THE FRENCH CONVULSlVES. 53 



Toward the close of October, 1799, two young assistant surgeons, 

 on their route to join the army of Augereau, then stationed on the 

 Rhine, arrive in the evening at an inn, in the little town of Andernech. 

 While they are regaling themselves at supper, and talking over the 

 scenes they have left behind them, with the gaiety and insouciante 

 characteristic of the French soldier, they are joined by a new comer, 

 in the person of a German merchant, who, it appeared, had been 

 obliged to fly from the devastation of the invading army. The stranger 

 seemed particularly careful of his valise ; and, as the wine circulates, 

 won by the frank and generous demeanour of the young soldiers, he 

 declares his satisfaction at meeting with the protection of their com- 

 pany, as he has a hundred thousand francs, together with diamonds, 

 in his valise. They retire to rest, and all sleep soundly, except Prosper 

 Magnan, one of the surgeons, who is troubled with an unaccountable 

 fit of insomnolency. When his thoughts insensibly took a bad direc- 

 tion, and could think on nothing but the sum of money beneath the 

 pillow of the sleeping merchant. 



To him a hundred thousand francs seemed an immense fortune, 

 ready made. He began by laying them out in a variety of ways, 

 building castles in Spain, as we all delight to do during those mo- 

 ments preceding sleep, at that hour when the intellect produces a 

 confusion of images, and when, from the silence of the night, our 

 imagination acquires a magic power. He fulfilled the wishes of his 

 mother ; he purchased the thirty acres of land ; he married a young 

 girl of Beauvais, to whom the disproportion of their fortunes had 

 hitherto forbidden him to aspire. With this sum he laid out for him- 

 self an entire life of enjoyment, and beheld himself rich, happy, the 

 father of a family, considered in his province, and, it might be, Maire 

 of Beauvais. As his Picardish head grew inflamed, he sought the 

 means of changing his fictions into realities. He used extraordinary 

 warmth in combining a crime in theory ; and while imagining the 

 death of the merchant, the gold and the diamonds were distinctly be- 

 fore his eyes. He was dazzled by them, his heart beat quickly .-J- 

 Perhaps deliberation was already a crime. Fascinated by that heap 

 of gold, he grew morally intoxicated by the reasonings of the assassin. 

 He asked himself, if that poor German had really any need of living ? 

 He supposed that he had never existed. To be brief, he conceived 

 the crime, so as to insure its impunity. 



He rises, opens the windows, and disposes every thing for the com- 

 mission of the dark deed. But as he is in the act of raising his arm 

 for its accomplishment, he heard, as it were, a voice within him, and 

 thought he beheld a light ; so that he flings down the instrument, and 

 retires. A complete reaction takes place within him ; and, fearing to 

 yield to the powerful fascination to which he was a victim, he jumps 

 from the window, and, after fatiguing himself by walking backwards 

 and forwards, returns to bed, thanking God for his deliverance. On 

 awaking in the morning he beheld the murdered merchant by his 

 side ; and as he gazed upon his fixed and staring eyes, and on the 

 blood which had soiled his own hands and clothes, and as he recog- 

 nized his surgical instrument lying on the bed, he fainted away, and 

 fell amid the blood of the merchant. Recollecting the horrible temp- 



