REPORT ON THE HOSPITALS. 163 



queen, Marie Antoinette: "Madam, if I came not yes- 

 terday to Versailles, it was because I was attending the 

 lying-in of a peasant, who was in the greatest danger. 

 Your Majesty errs, however, in supposing that I neglect 

 the Dauphin for the poor ; I have hitherto treated the 

 young child with as much attention and care as if he 

 had been the son of one of your grooms." 



Preference was granted to the most suffering, to those 

 in most danger, disregarding rank and fortune ; such 

 was, you see, Gentlemen, the sublime rule of the French 

 Medical Corps ; and such is still its gospel. I want no 

 other proof of it than those admirable words addressed 

 by our fellow labourer Larrey, to his friend Tanchou, 

 when wounded at the Battle of Montmirail : " Your 

 wound is slight, sir; we have only room and straw in 

 this ambulance for serious wounds. They will take you 

 into that stable." 



The medical corps could not, therefore, with any rea- 

 son be accused or suspected in regard to the old Hotel 

 Dieu of Paris. 



If economy be invoked, I find an answer quite a-pro- 

 pos in Bailly : the daily allowance for the patients at the 

 Hotel Dieu was notably higher than in other establish- 

 ments in the capital more charitably organized. 



Would any one go so far as to assert that the sick con- 

 demned to seek refuge in the hospitals, having their sen- 

 sibilities blunted by labour, by misery, by their daily 

 sufferings, would but faintly feel the effects of the horri- 

 ble arrangements that the old Hotel Dieu revealed to all 

 clear-sighted people ? I will quote from the report of 

 our colleague ; u The maladies continue nearly double 

 the time at the Hotel Dieu, compared with those at the 

 Charite : the mortality there is also nearly double ! . . . . 



