Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

“Reverend sir,” said he in grave tones, “your fame has reached me, and I was desirous of consulting
you. I am but a poor gentleman from the provinces who takes the shoes off his feet before entering the
presence of the learned. I must acquaint you with my name: they call me Compère 57 Tourangeau.”
“Singular name for a gentleman,” thought the Archdeacon. Nevertheless, he felt himself in the presence
of something powerful and commanding. The instinct of his high intelligence led him to suspect one no
less high beneath the fur-trimmed cap of Compère Tourangeau; and as he scrutinized that quiet figure,
the sneering smile that twitched round the corners of his morose mouth as he talked to Coictier faded
slowly away, like the sunset glow from an evening sky.
He had seated himself again, gloomy and silent, in his great arm-chair, his elbow had resumed its
accustomed place on the table, his head leaning on his hand.
After a few moments of deep reflection, he signed to his two visitors to be seated, and then addressed
himself to Compère Tourangeau.
“You came to consult me, sir, and on what subject?”
“Your Reverence,” answered Tourangeau, “I am sick, very sick. Rumour says you are a great
Æsculapius, and I am come to ask your advice as to a remedy.”
“A remedy!” exclaimed the Archdeacon, shaking his head. He seemed to consider for a moment, and
then resumed: “Compère Tourangeau—since that is your name—turn your head. You will find my
answer written on the wall.”
Tourangeau did as he was bid, and read the following inscription on the wall, above his head:
“Medicine is the daughter of dreams.—IAMBLICHUS.”
Doctor Jacques Coictier had listened to his companion’s question with a vexation which Dom Claude’s
answer only served to increase. He now leaned over to Tourangeau and whispered, too low for the
Archdeacon’s ear: “Did I not warn you that he was a crack-brained fool? You were set upon seeing him.”
“But it might very well be that he is right in his opinion, this madman, Doctor Jacques,” returned his
friend in the same tone, and with a bitter smile.
“Just as you please,” answered Coictier dryly. “You are very quick in your decision, Dom Claude, and
Hippocrates apparently presents no more difficulties to you than a nut to a monkey. Medicine a dream! I
doubt if the apothecaries and doctors, were they here, could refrain from stoning you. So you deny the
influence of philters on the blood, of unguents on the flesh? You deny the existence of that eternal
pharmacy of flowers and metals which we call the World, created expressly for the benefit of that eternal
invalid we call Man!”
“I deny the existence,” answered Dom Claude coldly, “neither of the pharmacy nor the invalid. I deny
that of the physician.”
“Then, I presume it is not true,” Coictier went on with rising hear, “that gout is an internal eruption; that
a shotwound may be healed by the outward application of a roasted mouse; that young blood, injected in
suitable quantities, will restore youth to aged veins; it is not true that two and two make four, and that
emprosthotonos follows upon opisthotonos?”