The consequences of this poisoning were most terrible to me: for some time my life was despaired of, but eventually the sufferings seemed to be modified by the gentle care bestowed on me, and I was granted some slight relief. Strangely enough, it was not till this second phase of my illness, when the doctor declared me out of danger, that I was haunted by a certainty of speedy death, to which was joined an immoderate desire to end my days in the bosom of my family. This idea--a species of monomania--incessantly assailed me, and I soon had no other thought than that of escaping to Blois. As I could not hope to obtain the doctor’s permission to set out, when his most urgent advice was to take care of myself, I determined to take leave. At six o’clock one morning, taking advantage of a moment when I was left to myself, I hastily dressed, went down stairs, and found a stage-coach just starting for Blois. I entered the rotonde, in which I happened to be the only passenger, and the coach, lightly laden as it was, soon set off at full gallop. The journey was a horrible martyrdom to me. I was devoured by a burning fever, and my head seemed to be burst asunder by every jolt of the vehicle. In my frenzy I tried to escape my agony, and yet it was continually increasing. Unable to endure longer, I opened the door of the compartment, and leaped, at an imminent risk of my life, on to the high road, where I fell in a state of insensibility. I cannot say what happened to me after my fainting fit; I can only remember long days of vague and painful existence, that appeared of eternal duration: I was in a raging fever; my dreams were frightful, and I suffered from the most dreadful hallucinations. One of them was incessantly recurring--it seemed as if my head opened like a snuff-box; a doctor, with turned-up cuffs, and armed with an enormous pair of iron pincers, drew from my brain roasted chesnuts, which immediately burst like bombs, and scattered myriads of scintillations before my eyes. This phantasmagoria gradually faded away, and the illness at length succumbed; but my reason was so shaken that it did not avail me. I was reduced to a mechanical existence. If I noticed anything, it seemed veiled in a thick mist, and I could not perform any process of reasoning. It is true that all I did notice only served to increase the confusion of my ideas. I felt as if being shaken in a carriage, and, yet, I was in a capital bed, and the room was exquisitely clean. How could I help fancying I was still dreaming? At length, a spark of intelligence was aroused in me, and the first startling impression was produced by the sight of a man standing at my bedside. His features were quite strange to me. Stooping over, he affectionately urged me to swallow a draught. I obeyed; and he then begged me to keep silent, and remain as calm as I possibly could.