III

As, in Desplein, his glory and science were invulnerable, his

enemies attacked  his odd moods and his temper, whereas, in fact,

he was simply characterized by what the English call

eccentricity. Sometimes very handsomely dressed, like Crebillon

the tragical, he would suddenly affect extreme indifference as to

what he wore; he was sometimes seen in a carriage, and sometimes

on foot. By turns rough and kind, harsh and covetous on the

surface, but capable of offering his whole fortune to his exiled

masters--who did him the honor of accepting it for a few days--no

man ever gave rise to such contradictory judgements. Although to

obtain a black ribbon, which physicians ought not to intrigue

for, he was capable of dropping a prayer-book out of his pocket

at Court, in his heart he mocked at everything; he had a deep

contempt for men, after studying them from above and below, after

detecting their genuine expression when performing the most

solemn and the meanest acts of their lives.

The qualities of a great man are often federative. If among these

colossal spirits one has more talent than wit, his wit is still

superior to that of a man of whom it is simply stated that "he is

witty." Genius always presupposes moral insight. This insight may

be applied to a special subject; but he who can see a flower must

be able to see the sun. The man who on hearing a diplomate he has

saved ask, "How is the Emperor?" could say, "The courtier is

alive; the man will follow!"--that man is not merely a surgeon or

a physician, he is prodigiously witty also. Hence a patient and

diligent student of human nature will admit Desplein's exorbitant

pretensions, and believe--as he himself believed--that he might

have been no less great as a minister than he was as a surgeon.

Among the riddles which Desplein's life presents to many of his

contemporaries, we have chosen one of the most interesting,

because the answer is to be found at the end of the narrative,

and will avenge him for some foolish charges.

Of all the students in Desplein's hospital, Horace Bianchon was

one of those to whom he most warmly attached himself. Before

being a house surgeon at the Hotel-Dieu, Horace Bianchon had been

a medical student lodging in a squalid boarding house in the

Quartier Latin, known as the Maison Vauquer. This poor young man

had felt there the gnawing of that burning poverty which is a

sort of crucible from which great talents are to emerge as pure

and incorruptible as diamonds, which may be subjected to any

shock without being crushed. In the fierce fire of their

unbridled passions they acquire the most impeccable honesty, and

get into the habit of fighting the battles which await genius

with the constant work by which they coerce their cheated

appetites.