In short, he remained so long stuffing confectionary at Cauterets, where he had gone solely to take care of himself, and to live with the strictest regularity, that on the eve of his departure he wrote sadly to Madame Favart:—'I am just the same as when you saw me last: sometimes asthmatical, and always gormandizing.' The sufferings which he experienced during his sojourn at, Barèges, previous to his final return to Paris, are proofs of the deplorable effects of the mineral waters upon his health:—
"I am suffering dreadfully; and am now, while I write, laboring under so violent an attack of asthma, that I cannot doubt but that the air of this country is as bad for me as that of Montrouge. If I am as bad to-morrow, I shall return to pass the week at Cauterets, and on Saturday go on to Pau, where I shall wait for the ladies who are to pass through on Monday, on their way to Bayonne. I know I shall be in a miserable state during the journey."
Such were the benefits derived by the Abbé de Voisenon from his four months' sojourn at the baths of Cauterets and Barèges. He returned to Voisenon infinitely worse than when he left it. On the eve of his departure for home, where, as he said some time afterwards, he wished to be on the same floor with the tombs of his ancestors, he devoured a monstrous dinner on the Barèges mountains.
Finding that the mineral waters of the Pyrenees had failed in reëstablishing his health—that is, if he ever had health—the Abbé de Voisenon abandoned physicians and their fruitless prescriptions, to seek elsewhere remedies for the cure of his asthma, which became more and more troublesome as he began to get into years. As he was constantly speaking of his disease to everybody, and as everybody—at least all those who wished to get into his good graces—spoke of it to him, he learned one day that there existed in some garret of Paris a certain abbé deeply learned in all the mysteries of occult chemistry, an adept of the great Albert, the master of masters in empirical art. Like all sorcerers, and all savants of the eighteenth century, this abbé was represented as being in a state of frightful misery and destitution. He who possessed the secrets of plants and minerals, of fire and light, of the generation of beings, had not the wherewithal to procure himself a decent soutane, nor even a morsel of bread. Though, by the efforts of his magic, he had reached a dizzy height on the paths of knowledge, it was, alas! a fact but too true, that he was unable to maintain himself more than a month in the same apartment—perhaps on account of his indifference to the interests of his landlords. For all that he was a marvellous being, inventing specifics for the cure of all diseases, and consequently of asthma among the rest. It was even whispered, but secretly and mysteriously, and with a sort of awe—for they were very superstitious, though very atheistical, in the eighteenth century—that all these specifics were comprised in one remedy, namely, the celebrated Aurum Potabile, or fluid gold. Now every one knows, or at least ought to know, that potable gold, that is, gold in a cold and fluid state, like wine, triumphs over every malady to which the human frame is subject: it is health itself, perpetual youth, and would be no less than immortality had not Paracelsus, who, they say, also possessed the secret of potable gold, unfortunately died at the age of thirty-three, or thirty-five: thus establishing a fatal argument against its virtues in this respect. But one thought now possessed Voisenon—that of getting hold, somehow or other, of this magic abbé, and of enticing him to his château; but an insensate and monstrous desire was this—a desire almost impossible to be satisfied, for it was stated that this Prometheus repelled all advances. Persecuted by the faculty, censured by the ecclesiastical tribunal, maltreated by the police, who would not suffer anything in the shape of gold-making, he had, in his savage misanthropy, renounced all further thoughts of alleviating the pains of humanity at the cost of his repose and safety. Here was a terrible state of perplexity for our asthmatical abbé, who, for all that, did not lose courage, but set to work with all his might to discover the great physician.
But where, or how, was he to discover a sorcerer in Paris? To whom could he decently address himself? To what professional class? There are so many people in the world ready to ridicule even the most respectable things. Every time that Voisenon elbowed at the Tuileries, or in the Palais Royal, an individual in a seedy cassock, he fancied that he had discovered his man. Forthwith he would enter into conversation with him, his heart fluttering with hope, until the moment came which would convince him that he had been deceived. Though for the moment cast into despair, he did not lose hope, but would the next day recommence his voyages of discovery in search of potable gold. One morning he had a sudden illumination:—"Since the archbishop," thought he, "has censured the conduct of the abbé I have been so long in search of, the archbishop must know where he lodges." Just as if sorcerers had lodgings! That very day he repaired to the archbishop's court. If the reader wonders why our abbé did not give the clerks whom he interrogated the name of his mysterious priest, the answer is easy: it is simply because he did not know his name; magicians seldom make themselves known but by their works. This name, however, to his great and inexpressible joy, he was soon to learn. After some researches made in the register of the episcopal court, the clerk informed him that this abbé (a deplorable subject by all accounts) was called Boiviel, and, at the period when the acts of censure were passed upon him, lodged in the Rue de Versailles, Faubourg Saint Marceau. Voisenon was there almost as soon as the words were out of the clerk's mouth.
Voisenon knocked at every kennel of this deplorable street; not even a bark replied to the name of the Abbé Boiviel. At length, at a seventh floor above the mud, an old woman, who resided in a loft, to which access was obtained by means of a rope-ladder, informed him that the Abbé Boiviel had quitted the apartment about six months before, with the avowed intention of going to lodge at Menilmontant; she added, that this delay gave fair grounds for supposing that he must necessarily have changed his quarters at least five or six times in the course of these six months. Disappointed, but not discouraged, Voisenon descended from the dizzy height, reflecting upon the sad distress to which a man might be reduced, although possessing the secret of potable gold.
An almost incredible chance had so willed it, that the Abbé Boiviel had changed his abode but three times since his descent from the garret of the Rue de Versailles. From Menilmontant he had removed to Passy, and from Passy to La Chapelle, where he now resided.
At length the two abbés met; but to what delicate manœuvres the seigneur of Voisenon was obliged to have recourse in accosting his rugged comfrére, who was at that moment engaged in eating his breakfast off a chair. He had sense enough to put off as long as possible the true subject of his visit; besides, what cared he for delays? He had found him at last, he was face to face with the mysterious, infallible physician, the successor of the great Albert. Boiviel was even more savage and morose than the Abbé de Voisenon had anticipated. He spoke of offering his services to the Missionary Society in order to get appointed to preach the Gospel in Japan, although, to tell the truth, he did not believe over-much in Christianity. "And I do not believe in Japan," might have perhaps replied the Abbé de Voisenon, had he been in a joking humor: but the fact is, he was thunderstruck at the enunciation of such a project. It was too provoking, when he, had at length found the Abbé Boiviel, to hear that the Abbé Boiviel was going to immolate himself in Japan.
Inspired by circumstance, that tenth muse which is worth all the nine put together, Voisenon said to Boiviel, that he was aware of all the persecutions which the clergy of Paris had made him endure for causes which he did not desire to know; he refrained also from entering on the subject of fluid gold. Touched by the exhibition of so much constancy in misfortune, he had come, he said, to propose to the Abbé Boiviel to inhabit his château of Voisenon, where, in the calm and repose of a peaceful existence, and with a mind freed from the harassing cares of the world, he would have leisure to meditate and write; that this proceeding of his, though strange in appearance, was excusable, and to be judged with an indulgent eye; he, the Abbé de Voisenon, was happy, rich, powerful even. The Abbé Boiviel would be quite at home at the château de Voisenon; his feelings of independence would not be outraged; when he should be tired of sojourning there, he might quit the château, remain absent as long as it pleased him, and return when it suited his fancy. It is hardly necessary to say that the wild boar allowed itself to be muzzled; that very evening a hired carriage conducted the chemist, the sorcerer, the magician Boiviel, to the Château de Voisenon. "I shall have my potable gold at last," thought the triumphant Abbé, radiant with hope and exultation.
Installed at the château, the Abbé Boiviel conformed himself with a very good grace to the monachal existence led by its inmates. The good regimen of the house tended also to considerably soften the former asperities of his demeanor; he spoke no more of Japan, but neither did he speak of the potable gold, although Voisenon on several occasions endeavored to obtain from him an explanation on this essential point. Whenever our asthmatical abbé would lead the conversation towards subjects relating to chemistry or alchemy, Boiviel would either avoid a direct reply or else fall into a state of profound taciturnity: and yet all his debts had been paid, including the various outstanding accounts due to his numerous landlords, and his dinners at the Croix de Lorraine—that memorable tavern, where all the abbés who received fifteen sous for every mass said at St. Sulpice were accustomed to feed daily. Several cassocks had also been purchased for him, several pairs of stockings, and many shirts.