Thus Talleyrand
describes how one day, just after dinner (it may be recalled that
Napoleon was a copious and exceedingly rapid eater), passing for a few
minutes into Josephine's room, the Emperor came out, took Talleyrand
into his own room, ordered the door to be closed, and then fell down in
a fit. Bourrienne, however, who was Napoleon's private secretary for
eleven years, knew nothing about any fits. It is not usual, in a true
epileptic fit, to be able to control the circumstances of the seizure
to this extent, and if Napoleon, who lived so public a life, furnished
so little evidence of epilepsy to his environment, it may be regarded
as very doubtful whether any true epilepsy existed, and on other
grounds it seems highly improbable.[3]
Of all these distinguished persons in the list of alleged epileptics,
it is naturally most profitable to investigate the case of the latest,
Flaubert, for here it is easiest to get at the facts. Maxime du Camp, a
friend in early life, though later incompatibility of temperament led
to estrangement, announced to the world in his _Souvenirs_ that
Flaubert was an epileptic, and Goncourt mentions in his _Journal_ that
he was in the habit of taking much bromide. But the "fits" never began
until the age of twenty-eight, which alone should suggest to a
neurologist that they are not likely to have been epileptic; they never
occurred in public; he could feel the fit coming on and would go and
lie down; he never lost consciousness; his intellect and moral
character remained intact until death.
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