"Our good Curé had saved from his stipend a few hundred francs, with which he determined to buy himself a horse, to enable him to visit the farther parts of his extensive cure with less inconvenience. Accordingly, when the fair of Dinan came round, he set out, and, confident of his own judgment, bought himself a beast, which, doubtless, he imagined possessed all the qualities with which horse was ever indued. It was brought home the next day, and in the face of the whole parish, the saddle was placed on his back, and the Curé mounted.
"The horse stood stock still. The Cure gave him a gentle cut with his whip. The beast did not budge. The priest then applied a smarter blow. The horse lashed out behind, and in a minute the Cure was seen flying, like, a black swan, into the pond before his own door, while the horse, as if quite satisfied with the exploit, stood as immoveable as a stone, with his head down to his knees, and his ears bent back upon his neck.
"What could be done?--the Cure was not a man to try it again; and though he offered his horse a bargain to every one in the village, nobody would buy it. Day after day passed, and the horse stood in the stable, eat the Curé's corn, and did nothing. More than once, the idea of applying to the sorcier occurred to the Curé. At first he could not resolve upon such a thing; and many an argument did he hold with himself concerning the propriety of it. At length, however, the necessity of the case overcame his scruples, and he determined to send him to the sorcier; but how to do it, now became a serious question. He had preached so much against the practice that he was ashamed of yielding to it himself.
"At length, however, he took courage, and one dark night led the horse with his own hands all the way to the house we were at this morning. As soon as our friend François saw him, 'Ah, Monsieur le Curé,' said he, 'I thought you would come to me at last; but do you think I will cure your horse after you have ruined me?' The Cure now tried all his eloquence; but the sorcier was as hard as a flint; however, at length, he was somewhat moved.
"'Allons, Monsieur le Curé,' said he, 'I will make a bargain with you. You have preached me down when I could do you no good; you shall now preach me up--and I'll cure your horse.' This was a hard pill to swallow, and François would do nothing to gild it; but what could the Curé do? The priest could get on no longer without his horse, and the horse would not budge a step under the Curé. So there was only one question asked: 'Has the devil anything to do in the matter?' 'Not a whit!' answered François; and the horse being left at the sorcier's for security, on Sunday, we had a sermon completely clearing François from the accusation of dealing with the devil; and on Monday the Curé was cantering all over the country."
"I will tell you a much more extraordinary story of a cure than that," exclaimed the colonel's brother, as soon as the tale of the Sorcier was read. "It occurred in Brittany, too; under my own eyes, also, while I lived at the house of an excellent Breton, a Dr. R----.
"Every one has heard of the mania for leeches which has lately prevailed in France. Like all other manias, this did not long confine itself to the capital or its environs, but rapidly spread to every province and, every department; and, like the blood, which, impelled by the heart, finds its way to the most minute corners and remote extremities of the human frame, the doctrine of universal leechification gradually insinuated itself to the ultimate ends of his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. Not a canton so small but read the work of Monsieur Brousset; not a town so diminutive but had its regular consumption of leeches averaged amongst other articles of first necessity; not an apothecary's shop so insignificant, but possessed its dozen or two of jars replete with these little black benefactors of humanity; and not a pond nor a ditch where might not occasionally be seen some unfortunate wight up to his neck in the water, with a peculiar sort of net in his hand, endeavouring to entrap the aquatic practitioners to come and perform phlebotomy gratis. If a man had a pain in his head, he was ordered to apply leeches; if he had a pain in his toe, it was all the same thing. The gout, the apoplexy, a dropsy, or a consumption; the head-ache, or the heart-ache, or the stomach-ache, were all treated after the same fashion; and leeches were voted nem. con. the universal panacea applicable to every disease which afflicts poor little humanity. In short, the doctors were saved a great deal of trouble, the patients were probably none the worse, the apothecaries grew fat as well as the leeches, and many a man made a fortune, who, if it had not been for his sangsues, would probably have been sans sous.
"At the time that this practice was becoming general, my worthy friend and landlord, Monsieur le Docteur, was smitten with the desire of sucking his patients' blood--not personally, but by proxy; so that of all the words that the French Academy permit the nation to make use of, and which, when I left them, consisted of thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty one and a-half[[17]], the word most frequently in the mouth of Monsieur le Docteur was sangsue.
"But before I proceed farther, I must briefly tell you, what sort of a machine a French doctor in a country town is. It is a thing that walks upon two legs, or trots upon four, as occasion serves; that knows nothing of medicine, a good deal of surgery, and will go ten miles for two shillings. My worthy friend, then, Monsieur le Docteur ----, resided at Quimper, in La Basse Bretagne. His fame was high, and not without cause, so that if a man fell off a tree and broke his neck within fifteen miles of Quimper, Monsieur le Docteur was sure to be in at the death.
"When last I was in Brittany, I spent six weeks very pleasantly with the Doctor and his family, and, as he was a good horseman and a pleasant companion, I accompanied him more than once when he rode to visit some country patients. Thus I was conducted one day to the little village of Kerethnac, some ten miles from Quimper, where my friend had plenty of occasions to exercise his curative propensities. One man had broken his leg, another had dislocated his wrist, and a third had a sore throat. To this last, without loss of time, the Doctor ordered the application of twenty leeches, seemingly sorry that he could not prescribe them for the others also; and having dispatched his business as quickly as possible, we remounted our horses and returned to Quimper. The road was a pleasant one, and two days after, when Monsieur le Docteur proposed to revisit Kerethnac, I was not unwilling to accompany him. On arriving at our journey's end, I went into all the huts with my friend. Huts they were, indeed,--a combination of pig-sty, cow-house, and bedchamber. But to proceed. After having looked at the broken leg, and ordered some camphorated spirit for the dislocated wrist, the Doctor entered the house of his sore-throated patient, the first piece of whose goods and chattels that presented itself being his wife.