him. For the hour of his lecture
was succeeded by that of a younger and far more popular professor. As
his lecture drew towards its close, the benches, thinly sprinkled with
students, began to fill up; the doors creaked open and banged back
oftener and oftener, until at last the sound grew almost continuous, and
the voice of the lecturer became a leonine growl as he strove in vain to
be heard over the noise of doors and footsteps.

Broussais was now sixty-two years old. The new generation had outgrown
his doctrines, and the Professor for whose hour the benches had filled
themselves belonged to that new generation. Gabriel Andral was little
more than half the age of Broussais, in the full prime and vigor of
manhood at thirty-seven years. He was a rapid, fluent, fervid, and
imaginative speaker, pleasing in aspect and manner,--a strong contrast to
the harsh, vituperative old man who had just preceded him. His Clinique
Medicale is still valuable as a collection of cases, and his researches
on the blood, conducted in association with Gavarret, contributed new and
valuable facts to science. But I remember him chiefly as one of those
instructors whose natural eloquence made it delightful to listen to him.
I doubt if I or my fellow-students did full justice either to him or to
the famous physician of Hotel Dieu, Chomel. We had addicted ourselves
almost too closely to the words of another master, by whom we were ready
to swear as against all teachers that ever were or ever would be.

This object of our reverence, I might almost say idolatry, was one whose
name is well known to most of the young men before me, even to those who
may know comparatively little of his works and teachings. Pierre Charles
Alexandre Louis, at the age of forty-seven, as I recall him, was a tall,
rather spare, dignified personage, of serene and grave aspect, but with a
pleasant smile and kindly voice for the student with whom he came into
personal relations. If I summed up the lessons of Louis in two
expressions, they would be these; I do not hold him answerable for the
words, but I will condense them after my own fashion in French, and then
give them to you, expanded somewhat, in English:

Formez toujours des idees nettes.
Fuyez toujours les a peu pres.

Always make sure that you form a distinct and clear idea of the matter
you are considering.

Always avoid vague approximations where exact estimates are possible;
about so many,--about so