CHAPTER IV.
| “The chariest maid is prodigal enough, If she unmask her beauty to the moon; Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes; The canker galls the infants of the spring, Too oft before their buttons be disclosed; And in the morn and liquid dew of youth, Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary, then, best safety lies in fear.” |
We have already, in the foregoing pages, quoted the words of Roussel, a celebrated French physician of the last century, whose delicate and sensitive mind revolted at the indecency of the practice which had then but lately been adopted in his country; and before we proceed to quote more largely from the same author, we think it proper that our readers should be made acquainted with the character of the man who so lovingly exerted his great talents to release his countrywomen from the gross thraldom of designing charlatans and empirical impostors.
Dr. Cerise, in the account of Roussel prefixed to the edition of the Physical and Moral System of Women, published in Paris, 1855, says: “Among the celebrated physicians that France has produced, a great number have distinguished themselves not only by their erudition, but still more by the elegance of their language, by the elevation of their sentiments, by the profundity of their conceptions; their names belong to letters and philosophy, as much as to medicine. Roussel is a member of that glorious family of Petits, Bordeus, Vicq-d’Azyrs, Cabanis, Aliberts, which, at the present day, is honourably represented by two writers, Pariset and Reveillè-Parise. Through them medicine is not only a useful, but it is also an agreeable science.
“Let us hope, that so illustrious a family will not become extinct, and that descendants worthy of it will faithfully keep alive the sacred fire, perpetually threatened by the freezing breath of scientific materialism.
“Roussel was born at Ax, in the department of Ariége, in 1742. His education, commenced in that town, was finished at Toulouse. His taste for medical study manifested itself early. He betook himself to Montpellier, where he profited by the scientific lectures of Lamure, Venel, and Barthez. These medical studies completed, he was desirous of further instruction, and came to Paris. He closely allied himself with Bordeu. This physician, according to the expression of Alibert, was too illustrious to be happy; the friendship of Roussel consoled his vexations; but Bordeu soon died, and Roussel had the melancholy commission to pronounce his funeral elogy. We are assured that love was the genius of Roussel. “He was still very young,” says his biographer, “when this sentiment was awakened in his soul; it was then that his inspired imagination began to meditate on the tastes, the manners, the passions, and the habits of women, and that he made a constant study of their physical constitution, and of the moral attributes which they derived from it. He soon arranged the fruits which he had collected, and composed a body of science interesting as its subject.
“Thus was written the Physical and Moral System of Woman. This treatise, which agreed in its development with a title so imposing, has remained superior to all those which have been written upon woman, without excepting the remarkable work of M. Virey, which failed, perhaps, in eclipsing that of Roussel, solely from its severer method and more scientific manner of treatment. He soon undertook another treatise, intended to serve as a pendant to the former. This new treatise, entitled the Physical and Moral System of Man, was not completed, which, judging from what he had published, is much to be regretted. He caused to be inserted in the journals of the day, An Essay on Sensibility; An Account of Madame Helvetius; a short dissertation, entitled, Historic Doubts on Sappho; some remarks ‘On the Sympathies.’ He had commenced a lengthened work on Stahl, the celebrated head of the medical college, called Animist, but this work remained unpublished; he reviewed the work of Madame de Staël, upon the Affinities of Literature with Social Institutions; he applied himself to combat the doctrine of the indefinite perfectibility of the human spirit, developed by Condorcet, in one of his most remarkable writings. The problem was then proposed in terms such as could not afford any satisfactory conclusion—as yet the science of history did not exist. He wrote upon the right of making a will, which he regarded as inviolable and imprescriptible; he addressed public exhortations to political electors, to remind them of their duties and of their rights; he admired the institutions of Lycurgus, and published a dissertation on the government of Sparta. It is thus that the empire of circumstances under which France at present exists dominates over all minds. Roussel, yet meditating with a tender partiality upon the physical and moral constitution of woman, could not resist descending into the arena of political discussion. Thanks to the moderation of his character, his voice, in the midst of revolutionary storms, was hardly understood, and his existence was not disturbed.
“Roussel loved retirement and unaffected manners. Traits of a charming simplicity are related of him. Alibert congratulating him one day on the marriage of one of his brothers, suggested that he should follow his example and marry. ‘I assure you,’ replied the irresolute bachelor, ‘that this idea often occurs to me, but one must go before the priest, before the magistrate—there is no end to the affair.’ There are persons for whom pleasing and indefinite fantasies have a charm which they love to prolong; they seem to dread a real happiness which might deprive imagination of its most smiling visions. Roussel was one of these persons. He was smitten with a violent passion for a young and beautiful person whom he had restored to health. Happy, doubtless, in secretly bearing a cherished image in his heart, he refrained from giving utterance to his thoughts. One day it was announced that this person was going to be married. ‘Ah,’ cried he, ‘I am so grieved; I could not have believed it;’ and he shed abundant tears of regret. He was often sorrowful; in one of these fits of melancholy, he ran at midnight to a physician of his acquaintance—‘My head turns,’ said he; ‘I feel myself very ill. I am come to you to implore your attention.’ Imbert reassured him, and calmed his alarmed imagination. The two friends engaged in conversation, and Roussel forgot his malady.
“Roussel was good; benevolence, a quality so precious to a physician, was in him lovely and expansive. When he suffered, study was an asylum for his grief, a refuge for his afflicted spirit. He found in the joys of the mind a defence against the sorrows of the heart. His internal agitations dissipated themselves thus without gall and without bitterness. His excellence was proof even against evil days. He lived poor, but the affectionate and delicate hospitality of a respectable family never allowed him to perceive it. He could, thanks to the care of M. Falaize, neglect, quite at his ease, both his affairs and his fortune, exercise his profession with the confident and noble freedom so agreeable to elevated minds; meditate without interruption upon Plato, Plutarch, and Rabelais, and withdraw himself, without peril, from those petty torments which impose themselves under the name of social proprieties. A perfect courtesy with him was marvellously allied to good nature a little rough, and which was not without a dash of mischief. Roussel no more sought honours than fortune. He refused the offer of an honourable employment, made to him by the Great Frederic. He failed, however, to be called to the legislative body. He wanted only two votes. Powerful friends had designed him for the Tribuneship. He declined that honour, urging the weakness of his voice, and his timidity. Roussel was timid through excess of modesty.