Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/132

 keep him from all harm and let me suffer in his stead! Good Saint-Ursule, my beloved patroness, and Thou, Divine Mother of God, queen of Heaven, archangels and saints of Paradise, hear me, and join Thy intercessions to mine, and have pity upon us!’”

The somnambulist imitated the child’s innocent gestures of holy inspirations so perfectly, that Doctor Minoret’s eyes were full of tears.

“Does she say anything else?” asked Minoret.

“Yes.”

“Repeat it.”

“‘Dear godfather! who will play backgammon with him in Paris?’ She blows out the candle, lays her head down, and goes to sleep. Now she is off! She looks very pretty in her little nightcap.”

Minoret bowed to the great stranger, shook hands with Bouvard, rapidly descended the stairs, and ran to a coach-stand which then existed under the gateway of a hôtel that has since been demolished to make way for the Rue d’Alger; there he found a driver and asked him if he would agree to start at once for Fontainebleau. Once the fare was settled and accepted, the old man, once more revived, set out immediately. According to his agreement, he rested the horse at Essonne, caught the diligence for Nemours, found a place in it, and dismissed his cabman. Reaching home about five in the morning, he went to bed amidst the ruins of all his previous ideas about physiology, nature, and metaphysics, and slept until nine o’clock, so greatly had his journey tired him.