f Berlin, had promised to send
some valuable documents concerning the life and death of this
unfortunate officer: nothing ought to be undertaken before they were
received; some one ought to write to Berlin to hasten the sending of
these papers."

Leon sighed, but yielded uncomplainingly to this new caprice, and wrote
to M. Hirtz.

Clementine found an ally in this second campaign in Doctor Martout.
Though he was but an average practitioner and disdained the acquisition
of practice far too much, M. Martout was not deficient in knowledge. He
had long been studying five or six great questions in physiology, such
as reanimation, spontaneous generation and the topics connected with
them. A regular correspondence kept him posted in all recent
discoveries; he was the friend of M. Pouchet, of Rouen; and knew also
the celebrated Karl Nibor, who has carried the use of the microscope
into researches so wide and so profound. M. Martout had desiccated and
resuscitated thousands of little worms, rotifers and tardigrades; he
held that life is nothing but organization in action, and that the idea
of reviving a desiccated man has nothing absurd about it. He gave
himself up to long meditations when Professor Hirtz sent from Berlin the
following document, the original of which is filed among the manuscripts
of the Humboldt collection.

CHAPTER VII.

PROFESSOR MEISER'S WILL IN FAVOR OF THE DESICCATED COLONEL.

On this 20th day of January, 1824, being worn down by a cruel malady and
feeling the approach of the time when my person shall be absorbed in the
Great All;

I have written with my own hand this testament which is the expression
of my last will.

I appoint as executor my nephew Nicholas Meiser, a wealthy brewer in the
city of Dantzic.

I bequeath my books, papers and scientific collections of all kinds,
except item 3712, to my very estimable and learned friend, Herr Von
Humboldt.

I bequeath all the rest of my effects, real and personal, valued at
100,000 Prussian thalers or 375,000 francs, to Colonel Pierre Victor
Fougas, at present desiccated, but living, and entered in my catalogue
opposite No. 3712 (Zoology).

I trust that he will accept this feeble compensation for the ordeals he
has undergone in my laboratory, and the service he has rendered to
science.

Finally, in order that my nephew Nicholas Meiser may exactly understand
the duties I leave him to perform, I have resolved to inscribe here a
detailed a