On the 27th of February, I myself placed the colonel in the boxes which I had had made for his occupancy. Since that time, that is to say during a space of nine years and eleven months, we have never been separated. I carried him with me to Dantzic. He stays in my house. I have never placed him, according to his number, in my zoological collection; he remains by himself, in the chamber of honor. I do not grant any one the pleasure of re-using his chloride of calcium. I will take care of you till my dying day, Oh Colonel Fougas, dear and unfortunate friend! But I shall not have the joy of witnessing your resurrection. I shall not share the delightful emotions of the warrior returning to life. Your lachrymal glands, inert to-day, but some day to be reanimated, will not pour upon the bosom of your old benefactor, the sweet dew of recognition. For you will not recover your life until a day when mine will have long since departed! Perhaps you will be astonished that I, loving you as I do, should have so long delayed to draw you out of this profound slumber. Who knows but that some bitter reproach may come to taint the tenderness of the first offices of gratitude that you will perform over my tomb! Yes! I have prolonged, without any benefit to you, an experiment of general interest to others. I ought to have remained faithful to my first intention, and restored your life, immediately after the signature of peace. But what! Was it well to send you back to France when the sun of your fatherland was obscured by our soldiers and allies? I have spared you that spectacle—one so grievous to such a soul as yours. Without doubt you would have had, in March, 1815, the consolation of again seeing that fatal man to whom you had consecrated your devotion; but are you entirely sure that you would not have been swallowed up with his fortune, in the shipwreck of Waterloo?
For five or six years past, it has not been your welfare nor even the welfare of science, that prevented me from reanimating you, it has been.... Forgive me, Colonel, it has been a cowardly attachment to life. The disorder from which I am suffering, and which will soon carry me off, is an aneurism of the heart; violent emotions are interdicted to me. If I were myself to undertake the grand operation whose process I have traced in a memorandum annexed to this instrument, I would, without any doubt, succumb before finishing it; my death would be an untoward accident which might trouble my assistants and cause your resuscitation to fail.
Rest content! You will not have long to wait, and, moreover, what do you lose by waiting? You do not grow old, you are always twenty-four years of age; your children are growing up, you will be almost their contemporary when you come to life again. You came to Liebenfeld poor, you are now in my house poor, and my will makes you rich. That you may be happy also, is my dearest wish.
I direct that, the day after my death, my nephew, Nicholas Meiser, shall call together, by letter, the ten physicians most illustrious in the kingdom of Prussia, that he shall read to them my will and the annexed memorandum, and that he shall cause them to proceed without delay, in my own laboratory, to the resuscitation of Colonel Fougas. The expenses of travel, maintenance, etc., etc., shall be deducted from the assets of my estate. The sum of two thousand thalers shall be devoted to the publication of the glorious results of the experiment, in German, French and Latin. A copy of this pamphlet shall be sent to each of the learned societies then existing in Europe.
In the entirely unexpected event of the efforts of science being unable to reanimate the Colonel, all my effects shall revert to Nicholas Meiser, my sole surviving relative.
John Meiser, M. D.