cell, lest his disorder should infect the rest, and there kept him until
we could dismiss him to his friends--for with the raging maniac we have
nothing to do. He is usually removed to the public hospitals."

"And you have now changed all this--and you think for the better?"

"Decidedly. The system had its disadvantages, and even its dangers.
It is now, happily, exploded throughout all the Maisons de Sante of
France."

"I am very much surprised," I said, "at what you tell me; for I made
sure that, at this moment, no other method of treatment for mania
existed in any portion of the country."

"You are young yet, my friend," replied my host, "but the time will
arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in
the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you
hear, and only one-half that you see. Now about our Maisons de Sante, it
is clear that some ignoramus has misled you. After dinner, however, when
you have sufficiently recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be
happy to take you over the house, and introduce to you a system which,
in my opinion, and in that of every one who has witnessed its operation,
is incomparably the most effectual as yet devised."

"Your own?" I inquired--"one of your own invention?"

"I am proud," he replied, "to acknowledge that it is--at least in some
measure."

In this manner I conversed with Monsieur Maillard for an hour or two,
during which he showed me the gardens and conservatories of the place.

"I cannot let you see my patients," he said, "just at present. To a
sensitive mind there is always more or less of the shocking in such
exhibitions; and I do not wish to spoil your appetite for dinner. We
will dine. I can give you some veal a la Menehoult, with cauliflowers in
veloute sauce--after that a glass of Clos de Vougeot--then your nerves
will be sufficiently steadied."

At six, dinner was announced; and my host conducted me into a
large salle a manger, where a very numerous company were
assembled--twenty-five or thirty in all. They were, apparently, people
of rank-certainly of high breeding--although their habiliments, I
thought, were extravagantly rich, partaking somewhat too much of
the ostentatious finery of the vielle cour. I noticed that at least
two-thirds of these guests were ladies; and some of the latter were by
no means accoutred in what a Parisian would consider good taste at the
present day. Many females, for exa