nce.

Of Hippolyte Ballet Dr. Castaing had become the fast friend. Apart
from his personal liking for Castaing, it was a source of comfort to
Hippolyte, in his critical state of health, to have as his friend one
whose medical knowledge was always at his service.

About the middle of August, 1822, Hippolyte, on the advice of his
doctors, went to Enghien to take the waters. There Castaing paid him
frequent visits. He returned to Paris on September 22, and seemed to
have benefited greatly by the cure. On Tuesday, October 1, he saw his
sister, Mme. Martignon, and her husband; he seemed well, but said that
he was having leeches applied to him by his friend Castaing. On the
Wednesday evening his sister saw him again, and found him well and with
a good appetite. On the Thursday, after a night disturbed by severe
attacks of vomiting, his condition seemed serious. His brother-in-law,
who visited him, found that he had taken to his bed, his face was
swollen, his eyes were red. His sister called in the evening, but could
not see him. The servants told her that her brother was a little better
but resting, and that he did not wish to be disturbed; they said that
Dr. Castaing had been with him all day.

On Friday Castaing himself called on the Martignons, and told them that
Hippolyte had passed a shockingly bad night. Madame Martignon insisted
on going to nurse her brother herself, but Castaing refused positively
to let her see him; the sight of her, he said, would be too agitating
to the patient. Later in the day Mme. Martignon went to her brother's
house. In order to obey Dr. Castaing's injunctions, she dressed herself
in some of the clothes of the servant Victoire, in the hope that if she
went into his bedroom thus disguised, Hippolyte would not recognise her.
But even this subterfuge was forbidden by Castaing, and Mme. Martignon
had to content herself with listening in an adjoining room for the sound
of her brother's voice. At eight o'clock that evening the Martignons
learnt that Hippolyte was better, but at ten o'clock they received a
message that he was dying, and that his brother Auguste had been sent
for. Mme. Martignon was prostrated with grief, but her husband hastened
to his brother-in-law's house. There he found Castaing, who said that
the death agony of his friend was so dreadful that he had not the
strength to remain in the room with the dying man. Another doctor was
sent for, but at ten o'clock the following morning,