*
I amused Hingant with the story of my adventure, and we made a plan to lock ourselves in at Westminster; but our distress summoned us to the dead in a less poetic manner.
My funds were becoming exhausted: Baylis and Deboffe had ventured, against a written promise of reimbursement in case of non-sale, to commence the printing of the Essai; there their generosity ended, and very naturally; I was even astonished at their boldness. The translations fell off; Peltier, a man of pleasure, grew weary of his prolonged obligingness. He would willingly have given me what he had, if he had not preferred to squander it; but to go looking here and there for work, to do patient acts of kindness, was beyond him. Hingant also saw his treasure diminishing; we were reduced to sixty francs between us. We cut down our rations, as on a vessel when the passage is prolonged. Instead of a shilling apiece, we spent only sixpence on our dinner. With our morning tea we reduced the bread by one half, and suppressed the butter. This abstinence vexed my friend's nerves. His wits went wool-gathering; he would prick his ears and seem to be listening to some one; he would burst out laughing in reply, or shed tears. Hingant believed in magnetism, and had disordered his brain with Swedenborg's[179] rubbish. He told me in the morning that he had heard noises during the night; if I denied his fancies he grew angry. The anxiety which he caused me prevented me from feeling my own sufferings.
These were great, nevertheless: that rigorous diet, combined with the work, chafed my diseased chest; I began to find a difficulty in walking, and yet I spent my days and a part of my nights out of doors, so as not to betray my distress. When we came to our last shilling, my friend and I agreed to keep it in order to make a pretense of breakfasting. We arranged that we should buy a penny roll; that we should have the hot water and the tea-pot brought up as usual; that we should not put in any tea; that we should not eat the bread, but that we should drink the hot water with a few little morsels of sugar left at the bottom of the bowl.
Five days passed in this fashion. I was devoured with hunger; I burned with fever; sleep had deserted me; I sucked pieces of linen which I soaked in water; I chewed grass and paper. When I passed the bakers' shops, the torment I endured was horrible. One rough winter's night, I stood for two hours outside a shop where they sold dried fruits and smoked meats, swallowing all I saw with my eyes: I could have eaten not only the provisions, but the boxes and baskets in which they were packed.
On the morning of the fifth day, dropping from inanition, I dragged myself to Hingant's; I knocked at the door: it was closed. I called out; Hingant was some time without answering: at last he rose and opened the door. He laughed with a bewildered air; his frock-coat was buttoned; he sat down at the tea-table.
"Our breakfast is coming," he said in a strange voice.
I thought I saw some stains of blood on his shirt; I suddenly unbuttoned his coat: he had given himself a wound with a penknife, two inches deep, in his left breast. I called out for help. The maid-servant went to fetch a surgeon. The wound was dangerous.
This new misfortune obliged me to take a resolution. Hingant, who was a counsellor to the Parliament of Brittany, had refused to take the salary which the English Government allowed the French magistrates, in the same way that I had declined the shilling a day doled out to the Emigrants: I wrote to M. de Barentin[180] and disclosed my friend's position to him. Hingant's relations hurried to his assistance and took him away to the country. At that very moment my uncle de Bedée forwarded me forty crowns, a touching offering from my persecuted family. I seemed to see all the gold of Peru before my eyes: the mite of the French prisoners supported the exiled Frenchman.
Destitution.