His livid face was covered with sweat, and all the symptoms of approaching death were manifested. He fell immediately backward, stiff and inanimate; his eyes seemed to start from their sockets; horrible convulsions stamped his features with unearthly contortions, like those forced from dead bodies by a galvanic battery; a bloody foam inundated his lips, and the life of this monster became extinct in the midst of one of his horrid visions, for he muttered these words: "Night—dark! dark specters—brazen skeletons— red-hot—twine around me their burning fingers—my flesh smokes—specter— bloody—no! no—Cecily—fire—Cecily!" Such were the last words of Jacques Ferrand.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE HOSPITAL.
It will be remembered that Fleur-de-Marie, saved by La Louve, had been conveyed to the country house of Dr. Griffon, [Footnote: The name which I have the honor to bear, which my father, grandfather, grand-uncle, and great grandfather—one of the most learned men of the seventeenth century—have rendered celebrated by works on theoretical and practical medicine, would forbid me from any attack, or hasty reflection, concerning physicians; even though the gravity of the subject upon which I treat, and the just and deserved celebrity of the French Medical School, did not prevent me. In Dr. Griffon I have only wished to personify one, otherwise respectable, who allows himself to be carried away the ardor of art, and led to make experiments which are a serious abuse medical power (if I may express myself in this manner), forgetting that there is something more sacred than Science—Humanity.] not far from Ravageurs' Island. The worthy doctor, one of the physicians of the City Hospital where we shall conduct our readers, who had obtained this situation through a powerful interest, regarded his ward as a sort of place where he experimented on the poor the treatment which he applied afterward to his rich patients, never hazarding on the last any new cures before having first tried and retried the application in anima vili, as he said, with that kind of passionless barbarity which a blind love for science produces. Thus, if the doctor wished to convince himself of the comparative effect of some new and hazardous treatment, in order to be able to deduce consequences favorable to such or such system, he took a certain number of patients, treated some according to the new system, others by the ancient method. Under some circumstances, be abandoned others to the care of nature. After which he counted the survivors. These terrible experiments were, truly, a human sacrifice on the altar of science. Dr. Griffon did not seem to think of this. In the eyes of this prince of science (as they phrase it) the patients of his hospital were only subjects for study and experiment; and as, after all, there resulted sometimes from these essays in anima vili a fact or discovery useful to science, the doctor showed himself as entirely satisfied and triumphant as a general after a victory sufficiently costly in soldiers.
Homeopathy had never a more violent adversary than Dr. Griffon. He look upon this method as absurd and homicidal; thus, strong in his convictions, and wishing, as he said, to drive the homeopathists to the wall, he offered to abandon to their care a certain number of patients, on whom they might experiment to their liking. But he affirmed in advance, sure of not being contradicted by the result, that, out of twenty patients submitted to this treatment, not over five, at the outside would survive. The homeopathists gave the go-by to this proposition, to the great chagrin of the doctor, who regretted the loss of this occasion to prove, by figures, the vanity of homeopathic practice. Dr. Griffon would have been stupefied if any one had said to him, in reference to this free and autocratic disposition of his subjects:
"Such a state of things would cause the barbarism of those days to be regretted when condemned criminals were exposed to undergo newly-discovered surgical operations; operations which they dared not practice on the uncondemned. If it were successful, the condemned was pardoned. Compared to what you do, sir, this barbarity was charity. After all, a chance for life was thus given to a poor creature for whom the executioner was waiting, and an experiment was rendered possible which might be useful to all. But to try your hazardous medicaments on unfortunate artisans, for whom the hospital is the sole refuge when sickness overtakes them; to try a treatment, perhaps fatal, on people whom poverty confides to you, trusting and powerless; to you, their only hope; to you, who will only answer for their life to God—do you know that this is to push the love of science to inhumanity, sir? How! the poorer classes already people the workshops, the field, the army; in this world they only know misery and privations; and when, at the end of their sufferings and fatigues, they fall exhausted—half-dead—sickness even does not preserve them from a last and sacrilegious "experiment!" I ask your heart, sir, would not this be unjust and cruel?"
Alas! Dr. Griffon would have been touched, perhaps, by these severe words, but not convinced. Man is made the creature of circumstances. The captain thus accustoms himself to consider his soldiers as nothing more than the pawns of the bloody game called battle. And it is because man is thus made, that society ought to protect those whom fate exposes to the action of these "humane necessities." Now the character of Dr. Griffon once admitted (and it can be admitted without much hyperbole), the inmates of this hospital had then no guarantee, no recourse against the scientific barbarity of his experiments; for there exists a grievous hiatus in the organization of the civil hospitals. We will point it out here, so that we may be understood. Military hospitals are each day visited by a superior officer charged to receive the complaints of the sick soldiers, and to attend to them if they appear reasonable. This oversight completely distinct from the government of the hospital, is excellent—it has always produced the best results. It is, besides, impossible to see establishments better kept than the military hospitals; the soldiers are nursed with much care, and treated, we would say, almost with respectful commiseration. Why not have a similar superintendence established in the civil hospitals, by men completely independent of the government and medical faculty? The complaints of the poor (if they were well founded) would thus have an impartial organ, while at present this organ is absolutely wanting. Thus the doors of the hospital of Dr. Griffon once shut on a patient, he belonged body and soul to science. No friendly or disinterested ear can hear his grief. He is told plainly that, being admitted out of charity, he becomes henceforth a part of the experimental domain of the doctor, and that patient and malady must serve as subjects of study and observation, analysis, or instruction, to the young students who accompany assiduously the visits of M. Griffon. In effect, the subject soon had to answer to interrogations often the most painful, the most sorrowful; and that, not to the doctor alone, who like the priest, fulfills a duty, and has the right to know everything—no, he must reply in a loud voice before a curious and greedy crowd of students. Yes, in this pandemonium of science, old or young, maid or wife, were obliged to abjure every feeling or sentiment of shame, and to make the most confidential communications, submit to the most material investigations, before a numerous public; and almost always these cruel formalities aggravated their disease. And this is neither humane nor just; it is because the poor enter the hospital in the holy name of charity, that they should be treated with compassion and with respect, for misfortune has its dignity.
On reading the following lines, it will be perceived why we have caused them to be preceded by these reflections. Nothing could be more sad than the nocturnal aspect of the vast ward of the hospital, where we will introduce our readers. Along the whole length of its gloomy walls were ranged two parallel rows of beds, vaguely lighted by the sepulchral glimmering of a lamp suspended from the ceiling; the narrow windows were barred with iron, like a prison's. The atmosphere is so sickening, so filled with disease, that the new patients did not often become acclimated without danger: this increase of suffering is a kind of premium which every new-comer inevitably pays for a hospital residence. The air of this immense hall is, then, heavy and corrupted. At intervals, the silence of night is interrupted, now by plaintive moans, now by profound sighs, uttered by the feverish sleepers; then all is quiet, and naught is heard but the regular and monotonous tickings of a large clock, which strikes the hours, so long for sleepless suffering. One of the extremities of this hall was almost plunged into obscurity. Suddenly was heard a great stir, and the noise of rapid footsteps; a door was opened and shut several times; a sister of charity, whose large white cap and black dress were visible from the light which she carried in her hand, approached one of the last beds on the right side of the hall. Some of the patients, awaking with a start, sat up in bed, attentive to what was passing. Soon the folding doors were opened. A priest entered, bearing a crucifix—the two sisters knelt. By the pale light which shone like a glory around this bed, while the other parts of the hall remained in obscurity, the almoner of the hospital was seen leaning over this couch of misery, pronouncing some words, the slow sounds of which were lost in the silence of night. At the end of a quarter of an hour the priest took a sheet, which he threw over the bed.
Then he retired. One of the kneeling sisters arose, closed the curtains, and returned to her prayers alongside of her companion. Then everything became once more silent. One of the patients had just died. Among the women who did not sleep, and who had witnessed this mute scene, were three persons whose names have already been mentioned in the course of this history: Mademoiselle de Fermont, daughter of the unhappy widow ruined by the cupidity of Jacques Ferrand; La Lorraine, a poor washer-woman, to whom Fleur-de-Marie had formerly given what money she had left; and Jeanne Duport, sister of Pique-Vinaigre, the patterer of La Force. We know Mademoiselle de Fermont and the juggler's sister. La Lorraine was a woman of about twenty, with a sweet face, but extremely pale and thin: she was in the last stage of consumption; there was no hope of saving her; she knew it, and was wasting away slowly. The distance was not so great between the beds of these two women but they could speak in a low tone, and not be overheard by the sisters.
"There is another one gone," whispered La Lorraine, thinking of the dead, and speaking to herself. "She will not suffer more—she is very happy."