CHAPTER 43
Guenaud
The cardinal's order was pressing; Guenaud quickly obeyed
it. He found his patient stretched on his bed, his legs
swelled, his face livid, and his stomach collapsed. Mazarin
had a severe attack of gout. He suffered tortures with the
impatience of a man who has not been accustomed to
resistances. On seeing Guenaud: "Ah!" said he; "now I am
saved!"
Guenaud was a very learned and circumspect man, who stood in
no need of the critiques of Boileau to obtain a reputation.
When facing a disease, if it were personified in a king, he
treated the patient as a Turk treats a Moor. He did not,
therefore, reply to Mazarin as the minister expected: "Here
is the doctor; good-bye disease!" On the contrary, on
examining his patient, with a very serious air:
"Oh! oh!" said he.
"Eh! what! Guenaud! How you look at me!"
"I look as I should on seeing your complaint, my lord; it is
a very dangerous one."
"The gout -- oh! yes, the gout."
"With complications, my lord"
Mazarin raised himself upon his elbow, and, questioning by
look and gesture: "What do you mean by that? Am I worse than
I believe myself to be?"
"My lord," said Guenaud, seating himself beside the bed,
"your eminence has worked very hard during your life; your
eminence has suffered much."
"But I am not old, I fancy. The late M. de Richelieu was but
seventeen months younger than I am when he died, and died of
a mortal disease. I am young, Guenaud: remember, I am
scarcely fifty-two."
"Oh! my lord, you are much more than that. How long did the
Fronde last?"
"For what purpose do you put such a question to me?"
"For a medical calculation, monseigneur."
"Well, some ten years -- off and on."
"Very well, be kind enough to reckon every year of the
Fronde as three years -- that makes thirty; now twenty and
fifty-two makes seventy-two years. You are seventy-two, my
lord; and that is a great age."
Whilst saying this, he felt the pulse of his patient. This
pulse was full of such fatal indications, that the physician
continued, notwithstanding the interruptions of the patient:
"Put down the years of the Fronde at four each, and you have
lived eighty-two years."
"Are you speaking seriously, Guenaud?"
"Alas! yes, monseigneur."
"You take a roundabout way, then, to inform me that I am
very ill?"
"Ma foi! yes, my lord, and with a man of the mind and
courage of your eminence, it ought not to be necessary to
do."
The cardinal breathed with such difficulty that he inspired
pity even in a pitiless physician. "There are diseases and
diseases," resumed Mazarin. "From some of them people
escape."
"That is true, my lord."
"Is it not?" cried Mazarin, almost joyously; "for, in short,
what else would be the use of power, of strength of will?
What would the use of genius be -- your genius, Guenaud?
What would be the use of science and art, if the patient,
who disposes of all that, cannot be saved from peril?"
Guenaud was about to open his mouth, but Mazarin continued:
"Remember," said he, "I am the most confiding of your
patients; remember I obey you blindly, and that consequently
---- "
"I know all that," said Guenaud.
"I shall be cured, then?"
"Monseigneur, there is neither strength of will, nor power,
nor genius, nor science that can resist a disease which God
doubtless sends, or which He casts upon the earth at the
creation, with full power to destroy and kill mankind. When
the disease is mortal, it kills, and nothing can ---- "
"Is -- my -- disease -- mortal?" asked Mazarin.
"Yes, my lord."
His eminence sank down for a moment, like an unfortunate
wretch who is crushed by a falling column. But the spirit of
Mazarin was a strong one, or rather his mind was a firm one.
"Guenaud," said he, recovering from his first shock, "you
will permit me to appeal from your judgment. I will call
together the most learned men of Europe: I will consult
them. I will live, in short, by the virtue of I care not
what remedy."
"My lord must not suppose," said Guenaud, "that I have the
presumption to pronounce alone upon an existence so valuable
as yours. I have already assembled all the good physicians
and practitioners of France and Europe. There were twelve of
them."
"And they said ---- "
"They said that your eminence was suffering from a mortal
disease; I have the consultation signed in my portfolio. If
your eminence will please to see it, you will find the names
of all the incurable diseases we have met with. There is
first ---- "
"No, no!" cried Mazarin, pushing away the paper. "No, no,
Guenaud, I yield! I yield!" And a profound silence, during
which the cardinal resumed his senses and recovered his
strength, succeeded to the agitation of this scene. "There
is another thing," murmured Mazarin; "there are empirics and
charlatans. In my country, those whom physicians abandon run
the chance of a quack, who kills them ten times but saves
them a hundred times."
"Has not your eminence observed, that during the last month
I have changed my remedies ten times?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I have spent fifty thousand crowns in purchasing the
secrets of all these fellows: the list is exhausted, and so
is my purse. You are not cured; and but for my art, you
would be dead."
"That ends it!" murmured the cardinal; "that ends it." And
he threw a melancholy look upon the riches which surrounded
him. "And must I quit all that?" sighed he. "I am dying,
Guenaud! I am dying!"
"Oh! not yet, my lord," said the physician.
Mazarin seized his hand. "In what time?" asked he, fixing
his two large eyes upon the impassible countenance of the
physician.
"My lord, we never tell that."
"To ordinary men, perhaps not; -- but to me -- to me, whose
every minute is worth a treasure. Tell me, Guenaud, tell
me!"
"No, no, my lord."
"I insist upon it, I tell you. Oh! give me a month and for
every one of those thirty days I will pay you a hundred
thousand crowns."
"My lord," replied Guenaud, in a firm voice, "it is God who
can give you days of grace, and not I. God only allows you a
fortnight."
The cardinal breathed a painful sigh, and sank back upon his
pillow, murmuring, "Thank you, Guenaud, thank you!"
The physician was about to depart; the dying man, raising
himself up: "Silence!" said he, with flaming eyes,
"silence!"
"My lord, I have known this secret two months; you see that
I have kept it faithfully."
"Go, Guenaud, I will take care of your fortunes, go and tell
Brienne to send me a clerk called M. Colbert. Go!"
