"Then go and ask your master for my bill, my lad."
Changeur went to the desk and returned with an elaborately made out bill.
"Ah!" said Morrisel, lowering his glasses, "nine hundred francs. Stop, Changeur, here is another five-hundred franc note; the change is for the waiter."
Then, having finished his coffee with his accustomed nonchalance, he lowered his spectacles, took up his umbrella and departed amidst the applause of the customers and onlookers. If I remember rightly, Godefroy Cavaignac wrote a charming story on this anecdote.
Morrisel was also a card-player and would play as high as anybody wished. One night at a party at either Madame Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely's or at Madame Davilliers', I forget which, we heard a little discussion being carried on at a card-table on which there were not quite twenty-five louis. We went closer and asked what it was about. Morrisel held the cards; he had passed seven times, and he had won six hundred thousand francs (I purposely express the figures in letters) from M. Hainguerlot. M. Hainguerlot took the cards and wagered to win back the 600,000 francs in a single game. Morrisel was willing to wager 500,000 francs en partie liée, running the risk of retaining only 100,000 francs of the celebrated banker's, for he looked upon himself (and rightly so, too) as a very good player, for when, finally, he rose from the table on making Charlemagne, he had made for himself the sum of 30,000 livres income by this throw, which was not a bad sum for a retired colonel. When the question was argued out, each had made a concession. M. Hainguerlot agreed to a stake of 500,000 francs, and Morrisel renounced his partie liée. Two witnesses were appointed for each side, as in the case of a duel. Morrisel lost. He got up with the same coolness as though it was only a question of a half-napoleon. True, he had still won 100,000 francs.
In summer, Morrisel sometimes lived at Madame Hamelin's country house at Val, near Saint-Len-Taverny. One day, at the beginning of the shooting season, he ventured out on the lands of the commune of Frépillon, where, encountering the gamekeeper, he was vigorously threatened with legal proceedings in case of a second offence. Morrisel was invited to dinner on the following Sunday at the château of Madame Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely, situated on the other side of the forbidden territory. When Sunday arrived, so that it should not be said he had skulked across the forbidden land unperceived, Morrisel took with him the beadle, a wind instrument and four chanters, formed a square of six with himself in the centre, and crossed the Frépillon territory, shooting to the accompaniment of Gregorian chants. By the time he reached Madame Régnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely, he was followed by the whole village, whose curiosity was greatly excited by this unprecedented method of going a hunting.
Poor Morrisel died from the effects of a painful disease. In spite of surgical assistance, in spite of nitrate of silver, in spite of Civiale, Pasquier and Dupuytren, it came about that, being a plentiful drinker, he could not get rid of a single drop of the liquor he had drunk when it was absorbed into his system. They prolonged his life by using means to make him perspire. Finally, one day, as he did not thoroughly understand what the doctors told him about his disease, he asked if, before he himself died, they could not procure him from any hospital the body of a person who had died of the disease of which he himself was to die. The doctors told him it was possible, and set to work to find one. Three or four days later, they told him they had found one. Morrisel bought it at the usual price—six francs, I believe—had the body brought close to his bedside, placed it on a table and begged one of the doctors to make a post-mortem examination. When the autopsy was finished, Morrisel had the satisfaction of knowing the exact nature of the malady from which he was suffering, and from henceforth was content to die quietly—an act, it should be recorded, which he accomplished with wonderful courage.
But to return to the parrot of the rue des Martyrs. A fortnight later, on returning to Colonel Bro's for another shooting trip like the former, I was astounded to find it on its perch again. But after a few minutes' gaze its stillness struck me as unusual. I went up to it: it was stuffed!
"Oh!" I said to the colonel, "your poor Jacquot is dead, is it?"
"Ah yes, it is," replied the colonel. "They told me a curious incident in connection with it—a story I had never believed previously, namely, that certain animals hide themselves to die, and that is why their bodies are never recovered...."