"His practice also was very simple. Whenever he was called in to any patient, he began by giving them an emetic, to clear away all obstructions, as he said. He next inquired if the complaint was local, and where? If it was in the head he put a blister on the soles of the feet; if it was in the lower extremities he placed one on the crown of the head; if it was between the two he took care to blister both. When the malady was general, he began by bleeding, and went on by bleeding, till the patient died or recovered; declaring all the while, that let the disease be as bad as it would, he would have it out of him one way or other. He had a good deal of practice when I came, and it rapidly increased, for he was always called in by poor dependents, who expected legacies, to their rich relatives; by young heirs of estates to old annuitants; by the expectants of abbeys, and persons possessing survivorships to their dear friends the long-lived incumbents: and he was also applied to frequently by young wives for their old husbands, and other cases of the kind, wherein he was supposed to practise very successfully. As I grew up, he initiated me into all the secrets of his profession, took me to the bedside of his patients; and, in fact gave me many a paternal mark of his regard! Nor did he confine his confidence in me entirely to professional subjects. It was from him that I learned the earlier part of my own history, and that of the Count de Bagnols, whose papers I had many an opportunity of seeing, for they lay wrapped in a piece of old sheepskin in the drawer with the syringes. Thus passed the time till a company of players visited Auch; and as every night of their performance I went to see them, I speedily acquired a taste--I may say a passion, for the stage, which evidently showed that nature had destined me to wear the buskin. From that moment I was seized with horror at the indiscriminate slaughter which I daily aided in committing, and I resolved to quit Auch the very first opportunity. This, however, did not occur immediately, for before I could prepare my plans the players had left the place, and I was obliged to remain in my sanguinary profession for another year, during which I learned by heart every play that had ever been written in the French language. One day, while I was sitting alone reading Rotrou, a man came in and addressed me with an air of cajolery which instantly put me on my guard; but when he gave me to understand, after a thousand doublings, that he wished to know if ever I had heard my father, or, as he called him, 'master,' talk of certain papers belonging to the late Count de Bagnols, which might be of the greatest service in clearing the honour of his family; and when, at the same time he offered me ten Louis d'ors if I could find the papers, I became as pliant as wax, slipped one hand into the drawer, took the money with the other, delivered the papers, and recommenced my book.