“FLAGELLUM SALUTIS”

There is a strange old book with the above title to be found in the libraries of the curious, so quaint in character as to deserve to be better known. It was composed by Christian Franz Paullini, a German physician, and was published at Frankfort-on-Maine in 1608. It is a treatise on the advantage of the whip for curative purposes in various disorders.

Dr. Paullini, in the first section of his work, directs attention to the consecration of corporal punishment by Scripture and the Church. Did not St. Paul assert, “Castigo corpus meum et in servitutem redigo”? Does not the bishop in confirmation box the ear of the candidate, in token that he is to be ready to endure suffering and shame as a good Christian soldier? And look at the saints of the calendar, were they not mighty in flagellation, fervent in rib-whacking?

Shall precious saints and secret ones,
Break one another’s outward bones?
When savage bears agree with bears,
Shall secret ones lug saints by the ears?

asks the Puritan in his metrical version of Psalm lxxxiii, and Dr. Paullini promptly answers: “Certainly, it is good for health of soul and body that they should so act towards one another.”

Scorpius atque fabæ nostra fuere salus.

Had our learned author been acquainted with the Rabbinical gloss on the account of the Fall of Man, he would, maybe, have hesitated to attribute universal benefit to the application of the rod. For, say the Rabbis, when Adam pleaded that the woman gave him of the tree, and he did eat, he means emphatically that she gave it him palpably. Adam was recalcitrant, Eve dedit de ligno; the branch was stout, the arm of the “mother of all living” was muscular, and the first man succumbed, and “did eat” under compulsion.

There is nothing like the rod, says the doctor; it is a universal specific, it stirs up the stagnating juices, it dissolves the precipitating salts, it purifies the coagulating humours of the body, it clears the brain, purges the belly, circulates the blood, braces the nerves; in short, there is nothing which the rod will not do, when judiciously applied.

Antidotum mortis si verbera dixero, credas!
Attonitum morbum nam cohibere valent.

Having laid down his principle, the doctor proceeds to apply it to various complaints, giving instances, the result of experience.

And first as to melancholy.

One predisposing cause of melancholy, observes Paullini, is love, and that eventuates in idiotcy or insanity.

To parents and guardians our author gives the advice, when the first symptoms of this complaint appear in young people under their charge, let them grasp the rod firmly, and lay it on with vigour and promptitude. The remedy is infallible. Valescus de Taranta says, in the case of a young man—and his words are words of gold—“Whip him well, and should he not mend immediately, keep him locked up in the cellar on bread and water till he promises amendment.”

I saw, continues our author, an instance of the good effect of this treatment at Amsterdam. A stripling of twenty, comely enough in his appearance, the son of an artisan in the town, fell in love with the mayor’s daughter. He could neither eat, drink, sleep, nor do anything in the remotest degree rational. The father, unaware of the cause, put him into the hands of a medical practitioner, who did his utmost to cure him, but signally failed. At last the father’s eyes were opened by means of an intercepted letter. Like a sensible man he packed his son off to the public whipping-place, there to learn better moralia. And this had the desired effect; for the youth returned perfectly cured and in his right senses.

But for this treatment he might have sunk into his grave, like him mentioned by P. Boaysten, who died of a broken heart through unrequited love; and, at the post-mortem examination, his bowels were discovered to be uncoiled, his heart shrivelled, his liver shrunk to nothing, his lungs corroded, and his skull entirely emptied of every trace of brains.

For short sight there is nothing like a good thrashing, or at least a violent blow, says our doctor.

An old German, aged eighty, who had all his lifetime suffered from short sight, was one day jogging to market on his respectable mare, Dobbin. Dobbin tripped on a stone and flung her rider. The old man fell upon a stone, which pierced his skull. The dense vapours which had obscured his vision for so long were enabled to escape through the aperture, and on his recovery the venerable gentleman had the sight of an eagle.

A cavalier was troubled with the same infirmity. He saw a large salmon hanging up outside a fishmonger’s shop, and, mistaking it for a young lady of his acquaintance, removed his cap and addressed it with courtesy. Another youth having made great fun of the mistake, the short-sighted cavalier felt himself constrained in honour to call him out. In the duel he received a sword wound over his left eye, and this completely cured his vision.

For deafness Dr. Paullini recommends a box on the ear. Especially successful is this treatment in the case of children who do not attend to the commands and advice of their parents on the plea of “not having heard.” In such cases the employment of corporal punishment cannot be too highly estimated. The doctor tells the story of a boy destined for the ministry who ran away from school and apprenticed himself to a tailor, and who was cured of deafness and tailoring propensities by the application of a large pair of drumsticks to a sensitive part of his person, and who eventually became a Lutheran pastor, and was, to the end of his days, able to mend his own clothes.

This story furnishes the author of Flagellum Salutis with matter for a digression on clerical education. He quotes with approval the sentiments of his old patron, Dr. Schupp, expressed thus: “Nowadays that every bumpkin makes his son study for the ministry, we have them scrambling about the country begging for promotion, and grumbling because it does not come as fast as they expect. The learned son is a poor curate, with no benefice. Such a to-do about this—complaints, murmurs, and what not! Why did he not learn a trade in addition to his theology? Luke the Evangelist was a theologus and medicus as well, and a painter to boot. Paul in his youth studied divinity at the feet of Gamaliel, but he was a carpet manufacturer besides. Was the Kaiser Rudolph a worse Emperor for being as well a clever craftsman? ‘If I could recall my past years and begin life again,’ said Dr. Schupp, ‘I would not become a student only, but learn a trade besides. Then, if the thankless world kicked me, I would measure its foot for a boot; if it made faces at me, I would paint its portrait for it; if my divinity did not agree with its stomach, I would dose it with purgatives like Luke. I would make the world respect me for my diligence in trade, if it turned up its nose at my theology. Anyhow, I would not go about snivelling and crying poverty and want of promotion.’”

To this speech of Dr. Schupp, Paullini adds a few pertinent remarks. “The lad I was telling you about,” he says, “had a hankering after tailoring. Well, tailoring is an honourable and useful profession. Was not Moses bidden, ‘Thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise-hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron garments.’ Tailors filled with the spirit of wisdom! Why despise the craft which God has honoured?”

It must be allowed that there is sense in this little digression. Doubtless it would be well if not only those destined for the ministry, but all the sons of the higher classes of society, were taught some manual employment in addition to the cultivation of their intellectual faculties. That our grammar schools should take the hint is not to be anticipated; masters and governors have the same implicit confidence in classic studies as the universal panacea that Dr. Paullini professes for the rod and Dr. Sangrado for cold water and blood-letting. I do not dispute the fact that the most useful knowledge for a lad to acquire who is destined for colonial farming, or for a mercantile life at home, is Greek prosody; but I suggest that an acquaintance with carpentering, land-surveying, or book-keeping might be found advantageous in a secondary degree.

Lockjaw is to be treated in the same manner, asserts our author, and he tells an amusing anecdote on the subject from Volquard Iversen.

Nicolas Vorburg was an Oriental traveller. In the course of his wanderings he reached Agra, the capital of the Great Cham. The European was introduced to His Majesty at the dinner-hour, and found the monarch just returned from the expedition, and as hungry as a hunter. A bowl of rice was brought in. The Great Cham dipped his hands into it, and ladled so much rice as they would hold into his capacious mouth, distended to the utmost conceivable extent. But the Great Cham had overestimated the capabilities of the distension of his jaws, and they became dislocated. At the sight, the servants were distracted with fear. The nobles stroked their chins in uncertainty how to act, the priests had recourse to their devotions, but no one assisted the monarch out of his dilemma. He sat upon his imperial throne purple in the face, his eyes distended with horror, his mouth gaping, and full of rice. Suffocation was imminent. Nicolas Vorburg, without even prostrating himself before the emperor, ran up the steps of his throne, and hit him a violent crack with the palm of his hand upon the cheek. The rice fell out of his mouth upon the imperial lap, some, it is surmised, descended the imperial red-lane. Another slap accomplished the relief of the monarch, and set the jaw once more in working order. At the same moment the servants screamed at the outrage committed upon the sacred majesty of the emperor, the nobles drew their swords to avenge it, and the priests converted their prayers for the recovery of their king into curses on the head of him who had sacrilegiously raised his hand to violate his divinity. Poor Vorburg would have been made into mincemeat, had not the emperor providentially recovered his breath in time to administer a reproof to his over-zealous subjects. He acknowledged the relief afforded him by the stranger by a present of a thousand rupees.

A tailor had a son who was half-witted. The father was out one day, and the child, who was left in the house, after the manner of children, looked about him in quest of some mischief which he might perpetrate. A pair of elegant breeches, just completed by his father, and designed for the legs of a nobleman, hung suspended from the wall. The child made a figured pattern upon the amber silk with his finger, dipped at intervals in the ink-pot. The mother was the first to discover the transformation of the breeches, and, not regarding the alteration in the same light as did her child, caught up the yard-measure and administered a castigation to the culprit, sufficient to “stir up the stagnating juices, dissolve the precipitating salts, and purify the coagulating humours,” in at least one portion of the lad’s body. The youth, under the impression that high art is never appreciated at first sight, made himself scarce for some hours. The father, on his return, used every effort to obliterate the flowering of ink which his son had drawn over the amber breeches, but with only a limited degree of success—so limited, in fact, that the nobleman for whom they were destined utterly refused to invest his person in them, and they were returned on the tailor’s hands. The boy, towards evening, impelled by hunger, had returned home, and was soothing his injured feelings with bread and butter, when the father re-entered the house. In a moment the parental left hand had grasped the scruff of his neck, whilst the right hand dexterously completed the stirring up the stagnant juices, dissolving of precipitating salts, and purifying of coagulating humours with such success, that Dr. Paullini assures us the child grew up a miracle of discretion, and never after decorated articles of clothing other than his own pinafore.

Under the heading of “Swollen Breasts,” the learned doctor gives us his ideas on the subject of schoolmasters and their titles. These remarks are sensible enough in their way, but hardly come under the heading he has selected for the chapter. Connected still more vaguely with swollen breasts is the commentary on some verses in the twenty-first chapter of St. John’s Gospel, which closes the section.

To those who suffer from toothaches he recommends the practice of a learned professor under whom he studied. This man suffered excruciating torture from his teeth at night. The professor, the moment that his sufferings began, was wont to leave his bed and spend his night in jumping on to his table, and then jumping down again, till the pain ceased. Paullini does not state the feelings of those who slept in the room immediately underneath that occupied by Dr. Erasmus Vinding; neither does it seem clear at first sight how the jumping diversion is connected with the subject of the rod, concerning the merits of which the book treats; but on further consideration the connection becomes apparent. Dr. Paullini being silent on this point, we have but the light of nature to guide us to the conclusion that the saltatory performances of Dr. Erasmus would arouse and exasperate the other lodgers into an application of the universal panacea to his scantily protected person.

For constitutional indolence the rod is inestimable; the monotony of its use as a specific may, however, be pleasingly varied by an application of corporal punishment in the following disguised form, which, if severe, is nevertheless infallible as a cure. Hermann Habermann, a native of Mikla, deserves the credit of being the first to communicate it to the medical profession. Habermann had spent many years in Iceland, and it was there that he saw the treatment in use. An artisan suffering from indolence was recommended by a native doctor to let himself be sewn up in a sack stuffed with wool, and then be dragged about, rolled down hill, thumped, kicked, and jumped upon by his friends and acquaintances. When he emerged from the sack he was to take a draught to open his pores, and to go to bed. The remedy was tried, and succeeded.

A somewhat similar cure came under Paullini’s personal observation. A nobleman had a jester who was dotingly fond of fowls. He stole all his master’s poultry, so that his master was obliged to do without eggs for his breakfast. The fool, moreover, was deficient in fun, and was by no means worth his keep. At last his master determined on correcting him severely. He had him sewn up in a hop-bag and well thrashed, and then rolled down hill and thrashed again. The fool never stole eggs from that day forward, and from being but a poor fool he became one famous for his brilliant parts and sparkling humour.

For tertian fever, the rod is an admirable specific. A lawyer once suffered from this complaint, which left him at times able to continue his avocation. He had brought upon himself the ill-feeling of a certain gentleman whom he had, in one of his pleadings, turned into ridicule. This person determined to punish the advocate as soon as a convenient opportunity presented itself. The opportunity came. The lawyer was riding home one day, past the house of the nobleman, when the latter descried him, and immediately sent him a message requesting a moment’s private conversation. The unfortunate advocate fell into the trap. Expecting to get employment in a fresh suit, he hurried eagerly to the castle, only to find the gates closed upon him and all egress prevented. In another moment the insulted gentleman stood before him.

“Vile bloodhound of the law!” he exclaimed, “you have long escaped the punishment due to you for your insolence and temerity. You disgraced me publicly, and I shall revenge myself upon you by degrading you in a manner certain to humble your pride. Yet I am merciful. I give you your choice of two modes of suffering. You shall either sit on an ant-hill, in the clothing provided you by nature, till you have learned by heart the seven penitential psalms; or you shall run the gauntlet in the same dégagé costume round my courtyard, where will be ranged all my servants armed with rods wherewith to belabour you.”

The hapless lawyer cast himself on his knees before the nobleman, and implored mercy. He pleaded that he had his wife and children to provide for; but the other replied that this was not to the point, as he had no intention of injuring the lady or the infants. Then the lawyer alleged his illness, saying that the access of fever would be on him next day, and that the punishment wherewith he was threatened—either of them in fact—might terminate fatally.

“That,” replied the injured gentleman, “can only be ascertained by experiment. My own impression is that the ants or the whips will produce a counter irritation, which may prove beneficial. Still,” he continued, stroking his chin, “we mortals are all liable to err, and my impression may be unfounded. I will frankly acknowledge my mistake if convinced by the result taking the direction you anticipate.”

Reluctantly the poor advocate made his election of the treatment he was to undergo. From the ants and the penitential psalms he recoiled with horror, and he chose shudderingly to run the gauntlet. So he ran it.

Black and blue, bruised and bleeding, the wretched man was dismissed at last, to return to the bosom of his family. The nobleman was right, the lawyer was forever cured of his tertian fever.

In another work of the same author (Zeitkürzende, erbauliche Lust, 8vo, Frankfort, 1693) the doctor argues the case, whether an honourable man may thrash his wife; and concludes that such a course of action entirely depends on the behaviour and temperament of the wife.

Woman was created to be good, quiet, and orderly; when she is otherwise she is going contrary to her vocation, and art must be employed to correct nature. Eve was given to Adam, reasons Paullini, to be a helpmeet to him, and not to be the plague and worry of his life. Woman’s vocation is to be a modest and gentle angel, and not to be a brazen, furious demon. Every woman is either one or the other. If she is as heaven made her, she takes to the bit and rein readily, is easily managed without the whip, and is perfectly docile. If, however, she is what the evil one would have her, she takes the bit in her teeth, sets back her ears, plunges, and kicks; and woe to the man who comes within reach of her tongue, her claws, or her toes. Then there is need for the rod. To a good wife, “there is a golden ornament upon her, and her bands are purple lace: thou shalt put her on as a robe of honour, and shalt put her about thee as a crown of joy.” But as for the bad wife, deal with her after the advice of the poet Joachim Rachel:—

Thou wilt be constrained her head to punch,
And let not thine eye then spare her:
Grasp the first weapon that comes to hand—
Horsewhip, or cudgel, or walking-stick,
Or batter her well with the warming-pan;
Dread not to fling her down on the earth,
Nerve well thine arm, let thy heart be stout
As iron, as brass, or stone, or steel.

For no wrath is equal to a woman’s wrath; and better is it to live in the cage of an African lion, or of a dragon torn from its whelps, than to live in the house with such a woman. Of all wickedness the worst is woman’s wickedness. Why, asks the doctor, what sort of a life did Jupiter lead in heaven with his precious Juno? Poor god! he let her get the upper hand of him. Had he but taken his stick to her instead of scolding, he might have had Olympus quiet, and have saved himself from being badgered through eternity.

They managed things better in Rome. A man had a wife full of bad tempers. He went to the oracle and asked what should be done with a garment which had moths in it. “Dust it,” was the oracular response. “And,” added the man, “I have a wife who is full of her nasty little tempers; should not she be treated in a similar manner?” “To be sure,” answered the oracle, “dust her daily.” And never was a truer or better bit of advice given by an oracle.

The work of Dr. Paullini called forth others in response, and doubtless enthusiastic devotees of the rod abounded. His views were, however, combated by others. From a tract against the use of the rod I cull one curious and droll story, wherewith to conclude this article:—

A husband accompanied his wife to confession. The lady having opened her griefs, the father who was shriving her insisted on administering a severe penitential scourging. The husband, hearing the first stroke inflicted on his better half, interfered, and urged that his wife was delicate, and that as he and she were one flesh, it would be better for him, as the stronger vessel, to receive the scourging intended for his helpmate. The confessor having consented to this substitution, the man knelt in his wife’s place, while she retired from the confessional. Whack! whack! went the cat, followed by a moan from the good man’s lips.

“Harder!—harder!” ejaculated the wife; “I am a grievous sinner!”

Whack! whack! whack!

“Lay it on!” cried she; “I am the worst of sinners.”

Whack! whack! and a howl from the sufferer.

“Never mind his cries, father!” exclaimed she; “remember only my sins. Make him smart here, that I may escape in purgatory.”

“HERMIPPUS REDIVIVUS”

“Man,” said the learned Prioli, “is composed of soul, body, and goods. In his pilgrimage through life these component parts are constantly exposed to three mortal enemies: the devils, who are ever seeking the destruction of his soul; the doctors, who are intent on ruining his constitution; and the lawyers, who seek to rob him of his goods.”

We will put the devils aside for a moment, the lawyers, too, with the tongs, and devote our attention to the doctors. We have already examined the medical treatise entitled Flagellum Salutis, wherein was exposed the excellence of the whip for the cure of every disorder to which mortality is heir. We propose considering another equally startling tractate in this paper, one more modern by a few years than that of Dr. Paullini, but its superior in absurdity. The title of the work is “Hermippus Redivivus, or a curious physico-medical examination of the extraordinary manner in which he extended his life to 115 years by inhaling the breath of little girls; taken from a Roman memorial, but now supported on medical grounds, as also illustrated and elucidated by a wondrous discovery of philosophical chemistry, by Johan Heinrich Cohausen, M.D.” 8vo, 1743.[2] This extraordinary book is adorned with an illustration, representing a pedagogue with a big nose, of Brobdingnagian proportions, keeping a mixed school of solemn little girls in jackets and aprons, and little prigs of boys in stocks, knee-breeches, coats, and wigs. One little boy, whose body is the size of the master’s hand, sits reading a book on his right knee. On the ground at his left is a little maiden, just reaching to the top of the master’s gaiters. A tiny dog is sitting up begging in the midst of a class in the middle distance; and in the background, behind a row of urchins who are not looking at their books, is a cat as big as any one of them, attacking a cage containing a singing bird. The whole of this strange work is built on a Roman inscription, said to have been found in the seventeenth century, and figured by Thomas Reinsius in his Syntagma Inscriptionum Antiquarum, and afterwards by Johann Keyser in his Parnassus Clivensis. This inscription, which is almost certainly not genuine, runs as follows:—

AESCULAPIO . ET . SANITATI .
L . CLODIUS . HERMIPPUS.
QUI . VIXIT . ANNOS . CXV . DIES . V .
PUELLARUM . ANHELITU .
QUOD . ETIAM . POST MORTEM
EIUS.
NON . PARUM . MIRANTUR . PHYSICI .
IAM . POSTERI . SIC . VITAM . DUCITE .

That is to say: “To Æsculapius and to health, L. Clodius Hermippus dedicates this, who lived 115 years, 5 days, on the breath of little girls, which, even after his death, not a little astonishes physicians. Ye who follow, protract your life in like manner.”

Other old writers, as Cujacius and Dalechampius, quote similar inscriptions, as “L. Clodius Hirpanus vixit Annos CXV. Dies V. alitus Puerorum anhelitu,” and “L. Clodius Hirpanus vixit Annos CLV. Dies, V. Puerorum halitu refocillatus et educatus.”

These inscriptions are sufficiently like and unlike to make it more than probable that they are all forgeries. It is hardly to be conceived that there should have been two individuals with names so very similar, living similar lengths of time,[3] the one on little girls’ breath, the other on that of little boys. If, however, we are to suppose them genuine, we have:—“Lucius Clodius Hermippus dying aged 115 years, 5 days”; “Lucius Clodius Hirpanus dying aged 155 years, 5 days.”

However, the authenticity of these monuments is of little importance. Let us to our book.

Dr. Cohausen enters on a minute verbal commentary on the words of the inscription, after having relieved his enthusiasm in a lengthy preface, and a still longer epistle dedicatory to a doctor of his acquaintance.

The commentary is as careful as though life hung upon each letter of the text. Having completed this portion of his work, the author gives rein to his fancy, and elaborates from his internal consciousness a life of L. Clodius Hermippus. This is too curious to be passed over. Dr. Cohausen asks how the subject of the inscription managed to live upon the breath of little girls. He inquires whether Hermippus was a very wealthy man, and enters into reasons which appear to him conclusive to the contrary. He makes elaborate calculations as to the number of children who would have been necessary to supply breath to Hermippus, supposing them to have been changed every five years, and he to have adopted his system of prolonging life at the age of sixty. After having discussed the question whether Lucius Clodius were a schoolmaster, or the director of an hospital for children, he concludes that he was the head of an orphanage supported by Government; and when he has quite satisfied his mind upon this point, Dr. Cohausen proceeds to sketch the daily routine of the life of Hermippus, as follows:—

“The orphanage, which was like a palace, had many handsome dwelling and dining-rooms, adapted for the daily uses of himself and the children, so that the breath and exhalations from such a number of little girls might fill the enclosed air, and might mingle to compose a salubrious vapour; which, absorbed into the lungs of Hermippus, might the better exercise the desired properties. In these rooms he spent with them the greater part of the day, occupying the time in friendly and agreeable conversation, unfolding to them good rules of life, relating innocent stories, and wisely pronouncing exhortations on the practice of virtue. Early in the morning, when the noise of the awaking children aroused him, at his command they kindled in the room a fire, in order that the air, which had become thickened during the night, might be rarified. In damp weather they perfumed it with the best perfumes several times in the day, because they had been instructed by their master how necessary this was to the preservation of health. When the aged man left his room the little damsels waited on him in the breakfast-chamber, and wished him a happy morning. Often he explained to them the dreams which they related to him, making them conduce to their moral edification. Some of those sufficiently old to have an inkling of the art of flattery, combed out his snow-white hair; others smoothed out his long white beard; others, again, rubbed his back with a coarse towel, which is considered good for the health of old people. And if, at that period, tea or coffee had been drunk, unquestionably they would have supplied him with it. At all events, we may conclude, as these beverages were not then in vogue, that it is quite possible to reach a great age without imbibing them. When school-time was over they passed the rest of the day in childish sports, with the permission of Hermippus. They jumped about, they played with their dolls, sometimes they also sang, for old people consider nothing so good for health, and so invigorating, as vocal music. And in this manner everything conduced to assist the expirations of the little girls in supporting our old man. If ever he was compelled to leave the room, one might see the children dragging at his coat-tails to detain him, and fervently desiring his return. Adjoining the orphanage was a pleasant garden, in which were plants and flowers calculated by their odour to quicken the vital spirit, and assist in the prolongation of life. With these the maidens daily adorned the rooms. Into this garden Hermippus betook himself with all the little girls, each provided with a doll; and he walked about with them in it, chaffed them, romped, danced and sang, acting as though his limbs were those of youth. A thousand little rogueries, a thousand little jokes on the part of the tiny lasses assisted in enlivening him, for they possessed the art of making themselves cheerful. They wreathed flowers, and placed a crown of spring-blossoms on the white head of Hermippus, and thus he spited the fates and reached an advanced age.”

Will it be believed that all this detail is pure invention on the part of Dr. Cohausen?

The learned author next proceeds to reason upon the cause producing these results; he solves the question why the breath of little girls should tend to prolong life.

“The breath,” says Dr. Cohausen, “consists of an inhalation and an exhalation: and if I speak scientifically, I say that when man breathes he lets forth the thick and thin airs through his mouth and nostrils, which he had before received into his lungs, where they had become impregnated with the evaporations from his body, the subtilised watery particles and vitalising blood, the balsamic and sulphuric atoms. Wherefore the human breath when outside the spiracles has a material character, namely, an exhalation from the vapours and gases which are intermixed with the blood and sap of the human body; and it is so especially in the breath of little girls. So observes Ficinus. This air is warm or tepid, and it moves and is endowed unmistakably with life, and like an animal is composed of joints and limbs, so that it can turn itself about, and not only so, but it has a soul also; so that we may certainly predicate that it is an animal composed of vapour, and endowed with reason. Consequently, any one who draws into his lungs this breath or conglomerated vapour, must necessarily absorb into his system the properties of that body from which it emanated, and from which it derived its being. For we know by experience that the air which enters the lungs dry, goes forth carrying with it moisture, as may be seen by breathing on a glass, or in cold weather. Also, when we inhale the breath of any one who is ill, we are conscious of receiving infection. On the other hand, it is manifest that the breath of a young and vigorous person, charged with powerful volatile salts, will have a balsamic and vitalising capacity, or at the least a mechanical elasticity, which must communicate vigour.” The doctor quotes with approval the opinion of Van Helmont, that the air absorbed into the lungs penetrates the whole system, and circulates through every part, to the very hair, catching up volatile salts on its passage. Thence he concludes that the exhalations of little girls, who are brimming over with vitality, and heaven knows what life-giving salts, must be charged with some of their redundant vitality; and if this breath be inhaled by an old man, he assumes into himself, and absorbs into his constitution, that life which had been cast off as superfluous by the children.

Quæ spiramina dat puella? Nectar.
Dat rores animæ suave olentes,
Dat nardumque thymumque cinnamumque,
Et mel, quale jugis tegunt Hymetti
Aut in Cecropiis apes rosetis,
Quæ si multa mihi voranda dentur,
Immortalis in iis repente fiam.

The third line, with its repetition of “umque,” is peculiar rather than elegant. The doctor rates the schoolmasters of his day for smoking during class hours: he tells them that they are losing an opportunity of inhaling the most invigorating salts at no expense.

Quando doces pueros, tibi fistula semper in ore est,
Atque scholæ fumos angulus omnis habet.

“Oh, my Orbilius!” he exclaims, “wherefore dost thou do so? Dost thou complain of the stuffiness of the schoolroom. Thou art mistaken, Orbilius, these vapours are full of volatile salts, by which, if thou wert wise, thou wouldst attain a long life. Away with thy nasty pipe, and suck in rather these redolent exhalations whereby thou mayest become healthy and aged.”

It must not be supposed that the scientific—or physico-medical, as the doctor calls it—portion of the subject is dismissed in such few words. The author dilates on the theory, turns it over, tosses it about, takes a bite, squeezes it, holds it up for admiration, and then reluctantly puts it aside. In the course of his physico-medical argument, he introduces a few illustrative anecdotes. One of these, taken from P. Borellus, is to this effect: A servant much devoted to his master, on his return from a journey, found his lord dead and prepared for burial. Full of grief, he cast himself on the deceased, and kissing his pallid lips poured forth a whirlwind of sighs. The breath thus emitted penetrated to the lungs of the corpse, inflated them, and the dead opened his eyes, winked, and sat up. The sighs of the faithful domestic had fanned into flame the expiring, and as all had deemed expired, vital spark. From Orubelius our author quotes another story in confirmation of his hypothesis:—

A woman had died in her first confinement, or, at all events, had fallen into a state which was believed by the attendants and by Orubelius, who was the physician present, to be death. She lay thus for a quarter of an hour devoid of sense and feeling, with pale face, stationary pulse, and with lungs which had ceased to play. A maid-servant who thus beheld her, opened her mouth, and breathed into it; whereupon the patient revived. The physician then asked the girl where she had learned the use of this simple yet efficient restorative, and the servant replied that she had seen it practised upon new-born children with the happiest results. The author also assures us of the beneficial effect produced by wringing the necks of poultry before a person in articulo mortis, and making the cocks and hens breathe out their souls into the mouth of the dying, whereby he is not unfrequently restored, and becomes quite well and chirrupy.

But, continues Dr. Cohausen, it is not only the exhalations from the lungs which are life-generative, but also those from the pores. The pores are little mouths situated all over the body, constantly engaged in the aëration of the blood; they inhale the surrounding atmosphere and then exhale it again, charged with balsamic and sulphurous particles taken up from the system. Men’s bodies are pneumatic-hydraulic machines, composed of fluid and solid materials, and health depends on the fluids being prevented from coagulating, by being stirred up by the constant operations of the currents of air which penetrate the frame through the pores and mouth. The solid portion of the body is disposed to harden and dry up and become stiff, and this produces age and decay; but if the circulation of the fluids be kept up by the healthful infusion of fresh vital force and living energies, then decrepitude and death may be almost indefinitely postponed.

Now the lips of the little mouths or pores all over the person can be kept flexible by oil, and therefore enabled to perform their functions with facility. Thus Pollio, an ancient soldier of the Emperor Augustus, when asked how he had succeeded in prolonging his energies over a hundred years, replied that he had daily moistened his outer man with oil, and his inner man with honey. Dr. Cohausen proceeds to lay down that it is better to absorb the exhalations of little girls than those of little boys, because females are more oily than males—a view we in no way feel inclined to dispute, without having recourse to the receipt of Mocrodius for wholesale incremations, which the doctor quotes to establish the fact:—“Lay one female body to six male bodies, in a great pyre, for thereby the male corpses are the more speedily consumed.” No doubt about it: there is enough combustible material in one woman to set any number of men in a blaze.

Johannes Fabricius, in his Palladium Chymicum, relates that he knew of a lady whose hair when combed emitted sparks.

Bartholinus mentions in his Tractatus de Luce Hominum the case of a female who flashed fire whenever her limbs or back were rubbed with a towel. These examples lead our author to conclude that in women there is not merely a considerable amount of oil, but that there is also no small item of latent fire; we are inclined to add, explosive material as well.

The advantage of old men marrying young wives is next discussed by Dr. Cohausen; and he strongly urges all who have entered on the sere and yellow leaf, to take to themselves wives of very early age; that, if Providence has not made them superintendents of orphanages, or schoolmasters, they may be enabled at small expense to inhale youthful breath. Men already possessed of wives are to spend their days in the nursery. As an instance of the advantage of patriarchs taking girl-wives, he relates the story of a certain ancient man with snow-white hair and beard, who married at the advanced age of eighty. After a while the old man fell ill; all his hair and skin came off. On his recovery, he had a fresh transparent complexion, and a magnificent bushy head and chin of vivid red hair.

“Whatever you do!” earnestly entreats the doctor, “never marry an old woman; she will absorb all the vital principle from your lungs. Alas for him who, in hopes of gaining money, marries a rich old spinster! She becomes youthful, and he prematurely aged. For old women,” he continues, “are like cats, whose breath is poisonous to life. From the eyes and mouth a cat discharges so much that is hurtful, that it has been the cause of innumerable complaints. Indeed, Matthiolus relates that a whole monastery of Religious died because they kept a number of cats.”

“My dear reader,” says Cohausen, “if you are young and wish to marry, follow the advice of Baron von Hevel, late member of the Imperial Council, which he gives in his ‘Psalmodia Sacra’:—

“Si cupis uxorem quæ præstet ubique decorem,
Formidetque marem, dilige sorte parem,
Prolificam, bellam, prudentem quære puellam,
Non genium vanum, nec viduam nec anum.

That is:—If you want a wife who may be a credit to you, and respect her husband, choose a girl your equal, prolific, comely, prudent; not a giddy head, nor an old widow.” If this is a specimen of the Baron’s Sacred Psalmody, we must allow the book to be very light reading for a Sunday.

In reading this extraordinary work, one is astonished at the manner in which the author seems to regard the fair sex as merely pharmaceutic agents, putting them much on a level with pills and powders, created for the purpose of keeping men in good health, and prolonging their lives. The idea scarce suggests itself to him, that they may object to be so regarded and administered. Dr. Cohausen would, as soon as look at you, write a prescription containing, among other items, so many respirations of the breath of little girls to be taken in scented smoke.

When the question does arise, how the damsels will like this treatment, the doctor brushes it aside with imperturbable coolness. It will be a great honour to them, to be thus rendered conducive to the prolongation of male life. Indeed, it will cause them not to be held as cheap as they are now. At present they are good-for-noughts; but employed to infuse the breath of life into men’s lungs, they will be respected and valued.

And now, with a flourish of horns, he introduces the “Wondrous discovery of philosophical chymistry,” of which he boasted on his title-page. “Now then, O ye cooks of Gebri, or, that I may give you your better title, ye sons of Hermes, who has taught you to extract the marvellous stone of the philosophers from the fire, that thereby ye may be skilled to sustain a protracted life! Now will I disclose to you a new philosophy! The once famous hermetic philosopher in France, Johann Petsus Faber of Montpelier, boasted of a certain arcanum animale which would cause any one who used it to be free from injury caused by the inclemency of the weather, from the gray hairs of age, from exhaustion through bodily fatigue, or through mental tension, whom no sickness would enfeeble, but who would reach the term fixed by Providence for his days, free from injury from every foe. I shall prove that Hermippus protracted his life by the use of such an arcanum. For although, hitherto, it has been an unknown arcanum to use the crude breath of little maidens for the prolongation of the mortal existence, still it will be regarded a far higher arcanum if this can be concentrated and cooked into an essence by chymical process, so that it should have in itself the invisible spirit of nature, and the subtilised fundamental principle of life. Let no one consider what I am now about to relate as a fable, but let him hold it as genuine fact. In my youth I had the good fortune to have the entrée of the house of an illustrious personage, whose lady was immeasurably learned in the hermetic science, and laboured at it along with her husband; with her I had the opportunity of discussing the primordial matter of universal substance, which the philosophers have veiled under enigma and fable. She boasted that she had learned the secret of this from an Italian Adeptus at Rome, and thereby she aroused my curiosity to hear what it was: although, at the time, I was by no means slightly acquainted with hermetic philosophy.

“Once, as I urgently besought her to do me the favour of disclosing to me this mystery, she began, after the manner of philosophers, to speak in similitude: she said the ens spirituale was that without which no man could exist. It was common to all, to rich and poor alike. Adam brought it with him out of Paradise, and in it lay a nourishing principle of life attenuated in water and exhaled in air. I will not refer to other enigmas, which she knew how to propound from the writings of philosophers.

“In order to make the matter more conclusive, she ordered to be brought from her cabinet a vessel containing cold water, which she held under my nose, telling me that it was the true subjectum of science, distilled, as one might conclude, from female exhalations, which Flamellus terms corporeal vapour. With this she roused to the highest pitch my anxiety to thoroughly sound the mystery, as I had already seen hints of these properties in the writings of Sandivogius and other philosophers. I did not fail to use my utmost persuasion on every available opportunity to penetrate the secret of this Lixivium microcosmi. At last the favour was accorded me, and I ascertained that this holy arcanum consisted in human breath, which was collected from this lady’s servant girls, and liquefied in glass instruments curved like trumpets. The water thus gathered was concentrated in retorts and other chymical apparatus, and was the very essence fixed of impalpable matter.

“By means of this discovery, life may be easily prolonged over a hundred years, for this vapour of breath collected from maidens in trumpets, when distilled, becomes an elixir of life, and by the copious use of this concentrated vitality steamed down to an essence, man becomes interpenetrated with living energy capable of resisting disease and repelling the inroads of age.”

If we consider that the substances we absorb into our bodies become part of ourselves, and that our systems are undergoing a perpetual assimilation of the particles taken into us and renovation thereby, so that every seven years we have totally changed our substance, it is evident that, in the words of a learned friend of Doctor Cohausen, “This entire Hermippus, since he lived over one hundred years, must have been completely composed of the transmutated breath and porous exhalations of little girls; so that his career must have closed by evaporation.”

It is certain that men can live a long time on what they inspire, without eating; for the famous laughing philosopher Democritus, who lived to a hundred and nine, when near his death observed that his sister was depressed, and on inquiring the cause, ascertained that she had anticipated great pleasure by attending an approaching festival of Ceres, but that she feared his death would render it an infringement of etiquette for her to be present at the public festivities. Democritus consoled her by promising to live over the day. And, in order to extend his life the required time, he ordered her to keep warm bread poultices under his nose, that by constantly inhaling the nourishing vapours he might be preserved. When the festival was over he ordered the bread pap to be removed, whereupon he gently expired.

Now, argues our doctor,—and this is a signal illustration of his method of drawing conclusions from insufficient premises,—if the vapour of bread could sustain the fleeting spirit of Democritus,—then the still more invigorating outbreathings of little maidens will prolong life indefinitely;—for only consider how much better are little girls than soft pap!

At the startling results of this discovery:—

Non parum mirantur physici;

therefore ye—

Posteri, sic vitam ducite!

THE BARONESS DE BEAUSOLEIL

“Madame de Beausoleil, astronomer and alchemist in the seventeenth century, who came from Germany to France in the exercise of her profession, was incarcerated at Vincennes in 1641, by order of Cardinal Richelieu; the date of her death is unknown.” Such is all that the great French biographical dictionaries have to say concerning a woman of surprising talent, indomitable perseverance, and a martyr of science. She was the first to draw attention to the mineral resources of France, and to indicate the profit which might accrue to the treasury by the working of the mines. And how did France repay her services? By despoiling her of her private wealth, by casting her into prison, and leaving her to perish forgotten in its dungeons. And even now her very name and services are passed over and ignored. A sad chapter is that in the history of science which relates the names of its martyrs, and records their services and the ingratitude and ignominy with which they have been repaid. Among these martyrs the good Baroness of Beausoleil deserves commemoration, and merits now the attention that the age in which she lived refused to yield to her.

The date and place of her birth cannot be fixed with accuracy; but, as a memoir published in 1640 says that for thirty years she had been engaged in mineralogical studies, it seems probable that she was born about 1590. She belonged to the noble family of Bertereau, in the Touraine; her Christian name was Martine. In 1610 she married Jean du Châtelet, Baron de Beausoleil and d’Auffenbach, a Brabantine nobleman of great learning and abilities. The Baron had borne arms in his youth, but his natural tastes lay in the direction of natural philosophy, and his attention was chiefly directed to mineralogy, then a science in its earliest infancy. Following the bent of his inclinations, and impelled by the desire of obtaining a practical acquaintance with the working of mines, and the character and conditions of the different metal ores in situ, he visited in order the mines of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Tyrol, Silesia, Moravia, Poland, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Scotland, and England. By this means he obtained a practical knowledge of his subject possessed by no other in his day, and an intimate acquaintance with ores and their indications, which made him the first of mineralogists. The German Emperors, Rudolph and Matthias, recognised his abilities, and constituted him Commissary-General of the Hungarian mines. The Archduke Leopold created him Director-in-Chief of the Trentin and Tyrolean mines, and the Dukes of Bavaria, Nieubourg, and Cleves conferred upon him similar offices in their territories; lastly, a brevet of like nature was given him by the Pope for the States of the Church. In 1600, at the recommendation of Pierre de Beringhen, Controller-General of the French mines, the Baron came to France.

Ten years after he married Martine de Bertereau, who thenceforth became his companion in all his travels, his fellow-labourer in the same field of science, and who even surpassed him in ability and skill in detecting the indications of ore. The couple examined together the German, Italian, and Swedish mines. She then crossed the Atlantic to investigate those of the New World. She next applied herself to the study of chemistry, geometry, hydraulics, and mechanics, and became accomplished in each of these sciences. She was able to speak fluently Italian, German, English, Spanish, French, and was a Latin and Hebrew scholar. In 1626, Cinq-Mars, then superintendent of the mines, gave the Baron a commission to traverse several of the provinces, and open mines wherever he found indications of ore. Whilst thus engaged, the Baron published a volume on The True Philosophy concerning the First Matter of Minerals, a work of no great value, as it is overloaded with the absurd theories of the metamorphosis of metals then in vogue.

The course of his investigations led him and his wife to Morlaix, in Brittany, and there, in 1627, an event took place which gave them considerable annoyance, as well as proving a severe pecuniary loss. The Baron was engaged in examining a mine in the forest of Buisson-Rochemarée, and his wife was at Rennes seeing to the registration of their commission. Taking advantage of the absence of both at the same time, a provincial provost, Touche-Grippé by name, of the race of Dogberry, made an entry into their house, under the plea of search after magical apparatus, for, as the provost said, “How can mortal man discover what is underground without diabolical aid?” On this pretext, then, the house was ransacked, and Dogberry laid violent hands on every article which aroused his curiosity or attracted his cupidity. The boxes were broken open, the cupboards burst into, the drawers searched, and gold, silver, jewels, mineralogical specimens, scientific instruments, legal documents, notes of observations made in the course of travel, every fragment of manuscript, private letters, and maps, were carried off by Touche-Grippé and appropriated to his own use.

On the return of the Baron and Baroness to Morlaix they found that, in addition to this robbery in the name of justice, a charge was laid against them of magic. They were constrained to appear before Touche-Grippé and a fellow-magistrate of like nature, and free themselves of the charge. They were allowed to depart exculpated, but without their property, which the magistrate refused to surrender. The Baron appealed to the Parliament of Brittany, but without obtaining any redress; he then applied to that of Paris, but Touche-Grippé had friends at court, and the appeal of the Baron was rejected. Twelve years after, in 1640, we find the Baroness still asking for redress, and still in vain.

The failure of the couple in obtaining any attention so irritated them that they left France and returned to Germany, which had always recognised their services, and treated them with the respect due to their abilities and attainments. Ferdinand II. at once placed the Baron de Beausoleil in charge of the Hungarian mines.

But, unfortunately, the nobleman and his wife were not content to remain in Germany, and after a few years resolved on trying their fortune once more in France. This time they determined on carrying on their operations upon a more extensive scale, and in 1632 they entered the kingdom of Louis XIII., accompanied by fifty German and ten Hungarian miners, together with private servants. The king at once renewed the commission given by Cinq-Mars in 1626, and the Baron commenced a series of explorations in Brittany and in the south of France. The Parliaments of Dijon and Pau having objected to the commission, the king issued an order to them to recognise the Baron and his wife, and to aid them in their search after minerals by affording them every facility which lay in their power. Notwithstanding this apparent royal support, the two mineralogists obtained no pecuniary assistance from Government, but were expected to carry on all their operations at their private expense. The maintenance of sixty miners, the prosecution of extensive works, and the travelling from province to province, could not fail to reduce the means of the couple very considerably. A little glory might accrue to them, but they were sure of becoming the objects of jealousy; they obtained praise from the king, but no money; and after having expended 30,000 livres—in fact, their whole fortune—they were as far from obtaining any pecuniary acknowledgment of their services as they were when first entering France. In 1632 the Baroness addressed a memoir to the king on the mineral treasures of the country; it was entitled, “Veritable Declarations made to the King and his Council of the rich and inestimable Treasures lately discovered in the Kingdom”; but as this met with no response, she reprinted it under the title “Veritable Declarations of the Discovery of Mines and Minerals in France, by means of which his Majesty and his subjects will be enabled to do without Foreign Mineral Trade; also concerning the Properties of Certain Sources and Mineral Waters lately discovered at Château-Thierry by Madame Martine de Bertereau, Baroness de Beausoleil.” In this interesting memoir one hundred and fifty mines are indicated as having been discovered by the Baron and his wife. The Government, satisfied of the value of the services of the two foreigners, but unwilling, for all that, to pay them, now, as acknowledgment, conferred on them a new brevet, giving them extended powers, and elevating the Baron to the grade of Inspector-General of all the mines in France. If glory alone could suffice as a reward to merit, the Baron du Châtelet and Madame de Bertereau must have felt content with the dignity now conferred upon them. But a glory which cost them their whole fortune, and which in no way repaid their labours, must have seemed to them a bitter deception.

Little by little the worthy couple had to reduce their retinue and to curtail their expenses, and after ten years of unrequited exertion in behalf of the crown, their train was scanty enough. However, their hopes were not yet exhausted, promises had been made to them of the most brilliant description, and they relied upon the honour of the French crown to redeem them.

In 1640 the Baroness appealed to Cardinal Richelieu in a pamphlet entitled “La Restitution de Pluton à l’Eminentissime Cardinal Duc de Richelieu,” a second title-page adds, “with a refutation of those who believe that mines and subterranean matters are only discovered by magic and by the aid of the devil.”

Whether the Cardinal read the memoir or not, we cannot say, but undoubtedly he perused the dedicatory epistle, or, at all events, the sonnet it contains, which sums up its flatteries and hyperbolic compliments.

Esprit prodigieux, chef-d’œuvre de nature,
Elixir épuré de tous les grands esprits,
Puisque vous conduisez notre bonne aventure
Arrêtez un peu l’œil sur ces divins écrits.

Ces écrits sont dressés pour une architecture,
Dont la sainte beauté vous rendra tout épris;
Le soleil et les cieux conduisent la structure,
Et vous, vous conduisez cet ouvrage entrepris.

La France et les Français vous demandent les mines;
L’or, l’argent, et l’azur, l’aimant, les calamines,
Sont des trésors cachés par l’esprit de Dieu.

Si vous autorisez ce que l’on vous propose,
Vous verrez, Monseigneur, que, sans métamorphose,
La France deviendra bientôt un Riche-Lieu.

The Restitution of Pluto is a book most interesting, not only on account of the erudition and rare acquaintance with natural philosophy which it displays, but also from the stately and vigorous writing of the authoress. It contains passages glowing with energy, and is composed in a style of dignified and manly eloquence. Maybe the publication of this work opened the eyes of the Cardinal to the fact that the State certainly was indebted to this illustrious couple for services gratuitously rendered during upwards of ten years. The most convenient method of paying them was that of silencing the voices which cried for acknowledgment, and thus stifling the claims on the royal exchequer. Slanderous reports were circulated relative to the Beausoleils, and they were accused of various crimes. The suspicion of magic, which had attached to them from the time of the inquisition of the provost of Morlaix, was revived, and the prejudices of the age tended to give it force to overthrow the noble pair. Old superstitions concerning gnomes of the mines and subterranean demons were not yet extinct. The Baroness herself believed in them, and in one of her works speaks of her having encountered some of them. In the mines of Neusol and Chemnitz in Hungary, she says, “I saw little dwarfs about three or four palms high, old, and dressed like miners, that is, clothed in an old suit, and with a leather apron, a white tunic and cap, a lamp and staff in hand—terrible spectres to those who are unaccustomed to mines.” Several times already, as appears from her writings, she and her husband had been exposed to the violence of the rude and ignorant rustics, who thought their scientific instruments means for conjuring up the devil, and the authorities were, as we have seen at Morlaix, quite prepared to second the popular superstition when profit could be obtained thereby. The divining rod, then much in vogue in Germany, was used by the Baron and his wife, who had strong belief in its magnetic properties, and the employment of it may have given some colour to the charges now raised against them on all sides of being necromancers in league with evil spirits.

In 1642, by order of Cardinal Richelieu, the Baron de Beausoleil was cast into the Bastille, and the Baroness was shut up in the state prison of Vincennes, without trial and sentence. Thus, after forty years of labour together in the same pursuits, in the same manner of life, in the decline of their days this worthy couple were separated, to spend the rest of their life in prison. Such was the reward accorded to them for their devotion to the cause of science, and the recompense for the benefits they had afforded to France.

The Baroness died in the prison of Vincennes. The date of her death is unknown, but probably it was not long deferred. Her ardent soul would not long endure the torture of imprisonment, and the sorrows of finding all her labours repaid with ingratitude. Her husband died in the Bastille after lingering for three years behind bars.

One last glimpse of the noble woman we obtain from the Mémoires de Lancelot touchant la vie de M. de Saint-Cyran. The Abbé de Saint-Cyran was shut up in Vincennes in 1638 as a Jansenist. On the 14th of May in that year he was arrested by Richelieu, who then made use of the remarkable words, “Had Luther and Calvin been imprisoned the moment they began to dogmatise, Government would have been spared much trouble.” Saint-Cyran remained in Vincennes till 1642. He died the next year. During his imprisonment he observed in church the Baroness de Beausoleil and her daughter, prisoners like himself. Touched with the scantiness of their clothing, he endeavoured to procure for them the dresses which they needed, and those necessaries which the sickness of the noble lady demanded. The following are the words of the memoir:—“Whilst M. de Saint-Cyran was in Vincennes he met a lady named the Baroness de Beausoleil, who was there with her daughter, whilst her husband was prisoner in the Bastille. Seeing her in church, poorly clad, he made inquiries about her, and sent to Madame le Maître, telling her whom he had seen, and begging her to purchase some chemises for this person, expressly desiring that they might be long, for nothing escaped his charity, and also that the material should be good. When they had been sent, it was ascertained that what had been made for the mother would only fit the daughter, and he gave them to the latter, and ordered fresh ones for the mother. Afterwards he requested to have fustian under-garments, shoes and stockings, sent to them according to measures which he procured, and also after the fashion of the day.

“At the approach of winter he wrote to say that he found that the lady was menaced with dropsy, and that she was extremely sensitive to cold. He therefore begged the person I have mentioned to make for her a dress of thick ratteen, of the best description, and trimmed with black lace, because he heard that such was the fashion, and he added that his maxim was, that people should be served according to their rank. He also had a gown made for the daughter.... He also sent to the Bastille to have the husband well dressed; and I know that the person who brought the tailor to him asked him to choose his material and the trimmings, for he had orders to have him dressed as suited his taste.”

In Saint-Cyran’s own letters we find additional details, very sad they are, but full of interest to those who have followed this worthy couple through their labours into disgrace.

“This letter,” writes the Abbé to his friend M. de Rebours, “is to entreat you, at your convenience, to execute with the utmost secrecy, without allowing it to transpire who sends you and who you are who make the inquiries, a work of great charity upon which I am engaged. There is a person imprisoned here who is the authoress of the book I send you; will you kindly go to M. Maréchal, glassmaker, and consequently a gentleman, and inquire what has become of the children of the Baroness de Beausoleil, a German lady; and lest he should mistrust you, say you do it in charity; and should he still have suspicions, promise him any token of sincerity which he may require. He lives near the House of Charity in the Faubourg St. Germain. Perhaps you had better inquire at the House of Charity for M. Maréchal, and of the girl named Madlle. Barbe, with whom the Baron de Beausoleil, now in the Bastille, and his wife, now here in prison, had left one of their daughters, named Anne du Châtelet, aged twelve, whom her mother had instructed in Latin, so as to make her useful in the search after mines, a science hereditary in the family. By this means you may be able to learn what has become of the other children.

“If you know yourself, or by any of your friends, M. Maturel, advocate, or his brother, who favoured these good people, and who know all their affairs, and are aware of all the circumstances of the robbery committed upon them in Brittany, and estimated at a hundred thousand crowns, you will obtain their entire confidence, and be able to learn what has become of the children. This must be done with the utmost circumspection. You must say that your friends, who lived formerly in Paris, want to know particulars of the family. The eldest son, having gone to the Bastille without proper precautions, to make inquiries concerning his father, was arrested. But we desire to learn something about the other children, some five or six, and who has got charge of them.... What a strange thing it is, that there is no surer means of falling into trouble than to love the faith and Catholic verity.”

Such is the last glimpse we obtain of this unfortunate family. Two noble and devoted servants of science cast into dungeons, and their children scattered or imprisoned—because they served the State too well.

On the 4th of December 1642 Richelieu was called to his account before the throne of a just Judge, to answer for that as well as his other crimes; and in another century the accursed Bastille was torn down stone from stone by an exasperated people and laid low in the dust, never to rise again.