Panpan chuckled over the fate which awaited some of these ardent youths: “Ces gaillards là!” he said, “had become too proud and troublesome to be left long in the streets of Paris; they would have fomented another revolution; so Louis Philippe, under pretence of rewarding his brave ‘soldats laboureurs,’ whom he was ready to shake by the hand in the public streets in the first flush of success,
enrolled them in the army, and sent them to the commanding officers with medals of honour round their necks, and special recommendations to promotion in their hands. They hoped to become Marshals of France in no time. Pauvres diables! they were soon glad to hide their decorations, and cease bragging about street-fighting and barricades, for the regulars relished neither their swaggering stories nor the notion of being set aside by such parvenus; and they got so quizzed, snubbed, and tormented, that they were happy at last to slide into their places as simple soldats, and trust to the ordinary course for promotion.”
As for Panpan, his street wanderings terminated in his finding employment in a lace manufactory, and it soon became evident that his natural talent here found a congenial occupation. He came by degrees to be happy in his new position of a workman. Then occurred the serious love passage of his life—his meeting with Louise, now Madame Panpan. It was the simplest matter in the world: Panpan, to whom life was nothing without the Sunday quadrille at the barrière, having resolved to figure on the next occasion in a pair of bottes vernis, waited upon his bootmaker—every Parisian has his bootmaker—to issue his mandates concerning their length, shape, and general construction. He entered the boutique of Mons. Cuire, when, lo! he beheld in the little back parlour, the most delicate little foot that ever graced a shoe, or tripped to measure on the grass. He would say nothing of the owner of this miracle; of her face—which was full of intelligence; of her figure—which was gentille toute à fait—but for that dear, chaste, ravishing model of a foot! so modestly posé upon the cushion. Heaven!—and Panpan unconsciously heaved a long sigh, and brought with it from the very bottom of his heart a vow to become its possessor. There was no necessity for anything very rash or very desperate in the case, as it happened, for the evident admiration of Panpan had inspired Louise with an impromptu interest in his favour, and he being besides gentil garçon, their chance rencontre was but the commencement of a friendship which ripened into love,—and so the old story over again, with marriage at the end of it.
Well! said M. Panpan, time rolled on, and little Louis was born. This might have been a blessing, but while family cares and expenses were growing upon them, Panpan’s strength and energies were withering away. He suffered little pain, but what there was seemed
to spring from the old wound; and there were whole days when he lay a mere wreck, without the power or will to move; and when his feeble breath seemed passing away for ever. Happily, these relapses occurred only at intervals, but by slow degrees they became more frequent and more overwhelming. Madame Panpan’s skill and untiring perseverance grew to be, as other resources failed, the main, and for many, many months, the whole support of the family. Then came a time when the winter had passed away, and the spring was already in its full, and still Panpan lay helpless in bed with shrunken limbs and hollow, pallid cheeks,—and then little Henri was born.
Père Panpan having arrived at this crisis in his history, drew a long breath, and stretched himself back in his bed. I knew the rest. It was soon after the event last named that I made his acquaintance, and the remainder of his simple story, therefore, devolves upon me.
The debility of the once dashing soldier increased daily, and as it could be traced to no definite cause, he gradually became a physiological enigma; and thence naturally a pet of the medical profession. Not that he was a profitable patient, for the necessities of the family were too great to allow of so expensive a luxury as a doctor’s bill; but urged, partly by commiseration, and partly by professional curiosity, both ardent students and methodical practitioners would crowd round his simple bed, probing him with instruments, poking him with their fingers, and punching him with their fists; each with a new theory to propound and establish; and the more they were baffled and contradicted in their preconceived notions, the more obstinate they became in their enforcement. Panpan’s own thoughts upon the subject always reverted to the brass button, although he found few to listen to or encourage him in his idea. His medical patrons were a constant source of suffering to him, but he bore with them patiently; sometimes reviving from his prostration as if inspired, then lapsing as suddenly into his old state of semi-pain and total feebleness. As a last hope, he was removed from his fourth floor in the Place Valois, to become an inmate of the Bicêtre, and a domiciled subject of contention and experiment to its medical staff.
The Bicêtre is a large, melancholy-looking building, half hospital half madhouse, situated a few leagues from Paris. I took a distaste to it on my very first visit. It always struck me as a sort of
menagerie, I suppose from the circumstance of there having been pointed out to me, immediately on my entrance, a railed and fenced portion of the building, where the fiercer sort of inhabitants were imprisoned. Moreover, I met with such strange looks and grimaces; such bewildering side-glances or moping stares, as I traversed the open court-yards, with their open corridors, or the long arched passages of the interior, that the whole of the inmates came before me as creatures in human shape indeed, but as possessed by the cunning or the ferocity of the mere animal. Yet it was a public hospital, and in the performance of its duties there was an infinite deal of kindly attention, consummate skill, and unwearying labour. Its associations were certainly unhappy, and had, I am sure, a depressing effect upon at least the physically disordered patients. It may be that as the Bicêtre is a sort of forlorn hope of hospitals, where the more desperate or inexplicable cases only are admitted, it naturally acquires a sombre and ominous character; but in no establishment of a similar kind (and I have seen many) did I meet with such depressing influences.
Panpan was at first in high spirits at the change. He was to be restored to health in a brief period, and he really did in the first few weeks make rapid progress towards convalescence. Already a sort of gymnasium had been arranged over his bed, so that he might, by simple muscular exercises, regain his lost strength; and more than once I have guided his tottering steps along the arched corridors, as, clad in the gray uniform of the hospital, and supported by a stick, he took a brief mid-day promenade.