The qualities of a great man are often federative. If among these
colossal spirits one has more talent than wit, his wit is still superior
to that of a man of whom it is simply stated that "he is witty." Genius
always presupposes moral insight. This insight may be applied to a
special subject; but he who can see a flower must be able to see the
sun. The man who on hearing a diplomate he has saved ask, "How is the
Emperor?" could say, "The courtier is alive; the man will follow!"--that
man is not merely a surgeon or a physician, he is prodigiously witty
also. Hence a patient and diligent student of human nature will admit
Desplein's exorbitant pretensions, and believe--as he himself believed
--that he might have been no less great as a minister than he was as a
surgeon.
Among the riddles which Desplein's life presents to many of his
contemporaries, we have chosen one of the most interesting, because the
answer is to be found at the end of the narrative, and will avenge him
for some foolish charges.
Of all the students in Desplein's hospital, Horace Bianchon was one of
those to whom he most warmly attached himself. Before being a house
surgeon at the Hotel-Dieu, Horace Bianchon had been a medical student
lodging in a squalid boarding house in the _Quartier Latin_, known as the
Maison Vauquer.
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