Immediately he was invigorated and sprang up, saying:
"Doctor, I will pay a diamond a drop for that liquor, for it would make me feel invincible."
"Count, promise me that you will take it only each three days, and I will leave you a phial every week."
"Give it, and I promise everything."
"Now, I have come for another matter. I want you to come out of town for carriage exercise and at the same time to select a residence there."
"It chances that I was looking for one, and my man found a nice house at Argenteuil, recommended by a fellow countryman of his, one Fritz, whose master, a foreign banker, had lived in it. It is delightful and being vacant could be moved into at once. My father had a house out there, whence he drove me with his cane."
"Let us go to Argenteuil, then," said Gilbert; "your health is so valuable that we must study everything bearing upon it."
Mirabeau had no establishment and a hack had to be called for the gentlemen. In this they proceeded to the village where, a hundred paces on the Besons Road, they saw a house buried in the trees. It was called the Marsh House.
On the right of the road was a humble cottage, in front of which sat a woman on a stool, holding a child in her arms who seemed devoured with fever.
"Doctor," said the orator, fixing his eyes on the sad sight, "I am as superstitious as an ancient. If that child dies, I would not live in this house. Just see what you think of the case."