man’s body, and some in his mind.  His ideas were living things, which were born, grew up, and died.  They were ill and well, lively, sorrowful; and in short had each their own characteristics.  They quarrelled, or were friendly with each other.  Some of these ideas forced their way out, and went to inhabit the intellectual world; for I saw at a glance that there were two worlds—­the visible and the invisible, and that earth, like man, had a body and soul.  Nature laid itself bare to me; and I perceived its immensity, by seeing the ocean of beings who were spread every where, making the whole one mass of animated matter, from the marbles up to God.  It was a noble sight!  In short, there was a universe in my patient.  When I inserted the knife in his gangrened leg I annihilated millions of those beings.  You laugh, ladies, to think you are possessed by animals.”

“Don’t be personal,” sneered M. de Calonne—­“speak for yourself and your patient.”

“He, poor man, was so frightened by the cries of those animals, and suffered such torture, that he tried to interrupt the operation.  But I persevered, and I told him that those noxious animals were actually gnawing his bones.  He made a movement, and the knife hurt my own side.”

“He is an ass,” said Lavoisier.

“No—­he is only drunk,” replied Beaumarchais.

“But, gentlemen, my dream has a meaning in it,” cried the surgeon.

“Oh! oh!” exclaimed Bodard, who awoke at the moment—­“my leg’s asleep.”

“Your animals are dead, my dear,” said his wife.

“That man has a destiny to fulfill,” cried my neighbour the attorney, who had kept his eyes fixed on the narrator the whole time.

“It is to yours, sir,” replied the frightful guest, who had overheard the remark, “what action is to thought—­what the body is to the soul.”  But at this point his tongue became very confused from the quantity he had drunk, and his further words were unintelligible.

Luckily for us, the conversation soon took another turn, and in half an hour we forgot all about the surgeon, who was sound asleep in his chair.  The rain fell in torrents when we rose from table.

“The attorney is no fool,” said I to Beaumarchais.

“He is heavy and cold,” he replied; “but you see there are still steady, good sort of people in the provinces, who are quite in earnest about political theories, and the history of France.  It is a leaven that will work yet.”

“Is your carriage here?” asked Madame de St James.

“No”—­I replied coldly.  “You wished me, perhaps, to take M. de Calonne home?”

She left me, slightly offended at the insinuation, and turned to the attorney.

“M. de Robespierre,” she said, “will you have the kindness to set M. Marat down at his hotel?  He is not able to take care of himself.”

* * * * *

THE GAME UP WITH REPEAL AGITATION.