Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

Pale, speechless, and aghast, stood the wretched convict. Eagerly they seized upon him, and hurried him with a frantic kind of joy to execution; so odious and so unpitied, even in misery is the sin of ingratitude!

The king then ordered the prisoner to be introduced. He entered, not proudly, nor yet slavishly trailing his chains along. His countenance was fearless, but modest and dejected; neither dared he, as he advanced, to raise his eye to the face of a master, whom he thought he had injured.

"Come you," said the monarch, "to reproach your friend for the cruel injustice of his orders?" "Blessed be the orders," returned Valvaise," that give me once more to behold the gracious countenance of my lord!"

Then suddenly turning an eye upon Adelaide, he started and changed. "Ah, Madam!" he cried, "you are here, then. Heaven be praised! You have, questionless, reformed the errors of a wayward fancy; and have given up your heart where excellence claims the whole, entire and undivided, and where all that we are and that we have is due. But then I see you not, where I trusted you should soon be exalted; I see you not on the throne, or at the side of our master." "Would you wish, then," interrupted the king, behold your beloved in the arms of your rival?"" From my soul, I wish it, my lord; because I love her happiness even more than I love herself."

" to

"Adelaide," said the monarch, "though you owe me nothing as your lover; you owe me obedience as your king. I command you then to unbind the prisoner, and restore him to the arms and to the bosom of his friend.

Adelaide, with trembling hands, and a palpitating heart, her aspect all in a glow, set about her commission; but prolonged the chains of her beloved, by her haste to set him at liberty.

The monarch then descended, and, advancing with opened arms, he clasped and re-clasped Valvaise to his breast. "O, welcome, thrice welcome!" he cried," to thy late desolate mansion, thy seat within my bosom! Adelaide has told me all; has borne incontestible testimony to thy truth, to an honour that is impassable, to a virtue that rises above seduction; to a friendship that sacrificed whatever you held most dear to the interests of the man who put his confidence to you. What shall I do, my brother to recompense thy love? I will try-I will strive to emulate the nobleness of thy example. I will, in my turn, subdue my own passions. I will restore to thy generosity what I held dearer than empire, dearer than life. I will yield Adelaide to her beloved, and be greater than a king, by resembling Valvaise!"

Long silence ensued. Adelaide eagerly looked through the eyes of Valvaise in search of the inmost emotions of his soul; and finding them conformable to the generosity of her own sentiments, "No, my lord;" she cried, " Valvaise will admit of no enjoyment till the lord of his affections shall be supremely happy; till you have found to yourself an Adelaide, whose heart is undivided; who is wholly worthy of you by the constellation of her excellencies. I first learned to love, by admiring, in Valvaise, that fealty that fervour of affection which he had for his master; and, could he taste of consolation while you tasted of regret, he would instantly lose the charm by which he engaged me; I should despise, I should reject him. No, no, it cannot be ! we jointly vowed and covenanted, at our last parting, to keep separate for your sake; and not to accept of any happiness, save what virtue and the consciousness of acting nobly might yield."

[merged small][graphic][subsumed]

Instances of extraordinary and depraved appetites may be found in the writings both of ancient and modern authors; and there are also many cases on record, in which it will be seen that this horrible disease has reached to a most astonishing height; but not one of them can parallel the following disgusting narrative. We have some recollection of reading an account of a brutal Englishman, whose depraved and unnatural appetite could only be appeased by human flesh; but even this case was not attended with such diabolical circumstances of depravity and horror as will be found on perusal of the following:

The police of Paris a short time since apprehended and lodged in the Bicetre, a man named Antoine Langulet, who, they were given to understand, had been for a long time past in the habit of satisfying an unnatural appetite with food of the most repulsive and disgusting description. It appeared that animal substances in the highest state of putrefaction, and even the human body itself were regarded by this miserable wretch as very delicate morceaux. He usually staid within doors the whole of the day till sunset, when he would walk forth, and parade up and down the dirtiest lanes and alleys of Paris; and noting where a piece of stinking carrion lay floating in the kennel, he would return at midnight, and, seizing it, convey it to his lodgings, and feast on it for the next day's meal. In this manner he kept up his wretched existence for years, until, by a refinement in his appetite, he at length found his way to the burial grounds; and after many attempts, (with some rude instrument his ingenuity had formed for that purpose) he at length succeeded in pulling out of the graves several of the bodies recently interred. His appetite was so ravenous that he would feast upon them on the spot, and covering the remains with mould, would return for several successive evenings to finish the repast, as he states he was at first fearful of being seen carrying any thing from such a place as a cemetery. What is still more extraordinary he would feast himself upon

VOL. II.

99

the intestines in preference to any other part of the body; and when he had thus regaled himself, he would fill his pockets with as much as they would conveniently hold of this horrible material for a future meal.

At length he found this plan inconvenient, as it took up too much time; he therefore determined on running the risk of discovery, and convey his darling article of food to his lodging, which was in a miserable hay-loft. This he attempted, and actually conveyed, at two several times, the whole of the body of a young female which had been entombed a week before. Here he was discovered regaling on this truly horrible repast; and the terrific appear ance which the whole scene presented struck the beholders with unspeakable horror.

When interrogated on the subject of this dreadful depravity, he said thai from a child he had always been fond of what other people denominated loathsome food, and then expressed his surprise and wonder that any one could attach the least blame to him for a taste to him so natural. Nor did he appear to consider that he had committed any crime in endeavouring to satisf that appetite in the way he had done.

His answers to whatever questions were put to him were precise and ra tional, although there appeared at times a little incoherence in his manner. He acknowledged that he sometimes felt the greatest inclination to devour children of a tender age, but that he never could summon sufficient courage to kill them. He has ever since been incarcerated in the prison of the Bicetre, for fear of the consequences which might result from his horrible propensities. The above report was communicated to the conductors of the Archives by Dr. Berthollet, and every reliance may be placed on its authenticity.

This horrible account cannot possibly be equalled. We, however, present our readers with the following specimen of an unnatural appetite, which has been not unaptly termed by medical practitioners the "Bulimia, or Canine Ravenous Fever," and the disease is always beyond the power of medicine to relieve in any way.

There was a Polish soldier, named Charles Domery, in the service of the French, on board the Hoche frigate, which was captured by the squadron under the command of Sir J. Borlace Warren, off Ireland, in 1799. He was 21 years of age, and stated that his father and brothers had been remarkable for their voracious appetites. He began when he was 13 years of age. He would devour raw and even live cats, rats, and dogs, besides bullock's liver, tallow candles, and the entrails of animals. One day (September 17, 1799), an experiment was made of how much this man could eat in one day. This experiment was made in the presence of Dr. Johnson, a commissioner of sick and wounded seamen, Admiral Child, and Mr. Forster, agents for prisoners at Liverpool, and several other gentlemen. He had breakfasted at four o'clock in the morning on four pounds of raw cow's udder; at half past nine o'clock there were set before him 5 pounds of raw beef and 12 tallow candles of one pound weight, together with one bottle of porter; these he finished by halfpast ten o'clock. At one o'clock there were put before him five pounds more of beef, one pound of candles, and three bottles of porter. He was then locked up in the room, and sentries were placed at the windows to prevent his throwing away any of his provisions. At two o'clock he had nearly finished the whole of his candles, and great part of the beef. At a quarter past six he had devoured the whole, and declared he could have ate more; but theprisoners on the outside having told him that experiments were making upon him, he

began to be alarmed. Moreover, the day was hot, and he had not had his usual exercise in the yard. The whole of what he consumed in the course of that one day amounted to-raw cow's udder, 4lb.; raw beef, 10lb.; candles, 21b.-total, 16 lb.; besides five bottles of porter. The eagerness with which this man attacked his beef when his stomach was not gorged, resembled the voracity of a hungry wolf; he would tear off large pieces with his teeth, roll them about his mouth, and then gulp them down. When his throat became dry, from continued exercise, he would lubricate it by stripping the grease off a candle between his teeth; and then wrapping up the wick like a ball, would send it after the other part at a swallow. He could make shift to dine on im mense quantities of raw potatoes or turnips; but by choice would never taste bread or vegetables. He was in every respect healthy; six feet three inches high, of a pale complexion, grey eyes, long brown hair, well made, but thin; his countenance rather pleasant, and he was good tempered. His perspirations were profuse, to which Dr. Johnson, and other medical men, have ascribed the rapid dissipation of the ingesta, and his incessant craving for fresh supplies of food.

THE AMPUTATED TOE.

I have received the following anecdote, says M. Meissner, who relates it from the eldest son of Weisse. This young man did not then imagine that he had mentioned any thing to me worthy of being printed. He has read the manuscript, corrected the printed proofs, and repeated his assurances, that what I have related is in every particular the truth.

For a long time we (the Germans) have been allowed to be the people the least remote from nature, and to be the most susceptible of all the European nations. Modern Spartans, we were ever more anxious to act well, than to boast of our noble actions; ever eager to ransack the most obscure historians, and to celebrate the memorable deeds of foreign nations, which have been often already forgotten by themselves; without being at all solicitous whether they are engaged in collecting our generous actions, as examples for posterity. Hence a thousand sublime traits of greatness of soul are forgotten among us, which certainly our neighbours would be fond to relate, and to repeat with virtuous sensibility.

John Frederic Weisse, born at Kalbe, in the duchy of Wurtemberg (for one cannot be too particular when such excellent persons are the subject) was one of those meritorious characters whom the elector of Saxony, afterward king of Poland, under the name of Augustus I, honoured with distinguished favour. He had been employed for five years at the expense of the king, in the foreign hospitals; and the famous Petit, a French surgeon, was his first master. When he returned to the court of his sovereign, he found from him the most honourable reception; but as he had too much merit for anything to be wanting to his glory, he likewise found in all his first physicians as many adversaries; in a word, his advice was seldom followed.

An accident in one of his toes, which was at first but very slight, had tormented the king for a considerable time; and, having been neglected, had produced very alarming symptoms. A consultation of the first physicians being held, Weisse attended as the surgeon, and declared for the immediate amputation of the toe. This advice, however, coming from him, the physi

cians wanted no other reason for rejecting it. The majority of votes, uninfluenced by reason, prevailed. It was determined, however, that a courier should be dispatched to Monsieur Petit, at Paris, to desire his immediate attendance at Bialastock, a castle belonging to prince Czartorinski, where the king then was.

Whatever dispatch could be employed to accelerate the arrival of Monsieur Petit from Paris, such a great distance had all the inconveniencies of a long delay; and Weisse, who was faithfully attached to the king, was soon convinced, that with measures so ill-judged, the life of his royal master was in the greatest danger.

After some hours of painful anxiety and irresolution, he at length resolved upon an action, which, whatever were the purity of his motives, might possibly involve him in the most dangerous consequences.

The very night that followed the consultation, Weisse sat up near the bed of his sovereign, with a valet-de-chambre, who was likewise a very extraordinary man of the court of Augustus. He was a baptized Cossack, named PeterAugustus, because the Czar Peter and King Augustus had been his godfathers. No person could be more zealously devoted to the king; but at the same time, there is not a French comedy in which the valet speaks to his master with so much insolence as did the good Cossack to the king, who, with the utmost good-humour received from him some pretty serious reprimands.

A dose of opium, which the faithful surgeon had administered to the king, was to throw him into a very deep sleep. Scarcely had this taken some effect, than Weisse locked the door of the chamber, and softly approaching the bed, drew from his pocket a number of instruments.

The valet-de-chambre, astonished at these preparations, and whose fidelity neither presents nor menaces could have shaken, listened to the surgeon's reasons, and was silent from conviction.

Weisse took the ailing foot, drew it to a chair on the side of a bed, and assured the king, who was quite overcome by drowsiness, and who complained of such an unseasonable dressing, that he had nothing to do but to sleep quietly; and that he had come to take the necessary precautions, that he might be disturbed no more during the night.

Augustus believed this declaration, and his surgeon forbore to touch him again till he was quite asleep; and soon after, with equal resolution and dexterity, he amputated the toe.

Awakened by the pain, the king angrily demanded again, why he took such an unseasonable time to dress him. Weisse once more appeased him by saying, that, unfortunately, he had just touched the wound with his needle, at the instant that his majesty had waked for the first time, and that it was the balsam which he had applied to the toe, that caused the pain. The king said no more, and, by the force of the opium, soon slept again.

Augustus slept profoundly the whole night, and when he awoke, felt the most exquisite pain in his foot, he was far, however, from suspecting the cause of it; but he ordered his foot to be immediately dressed; and, by an impulse of curiosity, which Weisse did not expect, he commanded his valet-dechambre to place a magnifying glass upon the bed, the better to observe the bad toe, which had been the cause of so much suffering.

It may well be thought that the valet-de-chambre, and especially the surgeon, must feel a sudden palpitation of heart; and the astonishment of the king too may be easily imagined, when he perceived, at the first glance, that his toe had been amputated.

« ПредишнаНапред »