Page:The Mystery of Madeline Le Blanc (1900).djvu/24

24 the new dynasty that was forming. He made claims for these; but after so many years, and under so many different forms of government, they had changed hands not less than twenty times; and south of Versailles, on the very spot where in his boyhood stood the Château de Satiani, an old peasant had this year planted a field of grain. One could never have told that a château had once stood there.

Stricken with poverty, desolation and misanthropy, he had wandered afoot to Paris; where, by all sorts of labor, from the most menial to the occupation of copyist, he was able to keep from starvation. In 1806 he was forced into the army and fought at Jena and at Auerstadt. In the latter battle he was wounded in the right breast, and by a saber cut on the hip. He was taken from the field, and finally, when nearer dead than alive, removed to a hospital at Tours; whence they took him to Paris. After about eight months he was able to move about again, and assisted in taking care of the other patients; but the right lung was gone. Unfit to go back into the army, it was in this way that he began the study of medicine.