"Alas! none, madame!" answered the doctor; "above all, when they have reached this age; for, now, thanks to the progress of the science, idiot children receive a kind of education which develops, at least, the atom of imperfect intelligence with which they are sometimes endowed. We have a school here, directed with as much perseverance as enlightened patience, which already offers the most satisfactory results; by a very ingenious method, the mental and physical capacities are exercised at the same time; and many have been taught the alphabet, figures, and to distinguish colors; they have also succeeded in teaching them to sing in chorus; and I assure you, madame, that there is a kind of strange charm, at once sad and touching, in hearing these plaintive, wondering voices raised toward heaven in a chant, of which almost all the words, although in French, are to them unknown. But here we are at the building where we shall find Morel. I have recommended that he should be left alone this morning, that the effect which I hope to produce upon him may have greater power."
"And what is his madness, sir?" whispered Madame George to the doctor, so as not to be heard by Louise.
"He imagines that if he does not earn thirteen hundred francs in his day's work, to pay a debt contracted with a notary named Jacques Ferrand, Louise will die on the scaffold for the crime of infanticide."
"Oh! sir, that notary was a monster!" cried Madame George, informed of the hatred of this man against Germain. "Louise Morel and her father are not his only victims; he has persecuted my son with undying animosity."
"Louise Morel has told me all, madame," answered the doctor. "God's mercy! this wretch has ceased to live! but be pleased to wait for a moment, with these good people; I am going to see how poor Morel is." Then, addressing the daughter of the lapidary, "I beg you, Louise, pay great attention! the moment I cry, Come! appear at once, but alone; when I say a second time, Come! the others will also enter."
"Oh! sir, my courage fails me," said Louise, drying her tears. "Poor father! if this trial should be useless!"
"I hope it will save him; for a long time I have been preparing for it.
Come, compose yourself, and remember my instructions."
And the doctor, leaving the persons who accompanied him, entered into a room of which the grated windows opened on a garden.
Thanks to repose, the salutary rules and comforts with which he was surrounded, the features of Morel were no longer pale, ghastly, and wrinkled by an unhealthy meagerness; his full face, slightly colored, announced the return of health; but a melancholy smile, a certain fixed expression, indicated that his reason was not yet completely re-established.
When the doctor entered, Morel, seated and bent over a table, imitated the exercise of his trade of a lapidary, saying, "Thirteen hundred francs—thirteen hundred francs, or Louise to the scaffold—thirteen hundred francs; let us work—work—work."