CHAPTER LII.
DELIRIUM.
M. De Charny conquered the fever. The next day the report was favorable. Once out of danger, Doctor Louis ceased to take so much interest in him; and after the lapse of a week, as he had not forgotten all that had passed in his delirium, he wished to have him removed from Versailles: but Charny, at the first hint of this, rebelled, and said angrily, “that his majesty had given him shelter there, and that no one had a right to disturb him.”
The doctor, who was not patient with intractable convalescents, ordered four men to come in and move him; but Charny caught hold of his bed with one hand, and struck furiously with the other at every one who approached; and with the effort, the wound reopened, the fever returned, and he began to cry out that the doctor wished to deprive him of the visions that he had in his sleep, but that it was all in vain; for that she who sent them to him was of too high rank to mind the doctor.
Then the doctor, frightened, sent the men away, and dressed the wound again; but as the delirium returned stronger than ever, he determined to go once more to the queen.
Marie Antoinette received him with a smile; she expected to hear that the patient was cured, but on hearing that he was very ill, she cried:
“Why, yesterday you said he was going on so well!”
“It was not true, madame.”
“And why did you deceive me? Is there, then, danger?”
“Yes, madame, to himself and others; but the evil is moral, not physical. The wound in itself is nothing; but, madame, M. de Charny is fast becoming a monomaniac, and this I cannot cure. Madame, you will have ruined this young man.”
“I, doctor! Am I the cause, if he is mad?”