panes, the old servitor had gone to the embrasure of a window and
stood leaning against a corner of it. There, with his face towards the

wall, he seemed to be estimating its thickness, keeping his body in
such absolute immobility that he might have been taken for a statue.

In the middle of the room the countessbeheld a short, stout man,
apparently out of breath and stupefied, whose eyes were blindfolded

and his features so distorted with terror that it was impossible to
guess at their natural expression.

"God's death! you scamp," said the count, giving him back his eyesight
by a rough movement which threw upon the man's neck the bandage that

had been upon his eyes. "I warn you not to look at anything but the
wretched woman on whom you are now to exercise your skill; if you do,

I'll fling you into the river that flows beneath those windows, with a
collar round your neck weighing a hundred pounds!"

With that, he pulled down upon the breast of his stupefied hearer the
cravat with which his eyes had been bandaged.

"Examine first if this can be a miscarriage," he continued; "in which
case your life will answer to me for the mother's; but, if the child

is living, you are to bring it to me."
So saying, the count seized the poor operator by the body and placed

him before the countess, then he went himself to the depths of a bay-
window and began to drum with his fingers upon the panes, casting

glances alternately on his serving-man, on the bed, and at the ocean,
as if he were pledging to the expected child a cradle in the waves.

The man whom, with outrageousviolence, the count and Bertrand had
snatched from his bed and fastened to the crupper of the latter's

horse, was a personage whose individuality may serve to characterize
the period,--a man, moreover, whose influence was destined to make

itself felt in the house of Herouville.
Never in any age were the nobles so little informed as to natural

science, and never was judicial astrology held in greater honor; for
at no period in history was there a greater general desire to know the

future. This ignorance and this curiosity had led to the utmost
confusion in human knowledge; all things were still mere personal

experience; the nomenclatures of theory did not exist; printing was
done at enormous cost; scientificcommunication had little or no

facility; the Church persecuted science and all research which was
based on the analysis of natural phenomena. Persecution begat mystery.

So, to the people as well as to the nobles, physician and alchemist,
mathematician and astronomer, astrologer and necromancer were six

attributes, all meeting in the single person of the physician. In
those days a superior physician was supposed to be cultivating magic;

while curing his patient he was drawing their horoscopes. Princes
protected the men of genius who were willing to reveal the future;

they lodged them in their palaces and pensioned them. The famous
Cornelius Agrippa, who came to France to become the physician of Henri

II., would not consent, as Nostradamus did, to predict the future, and
for this reason he was dismissed by Catherine de' Medici, who replaced

him with Cosmo Ruggiero. The men of science, who were superior to
their times, were therefore seldom appreciated; they simply inspired

an ignorant fear of occult sciences and their results.
Without being precisely one of the famous mathematicians, the man whom

the count had brought enjoyed in Normandy the equivocal reputation
which attached to a physician who was known to do mysterious works. He

belonged to the class of sorcerers who are still called in parts of
France "bonesetters." This name belonged to certain untutored geniuses

who, without apparent study, but by means of hereditary knowledge and
the effect of long practice, the observations of which accumulated in

the family, were bonesetters; that is, they mended broken limbs and
cured both men and beasts of certain maladies, possessing secrets said

to be marvellous for the treatment of serious cases. But not only had
Maitre Antoine Beauvouloir (the name of the present bonesetter) a

father and grandfather who were famous practitioners, from whom he
inherited important traditions, he was also learned in medicine, and

was given to the study of natural science. The country people saw his
study full of books and other strange things which gave to his

successes a coloring of magic. Without passing strictly for a
sorcerer, Antoine Beauvouloir impressed the populace through a

circumference of a hundred miles with respect akin to terror, and
(what was far more really dangerous for himself) he held in his power

many secrets of life and death which concerned the noble families of
that region. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was

celebrated for his skill in confinements and miscarriages. In those
days of unbridled disorder, crimes were so frequent and passions so

violent that the higher nobility often found itself compelled to
initiate Maitre Antoine Beauvouloir into secrets both shameful and

terrible. His discretion, so essential to his safety, was absolute;
consequently his clients paid him well, and his hereditary practice

greatly increased. Always on the road, sometimes roused in the dead of
night, as on this occasion by the count, sometimes obliged to spend

several days with certain great ladies, he had never married; in fact,
his reputation had hindered certain young women from accepting him.

Incapable of findingconsolation in the practice of his profession,
which gave him such power over feminineweakness, the poor bonesetter

felt himself born for the joys of family and yet was unable to obtain
them.

The good man's excellent heart was concealed by a misleading
appearance of joviality in keeping with his puffy cheeks and rotund

figure, the vivacity of his fat little body, and the frankness of his
speech. He was anxious to marry that he might have a daughter who

should transfer his property to some poor noble; he did not like his
station as bonesetter and wished to rescue his family name from the

position in which the prejudices of the times had placed it. He
himself took willingly enough to the feasts and jovialities which

usually followed his principal operations. The habit of being on such
occasions the most important personage in the company, had added to

his natural gaiety a sufficient dose of serious vanity. His
impertinences were usually well received in crucial moments when it

often pleased him to perform his operations with a certain slow
majesty. He was, in other respects, as inquisitive as a nightingale,

as greedy as a hound, and as garrulous as all diplomatists who talk
incessantly and betray no secrets. In spite of these defects developed

in him by the endless adventures into which his profession led him,
Antoine Beauvouloir was held to be the least bad man in Normandy.

Though he belonged to the small number of minds who are superior to
their epoch, the strong good sense of a Norman countryman warned him

to conceal the ideas he acquired and the truths he from time to time
discovered.

As soon as he found himself placed by the count in presence of a woman
in childbirth, the bonesetter recovered his presence of mind. He felt

the pulse of the masked lady; not that he gave it a single thought,
but under cover of that medical action he could reflect, and he did

reflect on his own situation. In none of the shameful and criminal
intrigues in which superior force had compelled him to act as a blind

instrument, had precautions been taken with such mystery as in this
case. Though his death had often been threatened as a means of

assuring the secrecy of enterprises in which he had taken part against
his will, his life had never been so endangered as at that moment. He

resolved, before all things, to find out who it was who now employed
him, and to discover the actualextent of his danger, in order to

save, if possible, his own little person.
"What is the trouble?" he said to the countess in a low voice, as he

placed her in a manner to receive his help.
"Do not give him the child--"

"Speak loud!" cried the count in thundering tones which prevented
Beauvouloir from hearing the last word uttered by the countess. "If

not," added the count who was careful to disguise his voice, "say your
'In manus.'"

"Complain aloud," said the leech to the lady; "cry! scream! Jarnidieu!
that man has a necklace that won't fit you any better than me.

Courage, my little lady!"
"Touch her lightly!" cried the count.

"Monsieur is jealous," said the operator in a shrill voice,
fortunately drowned by the countess's cries.

For Maitre Beauvouloir's safety Nature was merciful. It was more a
miscarriage than a regular birth, and the child was so puny that it

caused little suffering to the mother.
"Holy Virgin!" cried the bonesetter, "it isn't a miscarriage, after

all!"
The count made the floor shake as he stamped with rage. The countess