o become one of the most important
of the sciences--if indeed all science is not _one_. I can overcome
your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to your curiosity the
happiness of taking you once more by the hand--as in the days before
Mesmer. Always yours,

Bouvard.

Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and
left his card on Bouvard, who lived in the Rue Ferou near Saint-Sulpice.
Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written "To-morrow; nine
o'clock, Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Assumption."

Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his youth, could not sleep. He went
to see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the world
were turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a school,
if the four faculties any longer existed. The doctors reassured him,
declaring that the old spirit of opposition was as strong as ever, only,
instead of persecuting as heretofore, the Academies of Medicine and
of Sciences rang with laughter as they classed magnetic facts with the
tricks of Comus and Comte and Bosco, with jugglery and prestidigitation
and all that now went by the name of "amusing physics."

This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the appointment
made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of forty-four years the
two antagonists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue Saint-Honore.
Frenchmen have too many distractions of mind to hate each other long. In
Paris especially, politics, literature, and science render life so vast
that every man can find new worlds to conquer where all pretensions
may live at ease. Hatred requires too many forces fully armed. None but
public bodies can keep alive the sentiment. Robespierre and Danton
would have fallen into each other's arms at the end of forty-four years.
However, the two doctors each withheld his hand and did not offer it.
Bouvard spoke first:--

"You seem wonderfully well."

"Yes, I am--and you?" said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now broken.

"As you see."

"Does magnetism prevent people from dying?" asked Minoret in a joking
tone, but without sharpness.

"No, but it almost prevented me from living."

"Then you are not rich?" exclaimed Minoret.

"Pooh!" said Bouvard.

"But I am!" cried the other.

"It is not your money but your convictions that I want. Come," replied
Bouvard.

"Oh! you obstinate fellow!" said Minoret.

The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy