But the day before the one fixed for the ceremony, Clementine changed her mind.
"By what right could they shut in the tomb a man who, possibly, was not dead?
The theories of the learned Doctor Meiser were not such that one could reject them without examination.

The matter was at least worthy of a few days' reflection.

Was it not possible to submit the Colonel's body to some experiments?
Professor Hirtz, of Berlin, had promised to send some valuable documents concerning the life and death of this unfortunate officer: nothing ought to be undertaken before they were received; some one ought to write to Berlin to hasten the sending of these papers." Leon sighed, but yielded uncomplainingly to this new caprice, and wrote to M.Hirtz.
Clementine found an ally in this second campaign in Doctor Martout.
Though he was but an average practitioner and disdained the acquisition of practice far too much, M.Martout was not deficient in knowledge.

He had long been studying five or six great questions in physiology, such as reanimation, spontaneous generation and the topics connected with them.

A regular correspondence kept him posted in all recent discoveries; he was the friend of M.Pouchet, of Rouen; and knew also the celebrated Karl Nibor, who has carried the use of the microscope into researches so wide and so profound.