Blood Work (9 page)

Denis and Emmerez positioned the three dogs head to toe and toe to head. Preparing for what would be a round-robin of transfusions, the two men focused their efforts first on the spaniel and the foxlike mutt, their original donor and recipient. Now they bled the mutt into the spaniel, taking the donor to the point of near-death. Emmerez deftly stitched up the spaniel and released it from the table. Moving quickly, Denis turned his scalpel onto the third dog, whose blood would be used to reanimate the mutt.

The room was getting cold, and the two men yelled out to the handful of viewers to stoke the fire—and fast. A cold room would hasten the dogs' deaths and was also causing the blood to clot in the transfusion tubes, which were longer than the ones they had used before. A raging fire now crackling in the background, the third dog was bled into the previous donor. At frequent intervals, the men disconnected the tubes, warmed them with their hands, and blew forcefully into them in a frantic attempt to dislodge the blood that was now clotting. Nearly twelve and a half ounces of blood had been emptied from the mutt, and now sat in the shallow dish nearby. Denis knew better than to say that they had been able to replace all of this with blood from the third dog. But what he could say for sure is that at least some of the blood made it in the mutt.

When the tense experiment was over, the dogs each skulked into the corner, where they whimpered in pain and distress. Denis had planned to let the animals quietly recuperate before
he performed follow-up tests of their appetite, weight, and stamina. However, he soon discovered that a spectator had slipped at least one of the dogs a large gulp of wine. This went a long way to explain why the animal was lurching like a drunken sailor as it walked. Annoyed as he might have been by a meddler in his work, Denis was nevertheless delighted with the knowledge that his procedure had been a success. All three dogs had survived—just barely, but they had survived.

While his initial experiments had been motivated by his desire to prove naysayers wrong, his interests in blood research had quickly morphed into a selfish recognition that transfusion could very well be a way to catapult him into celebrity. In his March 9 report to the
Journal des sçavans
he announced that he would soon be taking his show on the road. He issued an invitation to one and all to join him on the banks of the Seine at 2:00 p.m. the following Saturday to witness another, even more amazing blood transfusion: “We propose now to give you public proof. So you can see what changes transfusion can produce, we will transfer the blood of a young and healthy dog into the veins of an old and mangy one.”
²³

Now, at the foot of the legendary Pont-Neuf, a noisy crowd of observers lined the banks of the river. A good dissection or public surgery always brought out the city's finest: amateur scientists, noblewomen, street children, beggars, and thieves. Noblemen in powdered wigs also dotted the chaotic landscape; they could be spotted in an instant by the perfumed white handkerchiefs they held to their faces to ward off the stench of the unwashed masses. A hush fell over the crowd as Denis stepped center stage. Everyone listened intently to the transfusionist's praises of blood's mysteries and how he and he alone had mastered its secrets. Nodding to Emmerez, Denis stepped forward solemnly to begin the transfusion. Under winter clouds the two men made good on the
promise to transfuse life into the elderly dog. Again both animals survived. Denis had just publicly established his reputation as the premier transfusionist of France.

 

H
enri-Louis Habert de Montmor was among the noblemen watching Denis' circuslike show with a mix of curiosity and excitement. Montmor was neither a physician nor a natural philosopher himself. While he was well aware of the tensions between Montpellier and Paris, his focus was trained squarely on his own self-interest. He still held fast to a quixotic dream of leading Europe's most influential private scientific community—an academy that would rival England's Royal Society and, especially, King Louis XIV's nascent Academy of Sciences. Like Denis, whose initial blood transfusion experiments had been fueled by perceived insults, Montmor was himself smarting from what had been his unceremonious dethroning as private benefactor to the sciences.

In France science had long been supported by a fragmented system of private patronage, with less than stellar results. Wealthy men like Montmor competed for the period's most celebrated thinkers in order to solidify their own social standing in Paris. Yet the French had long lagged behind the English when it came to scientific research. And Royal Society members like Oldenburg had not been shy to acknowledge this. “One must admit,” he bragged, “that the English surpass [the French] and have the advantage over the other peoples of Europe, for they have given us a quantity of curious facts, in addition to the great books which they have published. On the contrary, the books published in Paris do not deserve to be read, at least most of them, being nothing but reiterations and assertions; without the facts which satisfy the mind.”
²⁴

But just as the young Louis XIV and his indefatigable prime
minister, Colbert, had used the buildings of Paris and Versailles to establish the unquestioned grandeur of the French monarchy, they would soon expand their focus to building a glorious royal regime on the foundations of state-sponsored science. The French Royal Academy of Sciences was only a few months old when Denis had taken to the streets to put his blood transfusion show on display. The unknown transfusionist from Montpellier was, of course, not part of the elite handful of men who had been appointed to the king's academy. Nor was the now-displaced Montmor. And as Montmor watched Denis' every move that day on the Quai des Grands-Augustins, he knew that he had found the man who would help him restore his private academy to its former glory. Together he and Denis would take on not just the English but the king of France as well.

L
ike most rich Parisian noblemen who fancied themselves amateur scientists, Henri-Louis Montmor had long made it his routine to visit the artisans who sold their pricey wares on the island's Quai de l'Horloge.
¹
Sitting squarely between the Left and Right banks on the Île de la Cité, the Quai de l'Horloge was a premier address for those in search of the best that Paris had to offer: rare gemstones, oil paintings by the masters, collector's coins made of the purest metals. But during the regular trips that he took to the quai, Montmor always had a singular goal: to bring back expertly crafted instruments and other rare curiosities. He put these tools and toys proudly on display for the many guests who streamed into his stately home on the Right Bank. The shelves of his library creaked with the weight of brass globes etched with the most recent cartographic discoveries, small microscopes embellished with the finest artistic designs, pea-size lodestones that attracted objects nearly one hundred times their size, and the very latest novelty to capture the fancy of
well-heeled Frenchmen: barometers that could measure the very weight of air.
²

The small shops nestled under the turreted towers of the Quai de l'Horloge bustled throughout the day with well-dressed shoppers, both French and foreign. While visitors often complained of the strong fish smell wafting from the boats of the carp sellers below, their displeasure quickly dissipated when they were welcomed into the workshops of the artisans whose craftsmanship had earned them the rare title of “engineers.”
³
Like bookstores and, much later, cafés, instrument makers' shops were privileged spaces where nobles could meet, socialize, and marvel at the ingenuity of French craftsmanship.
⁴

Shopkeepers offered a wide array of quadrants, foldable rulers, protractors, and compasses at all price points. But large sections of most stores on the Quai de l'Horloge were dedicated to sundials, which had become a visible and required mark of nobility in this last half of the seventeenth century. Clocks had not put sundials out of business, nor were they likely to anytime soon. A well-made clock was far beyond the means of even some of the richest families, and mechanical timepieces were notoriously inaccurate, measuring time only in one-hour increments.
⁵
The art of dialing, as it was called, was not only important for setting clocks straight—it had also become an integral part of polite culture, a mark of good breeding and high status.
⁶

Like most men Montmor was drawn to elaborately engraved sundials that folded up and fitted in a small box that was itself stored in another protective case. At about 2.5 inches in diameter, the whole package could fit nicely in his coat pocket.
⁷
He was also one of those discriminating customers who could demand such
premiers cadrans
(top-of-the-line sundials), made of silver, without flinching for one moment at the price. Indeed, to avoid the indiscreet topic of money, artisans probed new customers about their
preferences: silver, brass, or ivory. The ultimate choice of materials revealed everything worth knowing—and the level of service customers were likely to receive. As disappointing as it was, artisans also knew that the most elaborate and unusual scientific pieces commissioned by many of their customers—from pillar sundials embedded in the heads of walking sticks to sundials that doubled as pocket knives—were destined to be only exquisite curiosities. It was part of a required show that confirmed both intelligence and wealth among nobles.
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Among the high-ranking French of the seventeenth century, science was more of a spectacle and a show of social status than anything else. Pocket-size sundials allowed men like Montmor a portable means to display their wealth and their presumed learning. This consumerist fascination with the sun, the stars, and the heavens was exhibited as well by the imposing telescopes that jutted out like “deadly weapons from the roofs of peaceful citizens” all over the wealthy quarter where Montmor lived, the Marais.
⁹
A fascination—a fetish, really—for telescopes had taken over the French capital. A yearning for the stars had preoccupied all of well-heeled Paris, from the ladies in the salons to the university men. As with most everything in this ostentatiously elite society, the telescopes had been mounted at great expense as a display of access to knowledge—and, like so many other tools of science at the time, a fashion statement.

Observation parties established themselves as a regular feature of social life. The telescopes extended more than twenty-five feet and were hoisted into the skies at steep angles with the help of a large post that looked something like a ship's mast. The largest telescopes required support from a triangular joist attached to the instrument's midsection, to help prevent sagging in the middle. Stunning pieces of craftsmanship, telescope exteriors were made of exquisite leather and metal appliqué. But inside
they were little more than a tube of parchment or thick cardboard that connected an eyepiece to a rudimentary lens. Once secured to the mast, the instrument was threaded into a decoratively embellished stand. And on clear nights a comfortable and equally elaborate chair would be brought to the roof for excited turn taking among nobles, who could be counted on to confuse the North Star with Venus or even with the moon itself.

Montmor collected men as greedily as he collected these and other scientific playthings. In the years preceding the establishment of the French Academy of Sciences, the nobleman had opened up his affluent home to the most prominent thinkers, explorers, and social brokers of his time. Montmor's dedication to science—and his affluent pride—were forged into the very stones of his residence and were made visible to all inquisitive outsiders who were willing to risk life and limb to peer inside the nobleman's compound. The entryway was two stories high, rather than the standard three to four, and was flanked by two short walls, just over ten feet at the highest point on each side. For those adept at dodging carriages and hurried pedestrians, it was possible to spot, just barely, a triangular gable crowning a tall central window that looked onto the
cour d'honneur
, the initial courtyard that welcomed elite visitors. Classical in both form and allegory, the gable's bas-relief depicted a cherub holding in his hands a mirror, a sphere, and a compass—the tools of early science. An owl, the sacred companion of Athena, goddess of knowledge, sat proudly at the child's feet. Only the most privileged and learned elite, however, would have the opportunity to admire the geometrical sundial that had been painstakingly carved into the facade of a smaller, more intimate courtyard tucked far away from prying eyes.

Beginning in 1653, the nobleman provided the members of his private “Montmor Academy” with every resource they could
imagine: ample space, access to instruments, an extensive library for research, and—of course—full bellies. Montmor's scientific meetings were preceded by private feasts that quickly became the talk of Paris. Long rows of tables dressed with crisp linens lined the perimeter of the second-floor reception hall, the same hall—and likely the same tables—where Denis would many years later perform his infamous blood transfusion experiment on the mentally unstable Mauroy. Each place setting was graced with a perfectly polished silver platter, accompanied by a knife and spoon. (Forks had not yet decorated even the most sophisticated of tables, where fingers often still were the utensil of choice.)
¹⁰
The members of Montmor's armylike waitstaff, assigned no more than two guests apiece, hovered obsequiously behind their charges, anticipating and attending to their every need. Dinner tables were crowded with decorative tureens brimming with rich soups, platefuls of roasted pheasant, cheeses both creamy and hard, and decanters overflowing with wine from the Montmor family vineyards. As in most elite Marais households, Montmor's domestic staff relied on regular deliveries of foodstuffs from the nobleman's vast country estates. The nearby markets at Les Halles, with their muddy, smelly, and tight aisles, were where the lower classes shopped. They were not for a family as refined as Montmor's.

In this wealthiest district of the capital, riches from the provinces as well as from much more exotic locales—India, Africa, South America, and New France
¹¹
—were delivered directly to the ground-floor kitchens. In short order these rare delights quickly made their way to the table in a spectacular culinary display. With the appropriate balance of deference and nonchalance, Montmor's smartly dressed household staff presented a selection of rare delicacies from travels far and wide. On the sweeter side of things, chocolate was one of the novelties of the moment.
Chefs in bustling kitchens of imposing private residences compared techniques for drying and roasting precious handfuls of cacao beans harvested in the New World. They debated, with great enthusiasm and pride, the exact amounts of cream, sugar, and vanilla—itself a recent import to Europe—necessary to bring out the fullest flavor of this exotic delight.
¹²
But the greatest find from South America had to be coffee, which was served with much ceremony in delicate, hand-painted porcelain cups imported from China. And one thing was certain: At the equivalent of almost four thousand dollars a pound, there could not be a better sign of Montmor's wealth and largesse.
¹³

 

I
n the first years each of the weekly meetings seemed to announce some new scientific discovery. But with the accumulation of highly trained and achingly brilliant minds comes a stunning array of unyielding egos. Fireworks exploded with regularity in the formal meeting rooms, around the dinner table, and in the library and adjacent halls. On more pleasant days shouts bounced off the garden walls—fights that were exacerbated, no doubt, by the copious amounts of wine guzzled by the participants. Their scuffles centered on a single question that textured all scientific endeavors in this moment of upheaval, this moment of scientific “revolution” that was pecking away at established worldviews. It was a question that demanded bellicose philosophers to put all their cards on the table and decide whether they would continue to reside in the comfort of the past or to leap boldly into the future. The question was this: Is truth ultimately knowable?

It was a dilemma that split late-seventeenth-century thinkers into two camps, and each was aligned with a major philosophical figure. Montmor had shown his hand early, when he set his sights on attracting internationally renowned scholars on whose coattails he could ride, and whose presence at his Marais home
would draw intellectuals from near and far. He started with René Descartes. The philosopher's arguments were bold and unconventional. For Descartes an understanding of the mysteries of the natural world, as well as of God himself, was attainable through a rigorous method of careful reflection and experimental observation. Descartes outlined a four-step process for reasoned inquiry that laid the foundation for evidence-based modern scientific practice—a road map that would allow the individual to shake the mind free from all doubt.

Montmor had invited Descartes to his home in the Marais and, as he was so practiced at doing, wined and dined the philosopher as if he were royalty. The nobleman had every hope that his offer to grant the discriminating Descartes full use of his country home would help seal the relationship; this would make the Montmor residence, in the city or on the bucolic outskirts of the Parisian countryside, a required stop for any intellectual worth the name. To his bitter disappointment, and for unknown reasons, Descartes declined.
¹⁴

Though Montmor was attached to the ideas of Descartes, and though he would remain so over the course of his life, he did not intend to let the man's refusal kill his dream of forming an academy for natural philosophers. He turned his sights next on the aging Pierre Gassendi, Descartes' philosophical enemy. For Gassendi truth could never be anything more than contingent, uncertain.
¹⁵
He believed that the material world was an amalgamation of invisible and indivisible particles. In contrast to Descartes' plenum, in which particles occupied every bit of space seen and unseen, Gassendi posited instead the presence of gaps and holes.
¹⁶
These gaps and holes prevented us from mastering the mysteries of nature. Something had to be present to fully understand it: Certainty cannot follow from emptiness.

As probing a philosopher as Gassendi was, he was a gentle
man who did not know what it was to get angry. Indeed, he preferred walking the gardens with Montmor's children to sparring with colleagues.
¹⁷
Gassendi's calming presence had done much to ensure respectful interactions among the guests at the private academy. When the philosopher died at the nobleman's home on October 24, 1655, one thing became exceedingly clear to Montmor. He would need to find another intellectual star—and quickly. As he had done with Descartes and later with Gassendi, Montmor set his sights on luring a new luminary to his private academy.

But Montmor would have to look well beyond the borders of his own country this time. Marin Mersenne, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Pierre de Fermat—Gassendi was but one of several French giants of the scientific revolution who had died in just a matter of a few years.
¹⁸
Instead the Dutchman Christian Huygens would soon take a place among the most brilliant mathematicians and astronomers of the scientific revolution. And Montmor would not be shy in taking credit for his role in establishing Huygens's reputation in France.