his sentence of death, but a completely opposite weakness had prompted him, a few months before, to load with benefits the doctors and the quack who made him believe that they had cured him.  He must likewise have felt the misery of knowing that he would not be regretted after his death—­a grievous thought, especially for a sovereign.  His niece, whom he loved dearly, died before him, and, if he had had the affection of those who surrounded him, they would have spared him that fearful information, for it was evident that his end was near at hand, and no one could dread his anger for having kept that event from him.

Although very much pleased with Vienna and with the pleasures I enjoyed with the beautiful frauleins, whose acquaintance I had made at the house of the baroness, I was thinking of leaving that agreeable city, when Baron Vais, meeting me at Count Durazzo’s wedding, invited me to join a picnic at Schoenbrunn.  I went, and I failed to observe the laws of temperance; the consequence was that I returned to Vienna with such a severe indigestion that in twenty-four hours I was at the point of death.

I made use of the last particle of intelligence left in me by the disease to save my own life.  Campioni, Roquendorf and Sarotin were by my bedside.  M. Sarotin, who felt great friendship for me, had brought a physician, although I had almost positively declared that I would not see one.  That disciple of Sangrado, thinking that he could allow full sway to the despotism of science, had sent for a surgeon, and they were going to bleed me against my will.  I was half-dead; I do not know by what strange inspiration I opened my eyes, and I saw a man, standing lancet in hand and preparing to open the vein.

“No, no!” I said.

And I languidly withdrew my arm; but the tormentor wishing, as the physician expressed it, to restore me to life in spite of myself, got hold of my arm again.  I suddenly felt my strength returning.  I put my hand forward, seized one of my pistols, fired, and the ball cut off one of the locks of his hair.  That was enough; everybody ran away, with the exception of my servant, who did not abandon me, and gave me as much water as I wanted to drink.  On the fourth day I had recovered my usual good health.

That adventure amused all the idlers of Vienna for several days, and Abbe Grosse-Tete assured me that if I had killed the poor surgeon, it would not have gone any further, because all the witnesses present in my room at the time would have declared that he wanted to use violence to bleed me, which made it a case of legitimate self-defence.  I was likewise told by several persons that all the physicians in Vienna were of opinion that if I had been bled I should have been a dead man; but if drinking water had not saved me, those gentlemen would certainly not have expressed the same opinion.  I felt, however, that I had to be careful, and not to fall ill in the capital of Austria, for it was likely that I should