Had not Cagliostro predicted some such fate to Gilbert for Mirabeau? and the two strange creatures—one, Beausire, blasting the reputation, the other, Nicole, blasting the health of the great orator who had become the supporter of the monarchy—were they not for him, Gilbert, a proof that all things which were obstacles to this man—or rather the idea he stood for—must go down before him as the Bastile had done?
Nevertheless he was going to try upon him the elixir of life which he owed to Cagliostro; it was irony to save his victim with his own remedy.
The patient had opened his eyes.
"Nay," said he, "a few drops will be vain. You must give me the whole phial. I had the stuff analyzed and found it was Indian hemp; I had some compounded for myself and I have been taking it copiously not to live but to dream."
"Unhappy man that I am," sighed Gilbert; "he has led to my dealing out poison to my friend."
"A sweet poison, by which I have lengthened out the last moments of my life a hundredfold. In my dream I have enjoyed what has really escaped me, riches, power, and love. I do not know whether I ought to thank God for my life, but I thank you, doctor, for your drug. Fill up the glass and let me have it."
Gilbert presented the extract which the patient absorbed with gusto.
"Ah, doctor," he said after a short pause, as if the veil of the future were raised at the approach of eternity; "blessed are those who die in this year, 1791! for they will have seen the sunny side of the Revolution. Never has a great one cost so little bloodshed up to now, because it is the mind that was conquered: but on the morrow the war will be upon facts and in things. Perhaps you believe that the tenants of the Tuileries will mourn for me? not at all. My death rids them of an engagement. With me, they had to rule in a certain way: I was less support than hindrance. She excused herself for leaning on me, to her brother: 'Mirabeau believes that he is advising me—I am only amusing myself with him.' That is why I wished that woman, her likeness, to be my mistress, and not my Queen.
"What a fine part he shall play in History who undertook to sustain the young nation with one hand and the old monarchy in the other, forcing them to tread the same goal—the happiness of the governed and the respect of the governors. It might have been possible and might be but a dream; but I am convinced that I alone could have realized the dream. My sorrow is not in dying, but in dying with work unfinished. Who will glorify my idea left mangled, an abortion? What will be known of me will be the part that should be buried in oblivion—my wild, reckless, rakish life and my obscene writings.
"I shall be blamed for having made a bond with the court out of which comes gain for no man; I shall be judged, dying at forty-two, like one who lived man's full age. They will take me to task as if instead of trying to walk on the waters in a storm, I had trodden a broad way paved with laws, statutes, and regulations. To whom shall I league my memory to be cleansed and be an honor to my country?