Guy de Chauliac

“ There are few centuries in history that can show the existence of so many men whose work was to have an enduring influence for all the after time as this upon which Chauliac's career shed so bright a light. ”

“ Chauliac's career is interesting because it is that of a self-made man of the Middle Ages, which brings out the fact that men do not differ so much as might be thought at this distance of time, and shows that there were chances for a man to rise by his own genius from a lowly to a lofty position at this time of the Middle Ages, when it is usually supposed that men were excluded from such opportunities. ”

“ He operated for hernia and its radical cure, placing the patient in an exaggerated Trendelenberg position, head down, feet fastened to a slanting board. For such work anatomy had to be known very well, and Chauliac had made special studies at Bologna under Bertruccio, the successor of Mondino. Chauliac once declared that the surgeon ignorant of anatomy carves the human body as a blind man would carve wood. ”

“ In the light of Chauliac's life it is indeed amusing to read the excursions of certain historians into the relationship of the Popes and the Church to science during the Middle Ages. Chauliac is typically representative of medieval science, a man who gave due weight to authority, yet tried everything by his own experience, and who sums up in himself such wonderful advance in surgery that during the last twenty years the students of the history of medicine [Pg 308] have been more interested in him than in anyone who comes during the intervening six centuries. ”

“ In Chaucer’s life, as in the “Seven Ages of Man,” the soldier follows hard upon the lover; he is scarcely out of his ’teens before we find him riding to the Great War, “in hope to stonden in his lady grace.” He fought in that strange campaign of 1359-60, which began with such magnificent preparations, but ended so ineffectually. Edward marched across France from Calais to Reims with a splendid army and an unheard-of baggage train; but the towns closed their gates, the French armies hovered out of his reach, and the weather was such that horses and men died like flies. ”

“ In 1382 he composed his “Parliament of Fowls” in honour of Richard II.’s marriage with Anne of Bohemia; then came the “House of Fame” and the “Legend of Good Women.” These two poems, like most of Chaucer’s work, are unfinished, and unequal even as they stand. We cannot too often remind ourselves that he was no professional litterateur, but a courtier, diplomatist, and man of business whose genius impelled him to incessant study and composition under conditions which, in these days, would be considered very unfavourable in many respects. ”

“ France and the Republic need you. I will do it for you.” I have not seen this letter myself. My quotation from it is taken from the report in the French papers of March 25 of the examination of Madame Caillaux by Monsieur Boucard. She gave this letter to her daughter’s English governess Miss Baxter, telling her that she was to give it to Monsieur Caillaux at seven o’clock if she had not returned home by then. It seems only fair to believe that Madame Caillaux at that time, while she foresaw the likelihood of a stormy interview with the editor of the Figaro, did not intend committing murder. ”

“ CHAPTER I ENGLAND IN EMBRYO
Few men could lay better claim than Chaucer to this happy accident of birth with which Matthew Arnold endows his Scholar Gipsy, if we refrain from pressing too literally the poet’s fancy of a Golden Age. Chaucer’s times seemed sordid enough to many good and great men who lived in them; but few ages of the world have been better suited to nourish such a genius, or can afford a more delightful travelling-ground for us of the 20th century. ”

“ Sluys, our first great maritime victory, the Trafalgar of the Middle Ages, was won in the same year in which the poet was probably born; six years later we captured Calais, our first colony; and it was noted even in those days that the Englishman prospered still more abroad than at home. Never before or since have English armies been so frequently and so uniformly victorious as during the first thirty years of Chaucer’s life; seldom have our commerce and our liberties developed more rapidly ”

“ And, so easily is a multitude swayed, that one fact would bring him popularity, transcending that of every other man in France. He, Chauvelin, the despised, the derided, whose name had become synonymous with Failure, would then with a word sweep those aside who had mocked him, hurl his enemies from their pedestals, and name at will the rulers of France. ”

“ We to our labor and he to his rest;
Let not the heart by its woe be offended,
Man seeks the pleasant, but God gives the best.
[pg 81]
From Household Words. THE YOUNG ADVOCATE.
Antoine de Chaulieu was the son of a poor gentleman of Normandy, with a long genealogy, a short rent-roll, and a large family. Jacques Rollet was the son of a brewer, who did not know who his grandfather was; but he had a long purse and only two children. As these youths flourished in the early days of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and were near neighbors, they naturally hated each other. ”

“ Chauvelin was like a wily and sleek panther that is furtive in its movements, that will lure its prey, watch it, follow it with stealthy footsteps, and only pounce on it when it is least wary, whilst Heron was more like a raging bull that tosses its head in a blind, irresponsible fashion, rushes at an obstacle without gauging its resisting powers, and allows its victim to slip from beneath its weight through the very clumsiness and brutality of its assault.
Still Chauvelin had two heavy black marks against him—those of his failures at Calais and Boulogne. ”

“ And Chauvelin, who in the past had oft with a nod sent a man to the guillotine, made no reply to this arrogant taunt. His small figure seemed to shrink still further within itself: and anon he passed his thin, claw-like hand over his face as if to obliterate from its surface any expression which might war with the utter humility wherewith he now spoke.
"Nor was there any offence meant on my part, citizen Martin-Roget," he said suavely. "Do we not both labour for the same end? The glory of the Republic and the destruction of her foes?" ”

“ The crowds who gather in modern towns to see a man in handcuffs led from a dingy van up the dingy court steps would have found a far keener relish in the public punishments which Chaucer saw on his way to and from work; fraudulent tradesmen in the pillory, with their putrid wares burning under their noses, or drinking wry-mouthed the corrupt wine which they had palmed off on the public; scolding wives in the somewhat milder “thewe”; sometimes a penitential procession all round the city, as in the case of the quack doctor and astrologer whose story is so vividly told by the good Monk of St. ”

“ The prince of such graceful triflers was the Abbé de Chaulieu (1639–1720) , of whom it was said that he made verses solely for the amusement of his friends, and without the smallest intention of seeing them in print. The best of his effusions have preserved a certain freshness because of the neatness with which they are turned, but it can scarcely be said that they have any pretension to be called poetry. ”

“ We must indeed beware of exaggerating this simplicity; there were already many complex threads of social development; again, the subtle tyranny of custom and opinion has in all primitive societies a power which we find it hard to realize. But certainly work and play were far less specialized in Chaucer’s day than in ours; far less definitely sorted into different pigeon-holes of life. The drinking-bouts and rough games which scandalized the reformers of the 13th century had once been religious ceremonies themselves ”

“ At all events, the excuse of gaiety of heart—the plea of that vieil esprit Gaulois which is so often, and very rarely without need, invoked in an exculpatory capacity by modern French criticism—is the best defence ever made for Chaucer's laughable irregularities, either by his apologists or by himself. "Men should not," he says, and says very truly, "make earnest of game." ”

“ A murmur like unto the snarl of a pack of hyenas rises round the table, as Chauvelin's letter is handed round.
Everyone has guessed the importance of this preliminary capture: “the woman—his wife.” Chauvelin evidently thinks much of it, for he anticipates an attempt against his life, nay! he is quite prepared for it, ready to sacrifice it for the sake of his revenge.
Who had accused him of weakness?
He only thinks of his duty, not of his life; he does not fear for himself, only that the fruits of his skill might be jeopardized through assassination. ”

“ In this letter Madame Caillaux is said to have written, in reference to her conversation with her husband that same morning, “you told me that you were going to smash his face. I do not want you to sacrifice yourself. France and the Republic need you. ”

“ For all that we have lost or missed, the world is no mere vale of tears—
well, even Age has its consolations—
There we have, in a couple of lines, the philosophy of Chaucer’s later years—to take life as we find it, and make the best of it. If he had cared to take up the full burden of his time, there were plenty of themes for tragedy. The world seemed to grow madder and madder as the 14th century drew to its close ”

“ Catherine Théot was silent for a moment or two, pressed her thin lips together; then rejoined quite quietly:
"She'll not escape. Have no fear, citizen Chauvelin."
"That's brave! And now, tell me what has become of the coalheaver Rateau?"
"Oh, he comes and goes. You told me to encourage him."
"Yes"
"So I give him potions for his cough. He has one foot in the grave."
"Would that he had both!" Chauvelin broke in savagely. "That man is a perpetual menace to my plans. It would have been so much better if we could have sent him last April to the guillotine." ”

“ Monsieur de Chauvelin bowed and answered, "I will not fail to follow your advice, Madame."
"You will only be doing what a loyal subject should," she returned " "you are bound to be very careful of your health, my dear Marquis, as you are to be only two month's before . . . . "
"I only wish it were the other way and I had to precede you," put in the King; "you would be sure of a hundred years of life then, Chauvelin. Well, I can only repeat the Countess's good counsel,—go to Bordeu, old friend, go to Bordeu." ”

“ THE next day after the King had given Monsieur de Chauvelin leave to retire to his estates, the Marquise his wife was walking in the Park of Grosbois with her children and their tutor.
A good and noble woman, who dwelling beneath the shade of those great oaks, had known nothing of the corruption gnawing at the heart of France for the past fifty years, Madame de Chauvelin had still her God who smiled on her and to whom she prayed, her children who loved her and whom she adored, her dependents who revered her and whom she succoured. ”

“ And when Caoilte saw he knew him he spoke out and he said: "Tell me what way I can get freedom for my master." "There is no way to get freedom for him but by doing one thing," said the king, "and that is a thing you can never do. If you can bring me together a couple of all the wild creatures of Ireland," he said, "I will give up your master to you then."
When Caoilte heard him say that he made no delay, but he set out from Teamhair, and went through the whole of Ireland to do that work for the sake of Finn. ”

“ The glory of that age lies less in thoughtless merrymaking than in a brave and steady struggle—with the elements, with circumstances, and with fellow-man. Even in Chaucer’s time Englishmen took their pleasures sadly in comparison with Frenchmen and Italians. We cannot say that our forefathers enjoyed life less than we do, but we can certainly say that theirs was a life which we could enjoy only after a process of acclimatization ”

“ Chauvelin retorts drily:
"At work. On business at least as important as taking sides in a quarrel between Robespierre and Tallien."
"Pardi! . . ." Barras protests hotly.
But Chauvelin pays no further attention to him. A neighbouring church clock has just struck six. Within the hour his arch-enemy will be in his hands! Never for a moment does he doubt that the bold adventurer will come to the lonely house in the Rue de la Planchette. Even hating the Englishman as he does, he knows that the latter would not endanger his wife's safety by securing his own. ”

“ Of a truth, a fine figure of a man, Chauvelin was ready enough to admit that; the long, hard limbs, the wide chest, and slender, white hands, all bespoke the man of birth, breeding and energy: the face too looked strong and clearly-cut in repose, now that the perpetually inane smile did not play round the firm lips, nor the lazy, indolent expression mar the seriousness of the straight brow. For one moment—it was a mere flash—Chauvelin felt almost sorry that so interesting a career should be thus ignominiously brought to a close. ”

“ He will not refuse to take you with him, perhaps, when he starts on his noble work; between you, you will have cunning as well as valour! God guard you both! In the meanwhile I think we should lose no time. I still believe that his safety depends upon his knowing that Chauvelin is on his track. ”

“ But, above all, Chauvelin had a purpose at heart. He firmly believed that the French aristocrat was the most bitter enemy of France; he would have wished to see every one of them annihilated: he was one of those who, during this awful Reign of Terror, had been the first to utter the historic and ferocious desire "that aristocrats might have but one head between them, so that it might be cut off with a single stroke of the guillotine." ”