‘May not Spara’s disciples have got to the hospital?’ asked the bourgeois who had before spoken.
‘Pshaw!’ said Philippe; ‘the sisters of charity are the only persons who tend our sick, and we can trust them. The Marchioness of Brinvilliers is amongst them. Whatever her faults, her kind words and gentle smile go far to soothe many pain-wearied frames; and yet she loses more of her patients than all the others.’
‘I have tested all the water used in the city,’ said Glazer, ‘but found it pure and wholesome. And I have made Panurge drink bucketfuls of it, but it never affected him.’
‘And yet to any one who cared to drug our fountains,’ said Philippe, ‘it would not be difficult, at nightfall, to row along the river and climb up the pillars of the Samaritaine.[15] A potion in its reservoir would carry death tolerably well over the city by the next noontide.’
‘It might be done with advantage,’ said a bourgeois. ‘The greater part of its water goes to the basins and fountains of the Tuileries, and the people who pay for it die of drought. The King cares more for his swans and orange trees than for his subjects.’
‘Neighbour Viot,’ said Maître Picard, ‘I am a public officer, and cannot allow such rebel talk.’
‘Beware of secret hurt rather than open authority,’ said Glazer. ‘Those words, so publicly expressed, may bring the Aqua Tofana into your goblet this very night.’
The face of bourgeois Viot fell at the mere hint of impending danger.
‘You surely do not think so?’ he said.
‘I do not say what I do not think,’ replied the apothecary. ‘If you have fear, after promulgating these rash sentiments, take some of my antidote with you: it is of rare virtue.’