I had made the acquaintance of a young doctor, named Thibaut; he had no practice at that time, although he was not without ability. One cure he brought about made his reputation, and another his fortune. He cured Félix Deviolaine--the young cousin of whom I have several times spoken and of whom I shall have occasion to speak again--of a chest complaint that had reached the last stages, by means of inducing articular rheumatism, which drew off the inflammation; and by sheer skill he managed to cure the Marquise de Lagrange, whom he accompanied to Italy, of a chronic affection which was considered incurable. When the marquise was restored to perfect health, she was so grateful that she married him, and they both live to-day on their estates near Gros-Bois. As Thibaut has the control of a fortune of forty to fifty thousand livres income, he no longer practises the craft of medicine except to benefit his flowers and fruits. But, at this period, Thibaut, like Adolphe and myself, was penniless; we were both his patients, and, pecuniarily speaking, very bad ones. How came we to be Thibaut's patients? I will explain. In 1823 and 1824 it was all the fashion to suffer from chest complaint; everybody was consumptive, poets especially; it was good form to spit blood after each emotion that was at all inclined to be sensational, and to die before reaching the age of thirty. Of course, Adolphe and I, both young, tall and thin, considered we were fully entitled to this privilege, and many people who knew us agreed we had some right thereto. I have now lost all claim to this distinction, but, to be fair towards Adolphe, he still has his; for now, at forty-six, he is just as tall and as thin as he was then, when he was twenty-one.