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Authors: Jules Vernes
The last incident proves to what a pitch of
excitement the Quiquendonians had been wrought. The two oldest friends in the
town, and the most gentle – before the advent of the epidemic, to reach this
degree of violence! And that, too, only a few minutes after their old mutual
sympathy, their amiable instincts, their contemplative habit, had been restored
at the summit of the tower!
On learning what was going on, Doctor Ox
could not contain his joy. He resisted the arguments which Ygène, who saw what
a serious turn affairs were taking, addressed to him. Besides, both of them
were infected by the general fury. They were not less excited than the rest of
the population, and they ended by quarrelling as violently as the burgomaster
and the counsellor.
Besides, one question eclipsed all others,
and the intended duels were postponed to the issue of the Virgamenian
difficulty. No man had the right to shed his blood uselessly, when it belonged,
to the last drop, to his country in danger. The affair was, in short, a grave
one, and there was no withdrawing from it.
The Burgomaster Van Tricasse, despite the
warlike ardour with which he was filled, had not thought it best to throw
himself upon the enemy without warning him. He had, therefore, through the
medium of the rural policeman, Hottering, sent to demand reparation of the
Virgamenians for the offence committed, in 1195, on the Quiquendonian
territory.
The authorities of Virgamen could not at
first imagine of what the envoy spoke, and the latter, despite his official
character, was conducted back to the frontier very cavalierly.
Van Tricasse then sent one of the
aides-de-camp of the confectioner-general, citizen Hildevert Shuman, a
manufacturer of barley-sugar, a very firm and energetic man, who carried to the
authorities of Virgamen the original minute of the indictment drawn up in 1195
by order of the Burgomaster Natalis Van Tricasse.
The authorities of Virgamen burst out
laughing, and served the aide-de-camp in the same manner as the rural
policeman.
The burgomaster then assembled the
dignitaries of the town.
A letter, remarkably and vigorously drawn
up, was written as an ultimatum; the cause of quarrel was plainly stated, and a
delay of twenty-four hours was accorded to the guilty city in which to repair
the outrage done to Quiquendone.
The letter was sent off, and returned a few
hours afterwards, torn to bits, which made so many fresh insults. The
Virgamenians knew of old the forbearance and equanimity of the Quiquendonians,
and madesport of them and their demand, of their
casus belli
and their
ultimatum.
There was only one thing left to do, – to
have recourse to arms, to invoke the God of battles, and, after the Prussian
fashion, to hurl themselves upon the Virgamenians before the latter could be
prepared.
This decision was made by the council in
solemn conclave, in which cries, objurgations, and menacing gestures were
mingled with unexampled violence. An assembly of idiots, a congress of madmen,
a club of maniacs, would not have been more tumultuous.
As soon as the declaration of war was
known, General Jean Orbideck assembled his troops, perhaps 2,393 combatants
from a population of 2,393 souls. The women, the children, the old men, were
joined with the able-bodied males. The guns of the town had been put under
requisition. Five had been found, two of which were without cocks, and these
had been distributed to the advance-guard. The artillery was composed of the
old culverin of the château, taken in 1339 at the attack on Quesnoy, one of the
first occasions of the use of cannon in history, and which had not been fired
off for five centuries. Happily for those who were appointed to take it in
charge there were no projectiles with which to load it; but such as it was,
this engine might well impose on the enemy. As for side-arms, they had been
taken from the museum of antiquities, – flint hatchets, helmets, Frankish
battle-axes, javelins, halberds, rapiers, and so on; and also from those
domestic arsenals commonly known as ‘cupboards’ and ‘kitchens’. But courage,
the right, hatred of the foreigner, the yearning for vengeance, were to take
the place of more perfect engines, and to replace – at least it was hoped so – the
modern mitrailleuses and breech-loaders.
The troops were passed in review. Not a
citizen failed at the roll-call. General Orbideck, whose seat on horseback was
far from firm, and whose steed was a vicious beast, was thrown three times in
front of the army; but he got up again without injury, and this was regarded as
a favourable omen. The burgomaster, the counsellor, the civil commissary, the
chief justice, the schoolteacher, the banker, the rector, – in short, all the
notabilities of the town, – marched at the head. There were no tears shed,
either by mothers, sisters, or daughters. They urged on their husbands,
fathers, brothers, to the combat, and even followed them and formed the
rear-guard, under the orders of the courageous Madame Van Tricasse.
The crier, Jean Mistrol, blew his trumpet; the army moved off, and
directed itself, with ferocious cries, towards the Oudenarde gate.
At the moment when the head of the column
was about to pass the walls of the town, a man threw himself before it.
‘Stop! stop! Fools that you are!’ he cried.
‘Suspend your blows! Let me shut the valve! You are not changed in nature! You
are good citizens, quiet and peaceable! If you are so excited, it is my master,
Doctor Ox’s, fault! It is an experiment! Under the pretext of lighting your
streets with oxyhydric gas, he has saturated -’
The assistant was beside himself; but he
could not finish. At the instant that the doctor’s secret was about to escape
his lips, Doctor Ox himself pounced upon the unhappy Ygène in an indescribable
rage, and shut his mouth by blows with his fist.
It was a battle. The burgomaster, the
counsellor, the dignitaries, who had stopped short on Ygène’s sudden
appearance, carried away in turn by their exasperation, rushed upon the two
strangers, without waiting to hear either the one or the other.
Doctor Ox and his assistant, beaten and lashed, were about to be
dragged, by order of Van Tricasse, to the round-house, when, –
In which the
dénouement
takes place
When a formidable explosion resounded. All
the atmosphere which enveloped Quiquendone seemed on fire. A flame of an
intensity and vividness quite unwonted shot up into the heavens like a meteor.
Had it been night, this flame would have been visible for ten leagues around.
The whole army of Quiquendone fell to the
earth, like an army of monks. Happily there were no victims; a few scratches
and slight hurts were the only result. The confectioner, who, as chance would
have it, had not fallen from his horse this time, had his plume singed, and
escaped without any further injury.
What had happened?
Something very simple, as was soon learned:
the gasworks had just blown up. During the absence of the doctor and his
assistant, some careless mistake had no doubt been made. It is not known how or
why a communication had been established between the reservoir which contained
the oxygen and that which enclosed the hydrogen. An explosive mixture had
resulted from the union of these two gases, to which fire had accidentally been
applied.
This changed everything; but when the army got upon its feet again,
Doctor Ox and his assistant Ygène had disappeared.
After the explosion, Quiquendone
immediately became the peaceable, phlegmatic, and Flemish town it formerly was.
After the explosion, which indeed did not
cause a very lively sensation, each one, without knowing why, mechanically took
his way home, the burgomaster leaning on the counsellor’s arm, the advocate
Schut going arm in arm with Custos the doctor, Frantz Niklausse walking with
equal familiarity with Simon Collaert, each going tranquilly, noiselessly,
without even being conscious of what had happened, and having already forgotten
Virgamen and their revenge. The general returned to his confections, and his
aide-de-camp to the barley-sugar.
Thus everything had become calm again; the
old existence had been resumed by men and beasts, beasts and plants; even by
the tower of Oudenarde gate, which the explosion – these explosions are
sometimes astonishing – had set upright again!
And from that time never a word was spoken
more loudly than another, never a discussion took place in the town of
Quiquendone. There were no more politics, no more clubs, no more trials, no
more policemen! The post of the Commissary Passauf became once more a sinecure,
and if his salary was not reduced, it was because the burgomaster and the
counsellor could not make up their minds to decide upon it.
From time to time, indeed, Passauf flitted,
without anyone suspecting it, through the dreams of the inconsolable
Tatanémance.
As for Frantz’s rival, he generously abandoned the charming Suzel to
her lover, who hastened to wed her five or six years after these events.
And as for Madame Van Tricasse, she died ten years later, at the proper
time, and the Burgomaster married Mademoiselle Pélagie Van Tricasse, his
cousin, under excellent conditions – for the happy mortal who should succeed
him.
In which Doctor
Ox’
s theory is
explained
What, then, had this mysterious Doctor Ox
done? Tried a fantastic experiment, – nothing more.
After having laid down his gas-pipes, he
had saturated, first the public buildings, then the private dwellings, finally
the streets of Quiquendone, with pure oxygen, without letting in the least atom
of hydrogen.
This gas, tasteless and odourless, spread
in generous quantity through the atmosphere, causes, when it is breathed,
serious agitation to the human organism. One who lives in an air saturated with
oxygen grows excited, frantic, burns!
You scarcely return to the ordinary atmosphere
before you return to your usual state. For instance, the counsellor and the
burgomaster at the top of the belfry were themselves again, as the oxygen is
kept, by its weight, in the lower strata of the air.
But one who lives under such conditions, breathing
this gas which transforms the body physiologically as well as the soul, dies
speedily, like a madman.
It was fortunate, then, for the
Quiquendonians, that a providential explosion put an end to this dangerous
experiment, and abolished Doctor Ox’s gas-works.
To conclude: are virtue, courage, talent,
wit, imagination, – are all these qualities or faculties only a question of
oxygen?
Such is Doctor Ox’s theory; but we are not
bound to accept it, and for ourselves we utterly reject it, in spite of the curious
experiment of which the worthy old town of Quiquendone was the theatre.
A public lecture delivered by Jules Verne, Director,
on 12th December 1875
Ladies and gentlemen,
Will you permit me to neglect all the
duties of a Director of the Academy of Amiens presiding at a public session, by
replacing the usual lecture by an account of an adventure which happened to
myself? I make my apologies in advance, not only to my colleagues, whose
goodwill to me has never been lacking, but to you, ladies and gentlemen, for
being about to hear something you did not expect.
I was present, towards the beginning of
last month, at the prize-giving day at the lycée. There, without leaving my
armchair, and guided by one of our colleagues, I made a tour of ancient Amiens.
Of this excursion across the little industrial Venice formed north of the town
by the eleven streams of the Seine, I retain only pleasant memories. I went
home, I dined, I went to bed, I fell asleep.
Nothing out of the way in that, and quite likely
on that day all the virtuous people in the town did the same, as it’s the
proper thing to do.
I usually get up early. But for some reason
I cannot explain I did not wake up till quite late next day. The dawn had
forestalled me. I must have slept eleven hours at least! What was the reason of
this? I must have taken a sleeping-draught. Never have I closed my eyes during
any official lecture whatever!
Whatever the reason, when I got up the sun
had already crossed the meridian. I opened my window. It was fine weather. I’d
thought it would be Wednesday!... It was obviously Sunday, for the boulevards
were encumbered by a crowd of strollers. I dressed myself, I breakfasted in a
trice and I went out.
All that day, ladies and gentlemen, to recall one of the first
Napoleon’s rare jokes, I was to ‘march from surprise to surprise’.
You can judge for yourself.