The Great Man
by James Dorr
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"It was January as I say, nearly the end of the month, when Captain Sarbeau and I received a summons to present ourselves at a certain château, one that had been abandoned, or so we thought, since the earlier chaos of the directory. Even for the south it was cold, with ice in the rivers, so we bundled ourselves in our winter clothing and rode that night to where we had been told, and presented ourselves as requested. At the gate we were met by servants with torches-as if we were still in the days of the ancien régime-and helped with our outer coats, then ushered into a room so heated that even had we been clothed in our summer uniforms from Spain we still would have felt some amount of discomfort.
"And then we were left there, alone, in a room filled with apparatuses of all description-great casks and boilers and a steam engine of some kind, retorts and pipes from which one could hear bubbling noises. And, sitting before us in a huge throne-like chair, covered from chin to toe with a thick blanket, was a figure we both recognized as the Great Man.
"We didn't know what to do. First the captain, then I, saluted, although, as I said, the Great Man was no soldier-at least to our knowledge. Nor did he return the salutes we offered but simply bade us, in a harsh rasping voice, to turn around several times, and then to remove our jackets and waistcoats and stand at ease. We stood there-I, with my one arm, and Captain Sarbeau, who was built like an ox then-in our shirtsleeves and breeches while he explained why he had summoned us.
"And then he spoke to us of la guillotine."
I must have looked puzzled then, because the old man paused. "Yes," he finally went on, "as I said, my tale will prove what I maintained before. Oh, the Great Man spoke of other things too, of France, of the Emperor and of how the rumors one heard were correct-that the Emperor and others, with the Great Man manipulating affairs behind the scenes, planned an escape from the prison of Elba in scarcely more than a month's time. But always he returned to that other rumor-that he had been executed himself during the confusion that swept the countryside at the time the directory had ruled. He had fled Paris by then-you see, there were factions against him-to the southern part of France, anticipating his own guillotining were he to stay longer. And yet, even here . . .
"Well, he told us that even here he took precautions. He had studied the theories of Lavoisier and, having money, had bought the château in which we were standing, and started the rumor that it was deserted. He had brought in apparatuses-some of which we saw now-secretly at night. He had hired assistants, bribing them for their silence, and had bribed officials too-including the town's executioners. Or so he told us.
"You see, we were skeptics. Oh, we had seen Charlotte Corday with our own eyes, and heard of Lavoisier's proof as well-of the instant of life that still remained after one had been beheaded-but to carry it as far as he planned to, well, we were convinced that what he then told us could not have been true. We thought that perhaps his reversals of fortune had driven him mad. The Great Man did not begrudge us our whisperings during his pauses in the conversation. In fact there were many gaps of several minutes or more while the pipes behind him bubbled and others hissed softly, as if he must catch his breath before he went on.
"But he did go on, telling of how the baskets into which the heads fell were later found with their bottoms chewed, by the gnashings of the victims' teeth. And he told of other theories, of Gautier's and others later, including that of the German anatomist Sommering, who theorized that if only some artificial lung could be attached quickly enough to it, the guillotined head would even speak of how it endured. And that of our own country's Dr. Jean-Joseph Sue that the body, too-its limbs and organs-must still feel sensation, at least for an instant.
"And after that instant, well, then it came back to Lavoisier-the Great Man told us-and to his theory of caloric, the element of heat which maintained life, but also, when life ceased, engendered decay. And so the Great Man began to take precautions. He had, as I said, bribed the town's executioners so that, at last, when the moment he had so feared had come upon him, when he took the walk up the steps of the scaffold, his hands bound behind him, when he felt his body lashed to the trestle, his head thrust through the hole- 'mounting Madame,' as we called it in those days-he looked down to see not the red-painted wicker basket sprinkled with bran to soak up the gore, as would have been usual, but an apparatus of his own devising. It was a bucket already filled to the brim with fresh blood-never mind where it came from-to keep his brain nourished. The bucket in turn was placed within a barrel of ice and salt to draw the caloric out from his severed head and cool it until it was nearly frozen, thus slowing the process of death itself until the head could be returned to the château where another apparatus was waiting.
"Then, once more, he paused to take more breath while Captain Sarbeau and I whispered between ourselves that even if such a thing could be, surely it would drive one insane. Imagine the horror-even if one has assured one's survival-of having one's head cut off! And knowing when it was-feeling its separation from one's body. Feeling so helpless, knowing your body was dying while you still lived . . .
"That's when the blanket slipped, and we felt powerful hands laid upon us-those of the Great Man's silently returning servants-holding us immobile as we saw, not a body appear as the cloth fell, but rather a framework of tubing and uprights supporting a collar that held the head in place. And, as I say, from the head we saw pipes, some branching off to a steam-powered pump to force fresh air through the artificial lung of Sommering providing not just speech but oxygenation!-Others to huge flasks of thick, red liquids-again from we knew not where-still others to the chamber's four walls, tapping the chimneys above its fireplaces to draw in caloric to keep the brain heated to the level at which living blood would have kept it. Inward, outward, fresh air, stale air, fresh blood and spent blood continually cycling for these nearly twenty years while all around it nations were tumbling, battles were being won and lost, empires were rising and falling. And then, again, rising.
"The Great Man called a halt to our whispered babbling while, within that grim head, his eyes rolled and swept about in their sockets, measuring us one last time as we stood there. Then as other servants wheeled in a great tub packed with ice and salt-the size of a coffin-I saw out the window as the sun rose the shadow of a guillotine in the courtyard. With a scowl the Great Man signaled for my dismissal, as I was not needed. I would be free to go, anywhere that I wished. No one, you understand, had I related at that time what I had seen there, would have believed me.
"But, as for my captain, I saw-as the servants were ushering me from that dreadful chamber-the Great Man's gaze once again come to rest on his tall, strong form. I saw the Great Man smile then for the first time-a ghastly, mad smile-as he spoke again of his plans for Napoleon's reinstatement, adding only this: that if he were now to aid France and her Emperor to the fullest, the time had come when he would require a body."
The End
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