ABBAS BEATI MARTINI.

Dom Claude's fame had spread far and wide. It procured for him, at about the epoch

when he refused to see Madame de Beaujeu, a visit which he long remembered.

It was in the evening.

He had just retired, after the office, to his canon's cell in the cloister of Notre-

Dame.

This cell, with the exception, possibly, of some glass phials, relegated to a corner,

and filled with a decidedly equivocal powder, which strongly resembled the

alchemist's "powder of projection," presented nothing strange or mysterious.

There were, indeed, here and there, some inscriptions on the walls, but they were

pure sentences of learning and piety, extracted from good authors.

The archdeacon had just seated himself, by the light of a three-jetted copper lamp,

before a vast coffer crammed with manuscripts.

He had rested his elbow upon the open volume of Honorius d'Autun, De

predestinatione et libero arbitrio, and he was turning over, in deep meditation, the

leaves of a printed folio which he had just

brought, the sole product of the press which his cell contained.

In the midst of his revery there came a knock at his door.

"Who's there?" cried the learned man, in the gracious tone of a famished dog,

disturbed over his bone. A voice without replied, "Your friend,

Jacques Coictier."

He went to open the door. It was, in fact, the king's physician; a

person about fifty years of age, whose harsh physiognomy was modified only by a

crafty eye.

Another man accompanied him. Both wore long slate-colored robes, furred

with minever, girded and closed, with caps of the same stuff and hue.

Their hands were concealed by their sleeves, their feet by their robes, their

eyes by their caps.

"God help me, messieurs!" said the archdeacon, showing them in; "I was not

expecting distinguished visitors at such an hour."

And while speaking in this courteous fashion he cast an uneasy and scrutinizing

glance from the physician to his companion.

"'Tis never too late to come and pay a visit to so considerable a learned man as

Dom Claude Frollo de Tirechappe," replied Doctor Coictier, whose Franche-Comte accent

made all his phrases drag along with the majesty of a train-robe.

There then ensued between the physician and the archdeacon one of those congratulatory

prologues which, in accordance with custom, at that epoch preceded all conversations

between learned men, and which did not

prevent them from detesting each other in the most cordial manner in the world.

However, it is the same nowadays; every wise man's mouth complimenting another wise

man is a vase of honeyed gall.

Claude Frollo's felicitations to Jacques Coictier bore reference principally to the

temporal advantages which the worthy physician had found means to extract, in

the course of his much envied career, from

each malady of the king, an operation of alchemy much better and more certain than

the pursuit of the philosopher's stone.

"In truth, Monsieur le Docteur Coictier, I felt great joy on learning of the bishopric

given your nephew, my reverend seigneur Pierre Verse.

Is he not Bishop of Amiens?"

"Yes, monsieur Archdeacon; it is a grace and mercy of God."

"Do you know that you made a great figure on Christmas Day at the bead of your

company of the chamber of accounts, Monsieur President?"

"Vice-President, Dom Claude.

Alas! nothing more." "How is your superb house in the Rue Saint-

Andre des Arcs coming on? 'Tis a Louvre.

I love greatly the apricot tree which is carved on the door, with this play of

words: 'A L'ABRI-COTIER--Sheltered from reefs.'"

"Alas!

Master Claude, all that masonry costeth me dear.

In proportion as the house is erected, I am ruined."

"Ho! have you not your revenues from the jail, and the bailiwick of the Palais, and

the rents of all the houses, sheds, stalls, and booths of the enclosure?

'Tis a fine breast to suck."

"My castellany of Poissy has brought me in nothing this year."

"But your tolls of Triel, of Saint-James, of Saint-Germainen-Laye are always good."

"Six score livres, and not even Parisian livres at that."

"You have your office of counsellor to the king.

That is fixed."

"Yes, brother Claude; but that accursed seigneury of Poligny, which people make so

much noise about, is worth not sixty gold crowns, year out and year in."

In the compliments which Dom Claude addressed to Jacques Coictier, there was

that sardonical, biting, and covertly mocking accent, and the sad cruel smile of

a superior and unhappy man who toys for a

moment, by way of distraction, with the dense prosperity of a vulgar man.

The other did not perceive it.

"Upon my soul," said Claude at length, pressing his hand, "I am glad to see you

and in such good health." "Thanks, Master Claude."

"By the way," exclaimed Dom Claude, "how is your royal patient?"

"He payeth not sufficiently his physician," replied the doctor, casting a side glance

at his companion.

"Think you so, Gossip Coictier," said the latter.

These words, uttered in a tone of surprise and reproach, drew upon this unknown

personage the attention of the archdeacon which, to tell the truth, had not been

diverted from him a single moment since the

stranger had set foot across the threshold of his cell.

It had even required all the thousand reasons which he had for handling tenderly

Doctor Jacques Coictier, the all-powerful physician of King Louis XI., to induce him

to receive the latter thus accompanied.

Hence, there was nothing very cordial in his manner when Jacques Coictier said to

him,--

"By the way, Dom Claude, I bring you a colleague who has desired to see you on

account of your reputation."

"Monsieur belongs to science?" asked the archdeacon, fixing his piercing eye upon

Coictier's companion.

He found beneath the brows of the stranger a glance no less piercing or less

distrustful than his own.

He was, so far as the feeble light of the lamp permitted one to judge, an old man

about sixty years of age and of medium stature, who appeared somewhat sickly and

broken in health.

His profile, although of a very ordinary outline, had something powerful and severe

about it; his eyes sparkled beneath a very deep superciliary arch, like a light in the

depths of a cave; and beneath his cap which

was well drawn down and fell upon his nose, one recognized the broad expanse of a brow

of genius. He took it upon himself to reply to the

archdeacon's question,--

"Reverend master," he said in a grave tone, "your renown has reached my ears, and I

wish to consult you.

I am but a poor provincial gentleman, who removeth his shoes before entering the

dwellings of the learned. You must know my name.

I am called Gossip Tourangeau."

"Strange name for a gentleman," said the archdeacon to himself.

Nevertheless, he had a feeling that he was in the presence of a strong and earnest

character.

The instinct of his own lofty intellect made him recognize an intellect no less

lofty under Gossip Tourangeau's furred cap, and as he gazed at the solemn face, the

ironical smile which Jacques Coictier's

presence called forth on his gloomy face, gradually disappeared as twilight fades on

the horizon of night.

Stern and silent, he had resumed his seat in his great armchair; his elbow rested as

usual, on the table, and his brow on his hand.

After a few moments of reflection, he motioned his visitors to be seated, and,

turning to Gossip Tourangeau he said,-- "You come to consult me, master, and upon

what science?"

"Your reverence," replied Tourangeau, "I am ill, very ill.

You are said to be great AEsculapius, and I am come to ask your advice in medicine."

"Medicine!" said the archdeacon, tossing his head.

He seemed to meditate for a moment, and then resumed: "Gossip Tourangeau, since

that is your name, turn your head, you will find my reply already written on the wall."

Gossip Tourangeau obeyed, and read this inscription engraved above his head:

"Medicine is the daughter of dreams.-- JAMBLIQUE."

Meanwhile, Doctor Jacques Coictier had heard his companion's question with a

displeasure which Dom Claude's response had but redoubled.

He bent down to the ear of Gossip Tourangeau, and said to him, softly enough

not to be heard by the archdeacon: "I warned you that he was mad.

You insisted on seeing him."

"'Tis very possible that he is right, madman as he is, Doctor Jacques," replied

his comrade in the same low tone, and with a bitter smile.

"As you please," replied Coictier dryly.

Then, addressing the archdeacon: "You are clever at your trade, Dom Claude, and you

are no more at a loss over Hippocrates than a monkey is over a nut.

Medicine a dream!

I suspect that the pharmacopolists and the master physicians would insist upon stoning

you if they were here. So you deny the influence of philtres upon

the blood, and unguents on the skin!

You deny that eternal pharmacy of flowers and metals, which is called the world, made

expressly for that eternal invalid called man!"

"I deny," said Dom Claude coldly, "neither pharmacy nor the invalid.

I reject the physician."

"Then it is not true," resumed Coictier hotly, "that gout is an internal eruption;

that a wound caused by artillery is to be cured by the application of a young mouse

roasted; that young blood, properly

injected, restores youth to aged veins; it is not true that two and two make four, and

that emprostathonos follows opistathonos."

The archdeacon replied without perturbation: "There are certain things of

which I think in a certain fashion." Coictier became crimson with anger.

"There, there, my good Coictier, let us not get angry," said Gossip Tourangeau.

"Monsieur the archdeacon is our friend." Coictier calmed down, muttering in a low

tone,--

"After all, he's mad." "Pasque-dieu, Master Claude," resumed

Gossip Tourangeau, after a silence, "You embarrass me greatly.

I had two things to consult you upon, one touching my health and the other touching

my star."

"Monsieur," returned the archdeacon, "if that be your motive, you would have done as

well not to put yourself out of breath climbing my staircase.

I do not believe in Medicine.

I do not believe in Astrology." "Indeed!" said the man, with surprise.

Coictier gave a forced laugh. "You see that he is mad," he said, in a low

tone, to Gossip Tourangeau.

"He does not believe in astrology." "The idea of imagining," pursued Dom

Claude, "that every ray of a star is a thread which is fastened to the head of a

man!"

"And what then, do you believe in?" exclaimed Gossip Tourangeau.

The archdeacon hesitated for a moment, then he allowed a gloomy smile to escape, which

seemed to give the lie to his response: "Credo in Deum."

"Dominum nostrum," added Gossip Tourangeau, making the sign of the cross.

"Amen," said Coictier.

"Reverend master," resumed Tourangeau, "I am charmed in soul to see you in such a

religious frame of mind.

But have you reached the point, great savant as you are, of no longer believing

in science?"

"No," said the archdeacon, grasping the arm of Gossip Tourangeau, and a ray of

enthusiasm lighted up his gloomy eyes, "no, I do not reject science.

I have not crawled so long, flat on my belly, with my nails in the earth, through

the innumerable ramifications of its caverns, without perceiving far in front of

me, at the end of the obscure gallery, a

light, a flame, a something, the reflection, no doubt, of the dazzling

central laboratory where the patient and the wise have found out God."

"And in short," interrupted Tourangeau, "what do you hold to be true and certain?"

"Alchemy."

Coictier exclaimed, "Pardieu, Dom Claude, alchemy has its use, no doubt, but why

blaspheme medicine and astrology?"

"Naught is your science of man, naught is your science of the stars," said the

archdeacon, commandingly. "That's driving Epidaurus and Chaldea very

fast," replied the physician with a grin.

"Listen, Messire Jacques. This is said in good faith.

I am not the king's physician, and his majesty has not given me the Garden of

Daedalus in which to observe the constellations.

Don't get angry, but listen to me.

What truth have you deduced, I will not say from medicine, which is too foolish a

thing, but from astrology?

Cite to me the virtues of the vertical boustrophedon, the treasures of the number

ziruph and those of the number zephirod!"

"Will you deny," said Coictier, "the sympathetic force of the collar bone, and

the cabalistics which are derived from it?" "An error, Messire Jacques!

None of your formulas end in reality.

Alchemy on the other hand has its discoveries.

Will you contest results like this?

Ice confined beneath the earth for a thousand years is transformed into rock

crystals. Lead is the ancestor of all metals.

For gold is not a metal, gold is light.

Lead requires only four periods of two hundred years each, to pass in succession