TH'.: -MASS Ol- THE ATHEIST. 441 



nor aserinoniser. An oath itself might slip fromliiin with the most un- 

 equivocal good-will, in the very midst of giving a good counsel. He 

 was willing enough to make one in a party of pleasure or a frolic, 

 when an opportunity jiresenled itself. He was a joyous boon com- 

 panion, no more prudish than a cuirassier going roundly and frankly. 

 Not like a sailor, for the sailor of our days is a cunning diplomatist ;* 

 but like a gallant young fellow who, having notiiing to disguise, 

 marches on with a head erect and a light heart. In line, to sum up 

 all at once, Horace was the Pylades of more than one Orestes, cre- 

 ditors being considered in our days as the figure most approaching to 

 the thing figured, of the furies of the ancients. He supported his 

 poverty with that gaiety which is perhaps one of the noblest ele- 

 ments of resolution ; and, like all those who hcwe nothing, contracted 

 few debts. He was sober as a camel, alert as a deer, firm above 

 all things in his ideas and in his conduct. Bianchon's success in life 

 began on the same day in which the illustrious surgeon acquired the 

 proof of the good qualities and the defects which the one as well as 

 the other rendered the doctor Bianchon doubly precious. When a 

 clinical leader takes a young man under his wing, the young man's for- 

 tune is made. Desplein failed not to take Bianchon with him as his as- 

 sistant in many rich families, where it almost always happened that 

 some good sum found its way to the pocket of the in-door hospital- 

 student, and where were revealed to the provincial, by insensible 

 degrees, the mysteries of Parisian life. Desplein retained him in 

 his study during his consultations, and employed him there ; and 

 then he took opportunities of sending him to the different watering 

 places as medical attendant upon some rich invalid ordered to try 

 the mineral springs. In short, he was preparing him a connection. 



The result of this was that, at the end of a certain time, the Ma- 

 homet of .Sui-gery had a Seide. These two men, the one at the sum- 

 mit of honours and of his art, in the enjoyment of an immense for- 

 tune and an immense reputation ; the other, the modest, unpretend- 

 ing Omega, possessing neither fortune nor fame, became intimate. 

 The great Desplein concealed nothing from his in-door pupil: the 

 pupil knew whether such or such a lady had been seated in a chaise 

 at the side of the master, or upon the famous sofa in Desplein's 

 closet, and which served him as a bed. Bianchon knew the mysteries 

 of this temperament composed of the lion and the bull, which ended 

 l)y enlarging, amplifying beyond measure, the bust of the great 

 man, and caused his death, by the too great development of the heart. 

 lie studied the contradictions of this existence, so busily occupied. 

 Bianchon having said one day to Desplein that a poor water-carrier 

 in the quartier Saint Jacques was labouring under a horrible malady, 

 caused by fatigue and privations — for the poor Auvergnatf had tasted 

 nothing more nourisliing than potatoes during the terrible winter 

 of 1824 — Desplein left all his sick, and, at the risk of killing his horse, 



• This applies, I presume, solely to tlie French marine. Our own Jack Tars carry 

 their hliml honesty (a part of themselves) with them wherever tiiey go, as a matter 

 of necessity from its lioin()<jeneity ; witness the hito Lord Kxinoiith on the Queen's 

 (Caroline) trial, and the late Sir .fosepli Yorke in the Mouse of Coiiunons. 



t Native of the province of Auverfnc. 



