Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847

"If Bouchereau died, his wife would be rich?" said the Captain, musingly, but in an interrogative tone.

"Peste!" replied Magnian, "you may say that. Not one hundred thousand, but two hundred thousand crowns, at the very least."

"You exaggerate!" cried the Captain, his eyes suddenly sparkling.

"Easy to calculate," said Magnian confidently—"Madame Bouchereau inherited a hundred thousand francs from her father, she will have a hundred and fifty thousand from her mother, and her husband will leave her three hundred and fifty thousand more: add that up."

"Her husband's fortune is secured to her, then, by marriage contract?" inquired Pelletier, who had listened with rapidly increasing interest to his companion's enumeration.

"Every sou," replied the physician, solemnly.

The two words were worth an hour's oration, and with a person whom he esteemed intelligent, M. Magnian would not have added another. But, remembering that the Captain, as he had said a few hours before, was more richly endowed with shoulders than with brains, he did not fear to weigh a little heavily upon an idea from which he expected a magical result.

"For you," he jestingly resumed, "who have the bump of matrimony finely developed, here would be a capital match. Young, pretty, amiable, and a fortune of six hundred thousand francs. Though, to be sure, if you kill the husband, you can hardly expect to marry the widow."

Pelletier forced a laugh, which ill agreed with the thoughtful expression his physiognomy had assumed; then he changed the conversation. Certain that he had attained his end, the Doctor pleaded a professional visit, and left the Captain upon the boulevard, struck to the very heart by the six hundred thousand francs of the future widow.

Without halt or pause, and with the furious velocity of a wounded wild-boar, Pelletier went, without help of omnibus, from the Madeleine to the Bastille. When he reached the Porte St Martin, his determination was already taken.

"Without knowing it," he thought, "the Doctor has given me excellent advice. Fight Bouchereau! not so stupid. I should kill him; I am so unlucky! and then how could I reappear before Virginia? The little coquette views me with no indifferent eye; and luckily I have made love to her for the last three months, so that when the grand day comes, she cannot suppose I love her for her money. Kill Bouchereau! that would be absurd. Let him die in his bed, the dear man—I shall not prevent it. I shall have plenty of fighting with my rivals, as soon as his wife is a widow. Six hundred thousand francs! They'll throng about her like bees round a honey-pot. But let them take care; I'm first in the field, and not the man to let them walk over my body."

The following morning, long before the consultations had begun, the Captain strode into Magnian's reception room.

"Doctor," said he, with military frankness, "what you said yesterday about Bouchereau's illness, has made me seriously reflect. I cannot fight a man who has only six months to live. Suppose I wound him: a hurt, of which another would get well, might be mortal to one in his state of health; and then I should reproach myself, all my life, with having killed an old friend for a mere trifle. Did he tell you the cause of our quarrel?"

"No," replied the Doctor, who, in his capacity of negotiator, thought himself at liberty to lie.

"A few hasty words," said Pelletier, deceived by Magnian's candid air; "in fact, I believe I was in the wrong. You know I am very hasty; à propos of some trifle or other, I was rough to poor Bouchereau, and now I am sorry for it. In short, I have had enough duels to be able to avoid one without any body suspecting a white feather in my wing. So if you will advise Bouchereau to let the matter drop, I give you carte blanche. Between ourselves, I think he will not be sorry for it."

"You may find yourself mistaken, Captain," replied the Doctor, with admirable seriousness; "yesterday Bouchereau was much exasperated: although of peaceable habits, he is a perfect tiger when his blood is up. It appears that you hurt his feelings, and unless you make a formal apology–"

"Well, well," interrupted Pelletier, "it is not much in my way to apologise, and this is the first time; but with an old friend, I will stretch a point. I would rather make concessions than have to reproach myself hereafter. Shall we go to Bouchereau?"

"Let us go," said the Doctor, who could hardly help smiling to see how the voice of interest instilled sensibility and humanity into the heart of a professed duellist.

When Magnian and the officer entered his drawing-room, Bouchereau, who had not shut his eyes the whole night, experienced all the sensations of the criminal to whom sentence of death is read. But the first words spoken restored fluidity to his blood, for a moment frozen in his veins. The Captain made the most explicit and formal apology, and retired after shaking the hand of his old friend, who, overjoyed at his escape, did not show himself very exacting.

"Doctor, you are a sorcerer!" cried Bouchereau, as soon as he found himself alone with the physician.

"It is almost part of my profession," replied Magnian laughing. "However, the terrible affair is nearly arranged. I have done my share; do yours. When shall you set out for the south?"

The satisfaction depicted on Bouchereau's physiognomy vanished, and was replaced by sombre anxiety.

"Doctor," said he, in an altered voice, "You must tell me the truth; I have resolution to hear my sentence with calmness; my chest is attacked, is it not?"

"You mean your head."

"My head also!" cried Bouchereau, positively green with terror.

"You are mad," said the Doctor, shrugging his shoulders; "I would willingly change my chest for yours."

"You deceive me. I cannot forget what escaped you yesterday. I coughed all night long, and I have a pain between my shoulders which I never perceived before."

"All fancy!"

"I feel what I feel," continued Bouchereau gloomily; "I do not fear death; but I confess that I could not, without regret, bid an eternal adieu, in the prime of life, to my wife and family. It is my duty to be cautious for their sake, if not for my own. Instead of writing to Virginia to return home, I will join her at Fontainbleau, and start at once for Nice."

"Go," said the doctor, "the journey cannot hurt you."

"But do you think it will benefit me?"

"Without a doubt."

"It is not too late, then, to combat this frightful malady."

"Oh, you are not very far gone," said Magnian ironically. "I shall be at Nice myself in less than six weeks, so that you are sure to be attended by a physician in whom you have confidence, if, contrary to all probability, your state of health requires it."

The two friends parted: the Doctor laughing at his patient's fears, the patient imagining himself in imminent peril, and almost doubting whether it would not have been better to fall by the terrible sword of Captain Pelletier than to linger and expire, in the flower of his age, upon an inhospitable foreign shore. In two days, Bouchereau, haunted by his funereal visions, had taken out his passport, arranged his affairs, and completed his preparations. Getting into a post-chaise, he made his unexpected appearance at Fontainbleau; and, exerting his marital authority to an extent he had never previously ventured upon, he carried off his wife, stupified by such a sudden decision, and greatly vexed to leave Paris, which Pelletier's languishing epistles had lately made her find an unusually agreeable residence. By the end of the week, the husband and wife, one trembling for his life, the other regretting her admirer, arrived at Nice, where, towards the close of the autumn, they were joined by Dr Magnian, who thus showed himself scrupulously exact in the fulfilment of his promise.

On an evening of the month of April following, the tragedy of Les Horaces was performed at the Théâtre Français. Thanks to the young talent of Mademoiselle Rachel, rather than to the old genius of Corneille, the house was crowded. In the centre of the right-hand balcony, Captain Pelletier, accompanied by some blusterers of the same kidney, talked loud, laughed ditto, criticised the actors and spectators, and disturbed all his neighbours, without any one venturing to call him to order; so powerful, in certain cases, is the influence of an insolent look, a ferocious mustache, and an elephantine build.

After examining with his opera glass every corner of the theatre, from the pit to the roof, the Captain at last caught sight of a group, snugly installed in a comfortable box, which at once fixed his attention. It consisted of Monsieur and Madame Bouchereau, in front, and of Doctor Magnian, seated behind the lady. The appearance and attitude of these three persons were characteristic. With his usual pallid complexion and unhappy look, his eyes adorned with a pair of blue spectacles—a new embellishment, which he owed to an imaginary ophthalmia—the pacific husband whiled away the entr'acte by the study of a play-bill, which he abandoned when the curtain rose, to bestow his deepest attention on the actors, even though none but the inferior characters were on the stage. Madame Bouchereau trifled with an elegant nosegay, whose perfume she frequently inhaled, and whose crimson flowers contrasted so well with the fairness of her complexion, as to justify a suspicion that there was some coquetry in the manœuvre executed with such apparent negligence. Leaning back in her chair, she frequently turned her head, the better to hear Magnian's smiling and half-whispered remarks. The husband paid no attention to their conversation, and did not seem to remark its intimate and confidential character.

"Who is it you have been looking at for the last quarter of an hour?" inquired one of the Captain's comrades. "At your old flame, Madame Bouchereau? I thought you had forgotten her long ago."

"I did not know she had returned from Nice," replied Pelletier, with a reserved air.

"She has been at Paris a fort-night."

"Does not Bouchereau look very ill? The southern climate has not done him much good. He is twice as pale as before he went. Poor Bouchereau!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed the officer, "have you been gulled by the story of the decline? That is really too good."

"What is too good?" asked the Captain abruptly.

"The trick that rogue Magnian played Bouchereau and you; for if I may judge from your astonished look, you also have been mystified."

"Berton, you abuse my patience," said Pelletier in a surly tone.

"Wolves do not eat one another," replied Berton laughing; "so let us talk without anger. The story is this:—all Paris, except yourself, has been laughing at it for a week past. It appears that on the one hand, although no one suspected it, the aforesaid Magnian was in love with Madame Bouchereau, and that on the other, finding himself threatened with a pulmonary complaint, he thought it advisable to pass the winter in a warm climate. What did the arch-schemer? He persuaded Bouchereau that it was he, Bouchereau, whose chest was affected; sent him off to Nice with his pretty wife, and, at his leisure, without haste or hurry, joined them there. You have only to look at them, as they sit yonder, to guess the denoûement of the history. The appropriate label for their box would be the title of one of Paul de Kock's last novels; la Femme, le Mari, el l'Amant. Magnian is a cunning dog, and has very ingenious ideas. Fearing, doubtless, that the husband might be too clear-sighted, he threatened him with an ophthalmia, and made him wear blue spectacles. Clever, wasn't it? and a capital story?"

"Charming, delightful!" cried the Captain, with a smile that resembled a gnashing of teeth.

The tragedy was over. Dr Magnian left his box; Pelletier followed his example. The next minute the two men met in the lobby.

"Doctor, a word with you," said the officer sternly.

"Two, if you like, Captain," was Magnian's jovial reply.