The Moon-Voyage

CHAPTER XXII.

THE NEW CIT­IZEN OF THE UNIT­ED STATES.

That day all Amer­ica heard about the du­el and its sin­gu­lar ter­mi­na­tion. The part played by the chival­rous Eu­ro­pean, his un­ex­pect­ed propo­si­tion which solved the dif­fi­cul­ty, the si­mul­ta­ne­ous ac­cep­ta­tion of the two ri­vals, that con­quest of the lu­nar con­ti­nent to which France and the Unit­ed States were go­ing to march in con­cert--ev­ery­thing tend­ed to in­crease Michel Ar­dan's pop­ular­ity. It is well known how en­thu­si­as­tic the Yan­kees will get about an in­di­vid­ual. In a coun­try where grave mag­is­trates har­ness them­selves to a dancer's car­riage and draw it in tri­umph, it may be judged how the bold French­man was treat­ed. If they did not take out his hors­es it was prob­ably be­cause he had none, but all oth­er marks of en­thu­si­asm were show­ered up­on him. There was no cit­izen who did not join him heart and mind:--_Ex pluribus un­am_, ac­cord­ing to the mot­to of the Unit­ed States.

From that day Michel Ar­dan had not a minute's rest. Dep­uta­tions from all parts of the Union wor­ried him in­ces­sant­ly. He was forced to re­ceive them whether he would or no. The hands he shook could not be count­ed; he was soon com­plete­ly worn out, his voice be­came hoarse in con­se­quence of his in­nu­mer­able speech­es, and on­ly es­caped from his lips in un­in­tel­li­gi­ble sounds, and he near­ly caught a gas­tro-​en­terite af­ter the toasts he pro­posed to the Union. This suc­cess would have in­tox­icat­ed an­oth­er man from the first, but he man­aged to stay in a _spir­ituelle_ and charm­ing de­mi-​ine­bri­ety.

Amongst the dep­uta­tions of ev­ery sort that as­sailed him, that of the “Lu­natics” did not for­get what they owed to the fu­ture con­queror of the moon. One day some of these poor crea­tures, nu­mer­ous enough in Amer­ica, went to him and asked to re­turn with him to their na­tive coun­try. Some of them pre­tend­ed to speak “Se­len­ite,” and wished to teach it to Michel Ar­dan, who will­ing­ly lent him­self to their in­no­cent ma­nia, and promised to take their mes­sages to their friends in the moon.

“Sin­gu­lar fol­ly!” said he to Bar­bi­cane, af­ter hav­ing dis­missed them; “and a fol­ly that of­ten takes pos­ses­sion of men of great in­tel­li­gence. One of our most il­lus­tri­ous _sa­vants_, Ara­go, told me that many very wise and re­served peo­ple in their con­cep­tions be­came much ex­cit­ed and gave way to in­cred­ible sin­gu­lar­ities ev­ery time the moon oc­cu­pied them. Do you be­lieve in the in­flu­ence of the moon up­on mal­adies?”

“Very lit­tle,” an­swered the pres­ident of the Gun Club.

“I do not ei­ther, and yet his­to­ry has pre­served some facts that, to say the least, are as­ton­ish­ing. Thus in 1693, dur­ing an epi­dem­ic, peo­ple per­ished in the great­est num­bers on the 21st of Jan­uary, dur­ing an eclipse. The cel­ebrat­ed Ba­con faint­ed dur­ing the moon eclipses, and on­ly came to him­self af­ter its en­tire emer­sion. King Charles VI. re­lapsed six times in­to mad­ness dur­ing the year 1399, ei­ther at the new or full moon. Physi­cians have ranked epilep­sy amongst the mal­adies that fol­low the phas­es of the moon. Ner­vous mal­adies have of­ten ap­peared to be in­flu­enced by it. Mead speaks of a child who had con­vul­sions when the moon was in op­po­si­tion. Gall re­marked that in­sane per­sons un­der­went an ac­ces­sion of their dis­or­der twice in ev­ery month, at the epochs of the new and full moon. Last­ly, a thou­sand ob­ser­va­tions of this sort made up­on ma­lig­nant fevers and som­nam­bu­lism tend to prove that the Queen of Night has a mys­te­ri­ous in­flu­ence up­on ter­res­tri­al mal­adies.”

“But how? why?” asked Bar­bi­cane.

“Why?” an­swered Ar­dan. “Why, the on­ly thing I can tell you is what Ara­go re­peat­ed nine­teen cen­turies af­ter Plutarch. Per­haps it is be­cause it is not true.”

In the height of his tri­umph Michel Ar­dan could not es­cape any of the an­noy­ances in­ci­den­tal to a cel­ebrat­ed man. Man­agers of en­ter­tain­ments wished to ex­hib­it him. Bar­num of­fered him a mil­lion dol­lars to show him as a cu­ri­ous an­imal in the dif­fer­ent towns of the Unit­ed States.

Still, though he re­fused to sat­is­fy pub­lic cu­rios­ity in that way, his por­traits went all over the world, and oc­cu­pied the place of hon­our in al­bums; proofs were made of all sizes from life size to medal­lions. Ev­ery one could pos­sess the hero in all po­si­tions--head, bust, stand­ing, full-​face, pro­file, three-​quar­ters, back. Fif­teen hun­dred thou­sand copies were tak­en, and it would have been a fine oc­ca­sion to get mon­ey by relics, but he did not prof­it by it. If he had sold his hairs for a dol­lar apiece there would have re­mained enough to make his for­tune!

To tell the truth, this pop­ular­ity did not dis­please him. On the con­trary, he put him­self at the dis­po­si­tion of the pub­lic, and cor­re­spond­ed with the en­tire uni­verse. They re­peat­ed his wit­ti­cisms, es­pe­cial­ly those he did not per­pe­trate.

Not on­ly had he all the men for him, but the wom­en too. What an in­fi­nite num­ber of good mar­riages he might have made if he had tak­en a fan­cy to “set­tle!” Old maids es­pe­cial­ly dreamt be­fore his por­traits day and night.

It is cer­tain that he would have found fe­male com­pan­ions by hun­dreds, even if he had im­posed the con­di­tion of fol­low­ing him up in­to the air. Wom­en are in­trepid when they are not afraid of ev­ery­thing. But he had no in­ten­tion of trans­plant­ing a race of Fran­co-​Amer­icans up­on the lu­nar con­ti­nent, so he re­fused.

“I do not mean,” said he, “to play the part of Adam with a daugh­ter of Eve up there. I might meet with ser­pents!”

As soon as he could with­draw from the joys of tri­umph, too of­ten re­peat­ed, he went with his friends to pay a vis­it to the Columbi­ad. He owed it that. Be­sides, he was get­ting very learned in bal­lis­tics since he had lived with Bar­bi­cane, J.T. Mas­ton, and _tut­ti quan­ti_. His great­est plea­sure con­sist­ed in re­peat­ing to these brave ar­tillery­men that they were on­ly ami­able and learned mur­der­ers. He was al­ways jok­ing about it. The day he vis­it­ed the Columbi­ad he great­ly ad­mired it, and went down to the bore of the gi­gan­tic mor­tar that was soon to hurl him to­wards the Queen of Night.

“At least,” said he, “that can­non will not hurt any­body, which is al­ready very as­ton­ish­ing on the part of a can­non. But as to your en­gines that de­stroy, burn, smash, and kill, don't talk to me about them!”

It is nec­es­sary to re­port here a propo­si­tion made by J.T. Mas­ton. When the sec­re­tary of the Gun Club heard Bar­bi­cane and Nicholl ac­cept Michel Ar­dan's propo­si­tion he re­solved to join them, and make a par­ty of four. One day he asked to go. Bar­bi­cane, grieved at hav­ing to refuse, made him un­der­stand that the pro­jec­tile could not car­ry so many pas­sen­gers. J.T. Mas­ton, in de­spair, went to Michel Ar­dan, who ad­vised him to be re­signed, adding one or two ar­gu­ments _ad hominem_.

“You see, old fel­low,” he said to him, “you must not be of­fend­ed, but re­al­ly, be­tween our­selves, you are too in­com­plete to present your­self in the moon.”

“In­com­plete!” cried the valiant crip­ple.

“Yes, my brave friend. Sup­pose we should meet with in­hab­itants up there. Do you want to give them a sor­ry idea of what goes on here, teach them what war is, show them that we em­ploy the best part of our time in de­vour­ing each oth­er and break­ing arms and limbs, and that up­on a globe that could feed a hun­dred thou­sand mil­lions of in­hab­itants, and where there are hard­ly twelve hun­dred mil­lions? Why, my wor­thy friend, you would have us shown to the door!”

“But if you ar­rive smashed to pieces,” replied J.T. Mas­ton, “you will be as in­com­plete as I.”

“Cer­tain­ly,” an­swered Michel Ar­dan, “but we shall not ar­rive in pieces.”

In fact, a prepara­to­ry ex­per­iment, tried on the 18th of Oc­to­ber, had been at­tend­ed with the best re­sults, and giv­en rise to the most le­git­imate hopes. Bar­bi­cane, wish­ing to know the ef­fect of the shock at the mo­ment of the pro­jec­tile's de­par­ture, sent for a 32-inch mor­tar from Pen­saco­la Ar­se­nal. It was in­stalled up­on the quay of Hillis­boro Har­bour, in or­der that the bomb might fall in­to the sea, and the shock of its fall be dead­ened. He on­ly wished to ex­per­iment up­on the shock of its de­par­ture, not that of its ar­rival.

A hol­low pro­jec­tile was pre­pared with the great­est care for this cu­ri­ous ex­per­iment. A thick wadding put up­on a net­work of springs made of the best steel lined it in­side. It was quite a wadded nest.

“What a pity one can't go in it!” said J.T. Mas­ton, re­gret­ting that his size did not al­low him to make the ven­ture.

In­to this charm­ing bomb, which was closed by means of a lid, screwed down, they put first a large cat, then a squir­rel be­long­ing to the per­pet­ual sec­re­tary of the Gun Club, which J.T. Mas­ton was very fond of. But they wished to know how this lit­tle an­imal, not like­ly to be gid­dy, would sup­port this ex­per­imen­tal jour­ney.

The mor­tar was load­ed with 160 lbs. of pow­der and the bomb. It was then fired.

The pro­jec­tile im­me­di­ate­ly rose with ra­pid­ity, de­scribed a ma­jes­tic parabo­la, at­tained a height of about a thou­sand feet, and then with a grace­ful curve fell in­to the waves.

With­out los­ing an in­stant, a ves­sel was sent to the spot where it fell; skil­ful divers sank un­der wa­ter and fas­tened ca­ble-​chains to the han­dles of the bomb, which was rapid­ly hoist­ed on board. Five min­utes had not elapsed be­tween the time the an­imals were shut up and the un­screw­ing of their prison lid.

Ar­dan, Bar­bi­cane, Mas­ton, and Nicholl were up­on the ves­sel, and they as­sist­ed at the op­er­ation with a sen­ti­ment of in­ter­est easy to un­der­stand. The bomb was hard­ly opened be­fore the cat sprang out, rather bruised but quite live­ly, and not look­ing as if it had just re­turned from an aëri­al ex­pe­di­tion. But noth­ing, was seen of the squir­rel. The truth was then dis­cov­ered. The cat had eat­en its trav­el­ling com­pan­ion.

J.T. Mas­ton was very grieved at the loss of his poor squir­rel, and pro­posed to in­scribe it in the mar­ty­rol­ogy of sci­ence.

How­ev­er that may be, af­ter this ex­per­iment all hes­ita­tion and fear were at an end; be­sides, Bar­bi­cane's plans were des­tined fur­ther to per­fect the pro­jec­tile, and de­stroy al­most en­tire­ly the ef­fect of the shock. There was noth­ing more to do but to start.

Two days lat­er Michel Ar­dan re­ceived a mes­sage from the Pres­ident of the Union, an hon­our which he much ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

Af­ter the ex­am­ple of his chival­rous coun­try­man, La Fayette, the gov­ern­ment had be­stowed up­on him the ti­tle of “Cit­izen of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica.”