ced all further thoughts of
alleviating the pains of humanity at the cost of his repose and safety.
Here was a terrible state of perplexity for our asthmatical abbe, who,
for all that, did not lose courage, but set to work with all his might
to discover the great physician.

But where, or how, was he to discover a sorcerer in Paris? To whom could
he decently address himself? To what professional class? There are so
many people in the world ready to ridicule even the most respectable
things. Every time that Voisenon elbowed at the Tuileries, or in the
Palais Royal, an individual in a seedy cassock, he fancied that he had
discovered his man. Forthwith he would enter into conversation with him,
his heart fluttering with hope, until the moment came which would
convince him that he had been deceived. Though for the moment cast into
despair, he did not lose hope, but would the next day recommence his
voyages of discovery in search of potable gold. One morning he had a
sudden illumination:--"Since the archbishop," thought he, "has censured
the conduct of the abbe I have been so long in search of, the archbishop
must know where he lodges." Just as if sorcerers had lodgings! That very
day he repaired to the archbishop's court. If the reader wonders why our
abbe did not give the clerks whom he interrogated the name of his
mysterious priest, the answer is easy: it is simply because he did not
know his name; magicians seldom make themselves known but by their
works. This name, however, to his great and inexpressible joy, he was
soon to learn. After some researches made in the register of the
episcopal court, the clerk informed him that this abbe (a deplorable
subject by all accounts) was called Boiviel, and, at the period when the
acts of censure were passed upon him, lodged in the Rue de Versailles,
Faubourg Saint Marceau. Voisenon was there almost as soon as the words
were out of the clerk's mouth.

Voisenon knocked at every kennel of this deplorable street; not even a
bark replied to the name of the Abbe Boiviel. At length, at a seventh
floor above the mud, an old woman, who resided in a loft, to which
access was obtained by means of a rope-ladder, informed him that the
Abbe Boiviel had quitted the apartment about six months before, with the
avowed intention of going to lodge at Menilmontant; she added, that this
delay gave fair grounds for supposing that he must necessarily have
changed his quarters at least five or six times