Such a definition could not fail to excite approbation amid a society of men of exalted ideas, every one of whom, with a few exceptions, saw the degrees of his own elevation. Hurrahs, bravoes, and clappings followed, proving that even there and then were some in the assembly, who, when the time came, would put a different interpretation on equality from Cagliostro, yet as a theory accepted it as the powerful genius of the strange chief interpreted it.

  Cagliostro, who was more ardent, more enlightened, and more resplendent, asked again for silence, in a voice which gave token of no fatigue or of any hesitation.

  “Brothers,” said he, “we have now come to the third word of the device, to that which men will be the last to understand, and which for that reason has doubtless been placed last. We have come to

  “Fraternity!

  “Great word when understood! God keep me from saying that he who takes it in its narrow sense, and applies it to the citizens of a village, town, or kingdom, has a bad heart. No, brother, he has but a weak mind. Let us pity the poor soul, and try to strip his feet of the leaden sandals of mediocrity. Let us unfold our wings and sail above all vulgar ideas. When Satan wished to tempt Jesus, he transported him to the loftiest mountain (if the world, and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth, not to the mountain of Nazareth, whence he could see but the petty cities of Judea. Brothers, the word fraternity must not be applied to a kingdom, but to the world. Brothers, a day will come, when the word country, which now seems sacred to us, and nationality, which seems holy, will disappear like the canvas scenes which are let down for the time being to enable the carpenters and painters to prepare others. Brothers, the day will come when those who conquered the world will conquer fire and water, when the elements will be subjected to man’s will, and when, thanks to rapidity of communication, all nations will be as brothers. Then, brethren, a magnificent sight will be unrolled in the face of God. Every ideal frontier will disappear; every limit of space will disappear; the rivers will be no longer an obstacle, the mountains a hindrance; people will clasp each other’s hands across rivers, and on every mountaintop the altar of fraternity will arise. Brothers, brothers, I tell you, this is the true fraternity of the apostle.

  “Christ died to ransom all the nations of the world. Do not therefore make these three words, liberty, equality, and fraternity, simply the device of France, but write them on the labarum of humanity as the device of the world.

  “Now, my brethren, go. Your task is great — so great that through whatever valley of tears and blood you pass, your children will envy your holy mission, and like the crusaders, who always become more numerous and anxious to view the holy land, they will not pause, though they find their road by bleaching bones on the way-side. Courage then, apostles! pilgrims! soldiers! Apostles, make converts! pilgrims, onward! soldiers, fight!” Cagliostro paused, but not until general and universal applause had interrupted him.

  Thrice hushed, thrice again this applause rose beneath the arches of the vault, like the sound of the tempest.

  The six masked men then bowed before him, kissed his hand, and retired.

  Each of the brothers then bowed before the platform, where, like another Peter the Hermit, this new apostle preached the crusade of liberty, and passed away uttering the words, “Lilia pedibus destrue!”

  The last lamp went out, and Cagliostro remained alone, in silence and darkness, like those Indian gods in whose mysteries he pretended to have been initiated a thousand years before.

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  Women and Flowers.

  A FEW MONTHS after the events we have related, towards the end of March, 1791, a carriage coming rapidly from Argenteuil to Besson made a detour of a quarter of a league from the latter city, and advanced towards the Chateau du Marais, the gate of which opened before it, and stopped in the inner court-yard immediately in front of the door.

  The clock in front of the building announced the hour to be eight a.m.

  An old servant, who seemed to await the arrival of this carriage most anxiously, went to the door and opened it, and a man dressed in black got out.

  “Ah, M. Gilbert! here you are at last!”

  “What is the matter, Teisch?”

  “Alas, sir, you will see.”

  Going before the doctor, he took him through the billiard-room — the lamps of which, doubtless lighted at a late hour of the night, yet burned — thence to the dining — -room, whose table, covered with flowers, uncorked bottles, fruits, and pastry, betokened that supper had been prolonged later than usual.

  Gilbert looked at this scene of disorder, which showed how his prescriptions had been followed, with sadness. He then shrugged his shoulders with a sigh, and went up the stairway which led to Mirabeau’s room.

  “Count,” the servant said, ‘‘here is M. Gilbert.”

  “What, the doctor?’’ said Mirabeau. “You did not go for him for such a trifle?”

  “Trifle!” said Teisch; “judge for yourself, doctor.”

  “Doctor,” said Mirabeau, rising from his bed, “believe me, I am sorry that without my consent you have been so disturbed.”

  “Count, I am never disturbed when I have an opportunity to see you. You know that I only attend a few friends, to whom I belong entirely. Tell me what has happened? — above all, have no secrets from your physician. Teisch, draw the curtains aside and open the window.”

  This order having been obeyed, light shone on Mirabeau. The doctor was able to see the change which a month had wrought in the celebrated orator. “Ah, ha!” said he involuntarily.

  “Yes!” said Mirabeau, “am I not changed? I am going to tell you why.”

  Gilbert smiled sadly. But as a skilful physician always profits by what his patient says, even though he lie to him, he listened.

  “You know what question was considered yesterday?”

  “Yes, the mines.”

  “The matter is not at all understood or measured; the interests of the owners and of the government are not sufficiently distinct. The Count de la Marck, my intimate friend, is very deeply interested in the matter, and the half of his fortune depends upon it. His purse has always been mine, and I must be grateful. I spoke, or rather I charged, three times; at the last charge, I routed the enemies, but was myself taken a little aback. When I came home I resolved to celebrate the victory. I had a few friends to supper, and we laughed and jested until three in the morning. At five I was taken with a violent pain in my bowels, and I cried like an imbecile. Teisch, like a fool, became terrified, and sent for you. Now you know as much as I do. Here is my pulse, here is my tongue; cure me if you can, for I tell you I know nothing of the mutter.”

  Gilbert was too shrewd a physician not to be able to see, without looking at pulse or tongue, the peril of Mirabeau’s condition. He seemed in danger of suffocation, and his face was swollen from the stoppage of blood in his lungs. He complained of excessive cold in the extremities, and from time to time pain wrung from him a sigh or a cry. His pulse was convulsive and intermittent.

  “Come,” said Gilbert, “this time it will be nothing, but, my dear count, I came only just in time.”

  He took his book from his pocket with the rapidity and calmness which tire the distinguishing traits of true genius.

  “Ah-ha!” said Mirabeau, “you are going to bleed me?”

  “At once.”

  “In the right or left arm?”

  “In neither. Your lungs are too full. I intend to open a vein in the foot, and Teisch must go to Argenteuil for mustard and cantharides — you must be blistered. Take my carriage, Teisch.”

  “Diable,” said Mirabeau, “then you were just in time.”

  Gilbert at once bled him, and soon black thick blood, which at first did not flow freely, gushed from the patient’s foot. He was relieved instantly.

  “Morbleu, doctor,” said he, “you are a great man.”

  “And you are worse than a fool, to risk a life so valuable to your friends and to all Frenchmen, for the sake of a few hours of false enjoyment.”

  Mirabeau smiled sadly, almost ironically. “Bah, doctor! you exaggerate the number of my friends, and the condition of France,” said he.

  “On my honour; great men always complain of the ingratitude of others, but it is they who really are ungrateful. Be really sick, and to-morrow all Paris will be beneath your window. Die the next day, and all France will wear mourning.”

  “Do you know, doctor, what you say is very consoling?” said Mirabeau, with a smile.

  “The reason that I say this is, that you may see the one case without risking the other. You need some great demonstration to reinstate you, in a moral point of view. Let me take you back to Paris in two hours; let me but tell the policeman at the first corner that you are sick, and you will see.”

  “Think you I could go to Paris?”

  “Yes, at once! Where do you suffer?”

  “I breathe more freely, my head is clear, the mist before my eyes is gone, but my bowels — ”

  “Ah! the blisters will correct that. The bleeding was well, and the blisters will do their duty. Ah! here is Teisch.”

  The valet came in with the ingredients he had been sent for. In a quarter of an hour the improvement the doctor had predicted was perceptible.

  “Now,” said Gilbert, “sleep for an hour, and then I will take you to Paris.”

  “Doctor,” said Mirabeau, “suffer me not to leave until evening, and give me a rendezvous at my hotel in the Chaussee d’Antin at eleven.”

  Gilbert looked at Mirabeau. The patient saw that his physician wished to know why he desired this delay.

  “Why!” said Mirabeau, “I have a visit to receive.

  “My dear count, I saw many flowers on the table of your dining-room. You did not give a supper yesterday merely to your friends.”

  “You know I cannot do without flowers: it is a passion.”

  “Yes, but you had not flowers alone.”

  “Dame! if flowers be required, I must at least submit to their consequences.”

  “Count, you will kill yourself.”

  “At least, doctor, in a pleasant manner.”

  “I leave you for to-day.”

  “Doctor, I have given you my word, and will not break it.”

  “You will come to Paris this evening?”

  “I told you I would expect you at eleven. Is that enough?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Have I not made a conquest of Juliet, Talma’s wife? Doctor, I feel perfectly well.”

  “Then you drive me off.”

  “Oh! fy, fy.”

  “Well, you are right! I live in the Quartier des Tuileries.”

  “Ah! you will see the queen?” said Mirabeau, growing moody.

  “Probably. Have you any message for her?”

  “Why?”

  “Because she will ask if I have saved your life, as I promised to, for I will have to say it was more your fault than mine. You do not wish me to say that your labour and toil are killing you?”

  Mirabeau reflected for an instant. “Yes,” said he, “say that — make me, if you please, sicker than I really am.”

  “Why?”

  “Nothing — curiosity — to say something.”

  “So be it.”

  “Do you promise this, doctor?”

  “I do.”

  “And you will tell me what she says?”

  “Her very words.”

  “Adieu then, doctor! a thousand good wishes!” and he gave his hand to Gilbert.

  Gilbert looked fixedly at Mirabeau, whom his glance appeared to disturb.

  “Apropos! Before you go, your prescription.”

  “Warm, soothing drinks. No wine — not a drop; and above all — ”

  “What?”

  “No nurse under fifty. Do you understand, count?”

  “Doctor, rather than violate your orders, I will take two of twenty-five.”

  At the door Gilbert met Teisch. The poor man wept. “Monsieur,” said he, “why do you go?”

  “Because, my dear Teisch, your master has driven me away,” said Gilbert, smiling.

  “All this is for a woman,” said the old man; “and because the woman looks like the queen! A man who, they say, has so much genius, my God! must he be a brute?”

  He opened the door to Gilbert, who got in, saying: “What on earth has he to do with that woman who is so like the queen?” He took Teisch by the arm, as if to question him, but let it go, saying: “What was I about to do? It is Mirabeau’s secret, not mine — driver, to Paris.”

  Gilbert scrupulously discharged the promise he had made to Mirabeau. As he entered Paris he met Camille Desmoulins, the living journal, the incarnation of a newspaper. He told him of the illness of Mirabeau, which he did gravely as possible, for he did not know if Mirabeau might not commit some new indiscretion, though he thought him then in no danger.

  He then went to the Tuileries and informed the king of Mirabeau’s condition. The king said: “Poor count! Has he lost his appetite?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “Then he is in a bad way,” said the king.

  His majesty then talked of other matters.

  Gilbert left the king and went into the queen’s apartments, where he repeated what he had told the king. The haughty Austrian brow was lighted up, and she said: “Why was he not thus attacked on the day he made his fine address about the national tricolor?”‘

  Then, as if she regretted having suffered these words to escape her — expressive as they were of hatred to French nationality — she said: “It matters not. It would be most unfortunate for us and for France if he should be really sick.”

  “I had the honour to tell the queen that he was not indisposed, but ill.”

  “But you will cure him, doctor?”

  “I will do my best, madame.”

  “Doctor, I rely on you, you know, to give me news of M. de Mirabeau.”

  And then she spoke of other things.

  That night, at the appointed hour, Gilbert went to Mirabeau’s hotel. Mirabeau was waiting for him, and sat on a couch. As the doctor had been made to wait a moment, under the pretext of informing the count of his presence, he had an opportunity to look around the room into which he was shown. The first thing that met his eyes was a cashmere shawl.

  As if to divert Gilbert’s attention, or because he attached great importance to the first words interchanged between himself and the doctor, Mirabeau said: “Ah! is it you? I know you have already kept a portion of your promise. Paris knows that I am sick, and for two hours poor Teisch has had, every ten minutes, to tell somebody how I am. That was your first promise; now about the second?”

  “What mean you?”

  “You know.”

  Gilbert shrugged his shoulders to say he did not.

  “Have you been to the Tuileries?”

  “Yes.”

  “You saw the king?”

  “Yes.”

  “The queen?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you told them they would soon be rid of me?”

  “I told them you were dangerously ill.”

  “What said they?”

  “The king asked how your appetite was.”

  “You told him it was gone?”

  “And he pitied you sincerely.”

  “Kind king! ‘Like Leonidas,’ he will say, when he dines to-night, ‘he sups with Pluto.’ But the queen?”

  “Pitied, and asked kindly after you.”

  “How, though?” said Mirabeau, who evidently attached much importance to the question. “Kindly? — you promised to repeat her words verbatim.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Doctor! you have not forgotten our syllable?”

  “I swear — !”

  “Doctor! you gave me your word, and you would not have me treat you as a faithless man.”

  “You are exacting, count.”

  “I am.”

  “Do you insist that I repeat what the queen said?”

  “Verbatim.”

  Gilbert repeated the conversation between himself and the queen, and looked at Mirabeau, to see the influence it had on him.

  “Kings are ungrateful,” said he. “This speech sufficed to make her forget the civil list of eighty millions for the king over her dower of four millions.”

  Mirabeau ran over the long series of his triumphs in the cause of the queen, and sank back in his chair exhausted.

  Ten minutes after, Mirabeau was in a bath, and as usual, Teisch escorted Gilbert down.

  Mirabeau arose from his bath to look after the doctor, and when he was out of sight, listened to hear his footsteps. He then stood motionless until he heard the door open and close.

  He then rang violently, and said: “Jean, have a table fixed in my room, and ask Mdlle. Oliva if she will sup with me.”

  As he left, Mirabeau said: “Flowers! flowers! You know how I love them.”

  At four o’clock Dr. Gilbert was awakened by a violent ringing of the bell. “Ah!” said he, “I am sure Mirabeau is worse.”

  The doctor was not wrong. After supper Mirabeau had sent Jean and Teisch to bed. He had then closed all the doors except the one which admitted the unknown woman whom he called his evil genius. The servants, however, did not go to bed, for Jean slept in the antechamber, in a chair, and Teisch kept awake.