nineteenth-century can such horrors be revived?" said the
great doctor.

"Madame Graslin has never allowed me to touch her stomach," said
Roubaud. "I have been able to judge of the progress of the disease only
from her face and her pulse, and the little information I could get from
her mother and the maid."

Veronique was now placed on a sofa while the bed was being made. The
doctors spoke together in a low voice. Madame Sauviat and Aline made the
bed. The faces of the two women were full of anguish; their hearts were
wrung by the thought, "We are making her bed for the last time--she will
die here!"

The consultation was not long. But Bianchon exacted at the outset that
Aline should, in spite of the patient's resistance, cut off the hair
shirt and put on a night-dress. The doctors returned to the salon while
this was being done. When Aline passed them carrying the instrument of
torture wrapped in a napkin, she said:--

"Madame's body is one great wound."

The doctors returned to the bedroom.

"Your will is stronger than that of Napoleon, madame," said Bianchon,
after asking a few questions, to which Veronique replied very clearly.
"You keep your mind and your faculties in the last stages of a disease
which robbed the Emperor of his brilliant intellect. From what I know of
you I think I ought to tell you the truth."

"I implore you to do so," she said. "You are able to estimate what
strength remains to me; and I have need of all my vigor for a few
hours."

"Think only of your salvation," replied Bianchon.

"If God has given me grace to die in possession of all my faculties,"
she said with a celestial smile, "be sure that this favor will be used
to the glory of his Church. The possession of my mind and senses is
necessary to fulfil a command of God, whereas Napoleon had accomplished
all his destiny."

The doctors looked at each other in astonishment at hearing these words,
said with as much ease as though Madame Graslin were still presiding in
her salon.

"Ah! here is the doctor who is to cure me," she said presently, when the
archbishop, summoned by Roubaud, entered the room.

She collected all her strength and rose to a sitting posture, in order
to bow graciously to Monsieur Bianchon, and beg him to accept something
else than money for the good news he gave her. She said a few words in
her mother's ear, and Madame Sauviat immediately led away the doctors;
then Veronique requested the archbishop to postp