At dinner the Emperor ate little; he was unwell: after coffee, he attempted a game at chess, but he was too much inclined to sleep, and retired almost immediately.
A TRICK.
7th.—The Emperor mounted his horse at a very early hour; he told me again to call my son to accompany him. The evening before, the Emperor seeing him on horseback, had asked me if I did not make him learn to groom his horse; that nothing was more useful; that he had given particular orders for it in the military school at St. Germain. I was vexed that such an idea had escaped me; I seized it eagerly, and my son still more so. He was at this moment on a horse that no one had touched but himself. The Emperor, whom I informed of it, seemed pleased, and condescended to make him go through a sort of little examination. Our ride lasted nearly two hours and a half, rambling all the time about Longwood.
At our return the Emperor had breakfast in the garden, to which he detained us all.
A short time before dinner, I presented myself as usual in the drawing-room: the Emperor was playing at chess with the Grand Marshal. The valet-de-chambre in waiting at the door of the room brought me a letter, on which was written Very urgent. Out of respect to the Emperor, I went aside to read it: it was in English; it stated that I had composed an excellent work; that, nevertheless, it was not without faults; that if I would correct them in a new edition, no doubt the work would be more valuable for it; and then went on to pray that God would keep me in his gracious and holy protection. Such a letter excited my astonishment, and made me rather angry; the colour rushed to my face: I did not, at first, give myself time to consider the writing. In reading it over again I recognised the hand, notwithstanding its being much better written than usual, and I could not help laughing a good deal to myself. But the Emperor, who cast a side-glance at me, asked me from whom the letter came that was given to me. I replied, that it was a paper that had caused a very different feeling in me at first from that which it would leave permanently. I said this with so much simplicity, the mystification had been so complete, that he laughed till tears came in his eyes. The letter was from him; the pupil had a mind to jest with his master, and try his powers at his expense. I carefully preserve this letter; the gaiety, the style, and the whole circumstance, render it more valuable to me than any diploma the Emperor could have put into my hands when he was in power.
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE EMPEROR TO MAKE USE OF HIS ENGLISH.—ON MEDICINE.—CORVISART.—DEFINITION.—ON THE PLAGUE.—MEDICAL PRACTICE IN BABYLON.
8th.—The Emperor had had no sleep during the night; he had, therefore, amused himself with writing me another letter in English; he sent it to me sealed; I corrected the errors in it, and sent him an answer also in English, by the return of the courier. He understood me perfectly: this convinced him of the progress he had made, and satisfied him that for the future he could, strictly speaking, correspond in his new tongue.
For nearly a fortnight past, General Gourgaud had been unwell; his indisposition had turned to a very malignant dysentery, which occasioned some alarm. The Admiral now sent him the Surgeon of the Northumberland (Dr. Warden); the Emperor detained this gentleman to dinner. During the repast, and for a long time afterwards, the conversation was exclusively on medicine; sometimes lively, sometimes serious and profound. The Emperor was in good spirits: he talked with great volubility; he overwhelmed the Doctor with questions, and with ingenious and subtle arguments, that perplexed him much: the latter was much dazzled by this brilliancy; so that, after dinner, he took me aside to ask me how it happened that the Emperor was so well informed on these matters: he did not doubt but they were his usual topics of conversation. “Not more than any thing else,” I said, with truth; “but there are few subjects with which the Emperor is unacquainted, and he treats them all in a new and engaging manner.”
The Emperor has no faith in medicine, or its remedies, of which he makes no use. “Doctor,” said he, “our body is a machine for the purpose of life: it is organized to that end—that is its nature. Leave the life there at its ease, let it take care of itself, it will do better than if you paralyze it by loading it with medicines. It is like a well-made watch, destined to go for a certain time; the watch-maker has not the power of opening it, he cannot meddle with it but at random, and with his eyes bandaged. For one who, by dint of racking it with his ill-formed instruments, succeeds in doing it any good, how many blockheads destroy it altogether!”
The Emperor, then, did not admit the utility of medicine but in a few cases, in disorders that were known and distinctly ascertained by time and experience: and he then compared the art of the physician with that of the engineer in regular sieges, where the maxims of Vauban, and the rules of experience, have brought all the chances within the scope of known laws. In accordance, too, with these principles, the Emperor had conceived the idea of a law which should have allowed to the mass of medical practitioners in France the use of simple medicines only, and forbidden them to employ heroic remedies, that is, such as may cause death, unless they made three or four thousand francs, at least, by their profession; which, said he, afforded grounds for supposing them to have education, judgment, and a certain public reputation. “This measure,” said he, “was certainly just and beneficent; but in my circumstances it was unseasonable: information was not yet sufficiently diffused. No doubt the mass of the people would have seen only an act of tyranny in the law, which, nevertheless, would have rescued them from their executioners.”