back in his garret, but without losing sight of the nimble young girl The latter, after throwing a stealthy glance at all the windows, particularly at those of the pavilion, emerged from her hiding-place and ran towards the garden, as if going to the espalier where some laoe was drying in the sun. It was on the path which led to- wards the espalier that the stone had fallen, and neither Nicole nor Gilbert lost sight of it. Gilbert saw her kick this stone, which, for the moment, became of such great importance, before her several times, and she continued this manœuvre until she reached the flower border, in which the espalier stood. Onoe there.