Alexandre Dumas: The Mesmerist's Victim

Yellow and sickening smoke, rising from the burning platforms on Louis XV. Place, helped to give it the aspect of a battlefield.

Over the bloody and desolate spot wandered shadows which were the robbers of the dead, attracted like ravens. Unable to find living prey, they stripped the corpses and swore with surprise when they found they had been forestalled by rivals. They fled, frightened and disappointed as soldier’s bayonets at last appeared, but among the long rows of the dead, robbers and soldiers were not the solely moving objects.

Supplied with lanterns prowlers were busy. They were not only curious, but relatives and parents and lovers who had not had their dear ones come home from the sightseeing. They came from the remotest parts for the horrible news had spread over Paris, mourning as if a hurricane had passed over it, and anxiety was acted out in these searches.

It was muttered that the Provost of Paris had many corpses thrown into the river from his fears at the immense number lost through his want of foresight. Hence those who had ferreted about uselessly, went to the river and stood in it knee-deep to stare at the flow; or they stole with their lanterns into the by-streets where it was rumored some of the crippled wretches had crept to beg help and at least flee the scene of their misfortune.

At the end of the square, near the Royal Gardens, popular charity had already set up a field hospital. A young man who might be identified as a surgeon by the instruments by his side, was attending to the wounded brought to him. While bandaging them he said words rather expressing hatred for the cause of their injuries than pity for the effect. He had two helpers, robust reporters, to whom he kept on shouting:

“Let me have the poor first. You can easily pick them out for they will be badly dressed and most injured.”

At these words, continually croaked, a young gentleman with pale brow, who was searching among the bodies with a lantern in his hand, raised his head.

A deep gash on his forehead still dropped red blood. One of his hands was thrust between two buttons of his coat to support his injured arm; his perspiring face betrayed deep and ceaseless emotion.

Looking sadly at the amputated limbs which the operator appeared to regard with professional pleasure, he said:

“Oh, doctor, why do you make a selection among the victims?”

“Because,” replied the surgeon, raising his head at this reproach, “no one would care for the poor if I did not, and the rich will always find plenty to look after them. Lower your light and look along the pavement and you will find a hundred poor to one rich or noble. In this catastrophe, with their luck which will in the end tire heaven itself, the aristocrats have paid their tax as usual, one per thousand.”

The gentleman held up his lantern to his own face.

“Am I only one of my class?” he queried, without irritation, “a nobleman who was lost in the throng, where a horse kicked me in the face and my arm was broken by my falling into a ditch. You say the rich and noble are looked after – have I had my wounds dressed?”

“You have your mansion and your family doctor; go home, for you are able to walk.”

“I am not asking your help, sir; I am seeking my sister, a fair girl of sixteen, no doubt killed, alas! albeit she is not of the lower classes. She wore a white dress and a necklace with a cross. Though she has a residence and a doctor, for pity’s sake! answer me if you have seen her?”

“Humanity guides me, my lord,” said the young surgeon with feverish vehemence proving that such ideas had long been seething within his bosom; “I devote myself to mankind, and I obey the law of her who is my goddess when I leave the aristocrat on his deathbed to run and relieve the suffering people. All the woes happened here are derived from the upper class; they come from your abuses, and usurpation; bear therefore the consequences. No lord, I have not seen your sister.”

With this blasting retort, the surgeon resumed his task. A poor woman was brought to him over whose both legs a carriage had rolled.

“Behold,” he pursued Philip with a shout, “is it the poor who drive their coaches about on holidays so as to smash the limbs of the rich?”

Philip, belonging to the new race who sided with Làfayette, had more than once professed the opinions which stung him from this youth: their application fell on him like chastisement. With breaking heart, he turned aloof on his mournful exploration, but soon they could hear his tearful voice calling:

“Andrea, Andrea!”

Near him hurried an elderly man, in grey coat, cloth stockings, and leaning on a cane, while with his left hand he held a cheap lantern made of a candle surrounded by oiled paper.

“Poor young man,” he sighed on hearing the gentleman’s wail and comprehending his anguish, “Forgive me,” he said, returning after letting him pass as though he could not let such great sorrow go by without endeavoring to give some alleviation, “forgive my mingling grief with yours, but those whom the same stroke strikes ought to support one another. Besides, you may be useful to me. As your candle is nearly burnt out you must have been seeking for some time, and so know a good many places. Where do they lie thickest?”

“In the great ditch more than fifty are heaped up.”

“So many victims during a festival?”

“So many? – I have looked upon a thousand dead – and have not yet come upon my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“She was lost in that direction. I have found the bench where we were parted. But of her not a trace. I began to search at the bastion. The mob moved towards the new buildings in Madeleine Street. There I hunted, but there were great fluctuations. The stream rushed thither, but a poor girl would wander anywhere, with her crazed head, seeking flight in any direction.”

“I can hardly think that she would have stemmed the current. We two may find her together at the corner of the streets.”

“But who are you after – your son?” questioned Philip.

“No, an adopted youth, only eighteen, who was master of his actions and would come to the festival. Besides, one was so far from imagining this horrid catastrophe. Your candle is going out – come with me and I will light you.”

“Thanks, you are very kind, but I shall obstruct you.”

“Fear nothing, for I must be seeking, too. Usually the lad comes home punctually,” continued the old man, “but I had a forerunner last evening. I was sitting up for him at eleven when my wife had the rumor from the neighbors of the miseries of this rejoicing. I waited a couple of hours in hopes that he would return, but then I felt it would be cowardly to go to sleep without news.”

“So we will hunt over by the houses,” said the nobleman.

“Yes, as you say the crowd went there and would certainly have carried him along. He is from the country and knows no more the way than the streets. This may be the first time he came to this place.”

“My sister is country-bred also.”

“Shocking sight,” said the old man, before a mound of the suffocated.

“Still we must search,” said the chevalier, resolutely holding out the lantern to the corpses. “Oh, here we are by the Wardrobe Stores – ha! white rags – my sister wore a white dress. Lend me your light, I entreat you, sir.”

“It is a piece of a white dress,” he continued, “but held in a young man’s hand. It is like that she wore. Oh, Andrea!” he sobbed as if it tore up his heart.

The old man came nearer.

“It is he,” he exclaimed, “Gilbert!”

“Gilbert? do you know our farmer’s son, Gilbert, and were you seeking him?”

The old man took the youth’s hand, it was icy cold. Philip opened his waistcoat and found that his heart was quiet. But the next instant he cried: “No, he breathes – he lives, I tell you.”