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Bernouin, in great terror, rushed into the cabinet to give the order, and the piqueur, who hastened to fetch the physician, passed the king's carriage in the Rue Saint Honore. The cardinal's order was pressing; Guenaud quickly obeyed it. He found his patient stretched on his bed, his legs swelled, his face livid, and his stomach collapsed. Mazarin had a severe attack of gout.
"They said that your eminence was suffering from a mortal disease; I have the consultation signed in my portfolio. If your eminence will please to see it, you will find the names of all the incurable diseases we have met with. There is first " "No, no!" cried Mazarin, pushing away the paper. "No, no, Guenaud, I yield! I yield!"
This pulse was full of such fatal indications, that the physician continued, notwithstanding the interruptions of the patient: "Put down the years of the Fronde at four each, and you have lived eighty-two years." "Are you speaking seriously, Guenaud?" "Alas! yes, monseigneur." "You take a roundabout way, then, to inform me that I am very ill?"
These words, which he scattered with a sort of discretion, reserve, and preference, were commented upon earnestly by two persons, the king and the cardinal. Mazarin, notwithstanding the prophecy of Guenaud, still lured himself with a hope, or rather played his part so well, that the most cunning, when saying that he lured himself, proved that they were his dupes.
Mazarin raised himself upon his elbow, and, questioning by look and gesture: "What do you mean by that? Am I worse than I believe myself to be?" "My lord," said Guenaud, seating himself beside the bed; "your eminence has worked very hard during your life; your eminence has suffered much." "But I am not old, I fancy.
He suffered tortures with the impatience of a man who has not been accustomed to resistances. On seeing Guenaud: "Ah!" said he; "now I am saved!" Guenaud was a very learned and circumspect man, who stood in no need of the critiques of Boileau to obtain a reputation. When facing a disease, if it were personified in a king, he treated the patient as a Turk treats a Moor.
By degrees the chamber was deserted, and Mazarin was left alone, a prey to suffering which he could no longer dissemble. "Bernouin! Bernouin!" cried he in a broken voice. "What does monseigneur want?" "Guenaud let Guenaud be sent for," said his eminence. "I think I'm dying."
I will live, in short, by the virtue of I care not what remedy." "My lord must not suppose," said Guenaud, "that I have the presumption to pronounce alone upon an existence so valuable as yours. I have already assembled all the good physicians and practitioners of France and Europe. There were twelve of them." "And they said "
"Is it not?" cried Mazarin, almost joyously; "for, in short, what else would be the use of power, of strength of will? What would the use of genius be your genius, Guenaud? What would be the use of science and art, if the patient, who disposes of all that, cannot be saved from peril?"
"To ordinary men, perhaps not; but to me to me, whose every minute is worth a treasure. Tell me, Guenaud, tell me!" "No, no, my lord." "I insist upon it, I tell you. Oh! give me a month and for every one of those thirty days I will pay you a hundred thousand crowns."