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Page 27
"Oh, a very long time, indeed -- a month certainly -- how much longer
I can't precisely say. In the meantime, the lunatics had a jolly
season of it -- that you may swear. They doffed their own shabby
clothes, and made free with the family wardrobe and jewels. The
cellars of the chateau were well stocked with wine; and these madmen
are just the devils that know how to drink it. They lived well, I can
tell you."
"And the treatment -- what was the particular species of treatment
which the leader of the rebels put into operation?"
"Why, as for that, a madman is not necessarily a fool, as I have
already observed; and it is my honest opinion that his treatment was
a much better treatment than that which it superseded. It was a very
capital system indeed -- simple -- neat -- no trouble at all -- in
fact it was delicious it was."
Here my host's observations were cut short by another series of
yells, of the same character as those which had previously
disconcerted us. This time, however, they seemed to proceed from
persons rapidly approaching.
"Gracious heavens!" I ejaculated -- "the lunatics have most
undoubtedly broken loose."
"I very much fear it is so," replied Monsieur Maillard, now becoming
excessively pale. He had scarcely finished the sentence, before loud
shouts and imprecations were heard beneath the windows; and,
immediately afterward, it became evident that some persons outside
were endeavoring to gain entrance into the room. The door was beaten
with what appeared to be a sledge-hammer, and the shutters were
wrenched and shaken with prodigious violence.
A scene of the most terrible confusion ensued. Monsieur Maillard, to
my excessive astonishment threw himself under the side-board. I had
expected more resolution at his hands. The members of the orchestra,
who, for the last fifteen minutes, had been seemingly too much
intoxicated to do duty, now sprang all at once to their feet and to
their instruments, and, scrambling upon their table, broke out, with
one accord, into, "Yankee Doodle," which they performed, if not
exactly in tune, at least with an energy superhuman, during the whole
of the uproar.
Meantime, upon the main dining-table, among the bottles and glasses,
leaped the gentleman who, with such difficulty, had been restrained
from leaping there before. As soon as he fairly settled himself, he
commenced an oration, which, no doubt, was a very capital one, if it
could only have been heard. At the same moment, the man with the
teetotum predilection, set himself to spinning around the apartment,
with immense energy, and with arms outstretched at right angles with
his body; so that he had all the air of a tee-totum in fact, and
knocked everybody down that happened to get in his way. And now, too,
hearing an incredible popping and fizzing of champagne, I discovered
at length, that it proceeded from the person who performed the bottle
of that delicate drink during dinner. And then, again, the frog-man
croaked away as if the salvation of his soul depended upon every note
that he uttered. And, in the midst of all this, the continuous
braying of a donkey arose over all. As for my old friend, Madame
Joyeuse, I really could have wept for the poor lady, she appeared so
terribly perplexed. All she did, however, was to stand up in a
corner, by the fireplace, and sing out incessantly at the top of her
voice, "Cock-a-doodle-de-dooooooh!"
And now came the climax -- the catastrophe of the drama. As no
resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was
offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten windows
were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in. But I shall
never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with which I gazed,
when, leaping through these windows, and down among us pele-mele,
fighting, stamping, scratching, and howling, there rushed a perfect
army of what I took to be Chimpanzees, Ourang-Outangs, or big black
baboons of the Cape of Good Hope.
I received a terrible beating -- after which I rolled under a sofa
and lay still. After lying there some fifteen minutes, during which
time I listened with all my ears to what was going on in the room, I
came to same satisfactory denouement of this tragedy. Monsieur
Maillard, it appeared, in giving me the account of the lunatic who
had excited his fellows to rebellion, had been merely relating his
own exploits. This gentleman had, indeed, some two or three years
before, been the superintendent of the establishment, but grew crazy
himself, and so became a patient. This fact was unknown to the
travelling companion who introduced me. The keepers, ten in number,
having been suddenly overpowered, were first well tarred, then --
carefully feathered, and then shut up in underground cells. They had
been so imprisoned for more than a month, during which period
Monsieur Maillard had generously allowed them not only the tar and
feathers (which constituted his "system"), but some bread and
abundance of water. The latter was pumped on them daily. At length,
one escaping through a sewer, gave freedom to all the rest.
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