There are plenty of places where it is recorded that Jacques Arago spent some time in the mental hospital run by Esprit Blanche and his wife in Montparnasse. That, however, is as far as the information goes. For  Laure Murat, who wrote a history of the early days of the hospital under the title “La Maison du docteur Blanche”, Arago is a source of information about the hospital, but her book is no source of information about Arago. We do not know why he was taken there, when this happened or how long he remained incarcerated. All we know is what he himself tells us in the article he wrote in 1832 for the journal Paris ou le Livre des Cent-et-Un, in volume 4, on pages 97 – 226. In this he tells us that he was arrested by policemen rather than detained by physicians, that because of this he expected to be subject to interrogation rather than treatment, and that he was, in the end, prepared to concede that he had been mentally ill, because he considered himself cured.

Could it have been around the time of the July revolution, which saw  Charles X replaced on the throne of France by Louis Philippe in1830, that this all happened? The involvement of the police makes that seem plausible. The Aragos were notoriously republican in their politics, but the head of the family, Jacques’ eldest brother François was surely too famous for direct action to be taken against him, Was this by way of a warning, vis a close relative? Or was the whole affair organised by François, for his protection?

Figure 1. The Maison Blanche, Montmartre, as Jacques Arago would have known it

We shall probably never know, but at least the affair produced a valuable addition to the Jacques Arago oeuvre. And it begins with an account of that first, frightening, evening…….

A madhouse

(House of Doctor Blanche)

by

Jacques Arago

Two beautiful things, two curious things to see and study in our old Europe: a palace of kings, a madhouse.

Of these two homes, which would you prefer to live in? The fools who live near monarchs are too methodical, too monotonous; those who are relegated to Charenton or to Doctor Blanche seem to me less to be pitied. We pity their condition; they eat, as they please, sitting or standing; they salute without bending to the ground; they are sometimes permitted to have a will, to manifest it, to support it. They talk loud; they control the actions of the leader; they resist threats, they yield only to force… They are almost men.

Tell me the life of madmen who are born and die in the palaces of kings; I will tell you that of the beings who move about in huts. There may be a moral in my story. I saw them first with dread, then with interest, later with a feeling of commiseration which was not without sweetness. Reason is often fatal to us, in that it enlightens us about our ills, without having the power to cure us of them… These people are therefore not so much to be pitied, since they do not always have the feeling of their misfortune.

He who has no equal has no friend; it is an axiom, true only for those who see far into the human heart. A friend smiling at me with a protective smile would wreck my heart; I wouldn’t love him anymore. Too bad for me if I am thus organized. Love, friendship, this is my life.

The history of a madhouse, traced by a madman, is a rather bizarre thing. I was mad when I wrote these pages… My reason returned, I wanted to read them… Everything is true, precise; it seemed to me wise not to take anything from it; it is a portrait that I would spoil by correcting it; I deliver it to you.

Blanche is thirty-five years old. His height is average, his overweight attests to a robust body. It has the short, quick, acerbic verb. A man in perfect health would always be ready to ask her the reason for the crudeness of certain expressions which he is accustomed to using; a madman fears them and is silent in the face of threats. A serious injury received in the right eye gives his gaze an equivocal character, so that one would say that he is meditating, that he is studying, when he only sees. It produced an unpleasant impression on me; it must have been: I felt myself under his iron rod, I who have never been able to obey anything but a woman’s will…

She is tall, slender, blond, a little pale. Her gaze is full of benevolence, is reassuring. The sound of her voice consoles; there is poetry in her language. She has seen so much misery, she has heard so much moaning! She knows how to complain. She is not a tender mother; her age forbids you this sweet illusion; she is not just a friend; you feel for her more than friendship, less than love… Let’s talk little about love. I lived for more than two months in Doctor Blanche’s house; mad and reasonable, I was able to appreciate the qualities of the modest and generous woman I am talking about. This woman is the doctor’s wife. You see that one can keep some pleasant memories of a madhouse.

I was stopped at six o’clock in the evening, in the Rue de Grammont, by four robust police officers, who seized me from behind, clasping me in their vigorous arms. I wanted to try to defend myself… Vain efforts! I was ill, in great pain, in agony. In the name of the King! Do you have to be delirious to resist this order? I was not delirious, and yet I resisted; but, in two jerks, I found myself thrown into a carriage, ready to receive me. Everything was well calculated, planned in advance.

The journey was long. The policemen were talking about the beauty of the city, the coolness of the night; and if I sighed, they invited me to show courage, to be a man. Lessons of courage given by a snitch! who can believe it? Does a snitch know what a man is, except to stop him from behind? I seem to remember, however, that I told them that I had no kind of contempt for them… They did well to stop me like a madman.

We walked slowly, for we had fast streets to climb; and already, in this heart horribly tortured by a violent passion, had penetrated another feeling, indignation. To be collared by a snitch! what an outrage! In the days of the riots I had experienced a similar affront. Without moral existence, the informer is the man of power; coward, he is the man of strength. I’m wrong, the snitch is the bravest man in the world,

However, we arrived at the door of the nursing home; and I remember the smallest circumstances of those slow hours which tortured me so cruelly. We have so much fibre for pain! I thought I was going to an examining magistrate, to a trial king’s rage. They had repeated it to me twenty times on the way, speaking to me of daggers, fires, murders. I listened to my guardians like a man who regrets not having done enough to justify the rigors to which he is subjected; and when I questioned my confused memories, I was almost furious that I had had enough reason not to break all the bonds that bound me to society. Despair, like pain, has its degrees.

After crossing a small courtyard shaded by a few trees with sad, dark foliage, I entered a vast room, occupied almost entirely by a horseshoe table. I supposed, at first glance, that it was the question room, and I was already looking with a curious and firm gaze for the instruments of torture… I was politely asked to come forward.

What a picture!… Suffering faces, stupefied faces, faces laughing without gaiety, weeping without tears, a single face of pity, that of Madame Blanche; and all that agglomerated, so to speak, in a space of ten square feet… My head was gone, I thought I was dreaming; I wanted to know, I was afraid to learn; you see I was somewhat right.

I had time to observe. The weakness of my body gave, I believe, energy to my soul. A little man, round, red, budded, stretched out on an armchair, looked at me with stupid eyes, and laughed at my cadaverous complexion. What was he laughing at? Twice already I had averted my sight from that stupidly mocking, ignobly sardonic face, while my man was still ogling me with a smile. I thought it was a cowardly provocation, and my iron hand was already hovering over his cheek, when a soft, compassionate voice begged me to sit down. Only a woman’s voice could have power over me; I obeyed, my anger died down, and I listened, quite calmly, to the end of a sonata played on a piano by a boarder in her twenties. Madame Bel… was crazy when she wasn’t playing the harpsichord. I learned that later.

But where was I?… The king’s attorney did not come, and a profound silence reigned in the adjoining room, where, according to my ideas, I was to be submitted to severe trials.

Take monsieur to his apartment, said the benevolent fairy to a servant who had not left me for a moment. I followed like an automaton; and, after crossing two or three corridors, climbing two or three flights of stairs, I was vigorously pushed into a windowed room lined with gratings and heavy bars. A bed of very thin appearance, two chairs, a straitjacket, that is all the furniture.

The servant had joined one of his comrades; and both of them, cold, impassive, looked at me like men accustomed to seeing men like me. – What do you do ? what do you want ? – We are here to serve sir. – I don’t need anything, leave me. “The order has been given to us not to leave Monsieur. “Will the king’s prosecutor come soon?” – It can’t be long. “He will do well if he wants me to answer him, for I am losing my strength; and yet I was looking for food for my rage.

I went to bed half dressed. “If Monsieur will, do we have barley water in this vase?” – Why barley water? “M. Blanche ordered it. – So where am I? – At M. Blanche’s..

The blindfold fell: I thought I was a conspirator; I thought I was crazy!…

I was ashamed, I wept… No, it wasn’t shame, it was still love; and when I saw myself there, there, alone, in front of this barred window, in front of these two faces without friendship or hatred, in front of all my memories of happiness and regrets; when I had recognized the power of those who chained me and the weakness of the victim; when, calculating the length of the hours, the eternity of the minutes, and these cold, insensitive walls had answered me: Here is your place! I saw myself mad, mad forever, mad by her, mad with love, the most dreadful, the most poignant, the most hideous of madness….

I remembered then all that had drawn me there, and I was amazed that I did not feel my arms bound, my feet bound, my throat in a collar of strength. I was furious.

A complete translation, together with the complete original text, can be found in the Long Reads