If I were to administer stimulants without having him, at the same time, rubbed on the trunk and limbs by three or four vigorous assistants, I would revive him only to see him die.

I had still before my eyes the spectacle of that lovely young girl asphyxiated in a fire, whom I succeeded in reviving by placing burning coals under the clavicles, but who could only call her mother, and died almost immediately, in spite of the administration of internal stimulants and electricity for inducing contractions of the diaphragm and heart.
And even if I should succeed in bringing him back to health and strength, was not he condemned by court-martial?
Did not humanity forbid my rousing him from this repose akin to death, to deliver him to the horrors of execution?
I must confess that in the presence of this organism where life was suspended, my ideas on reanimation took, as it were, fresh hold upon me.
I had so often desiccated and revived beings quite elevated in the animal scale, that I did not doubt the success of the operation, even on a man.

By myself alone I could not revive and save the Colonel; but I had in my laboratory, all the instruments necessary to desiccate him without assistance.
To sum up, three alternatives offered themselves to me.

I.To leave the Colonel in the crenellated tower, where he would have died the same day of congelation.II.To revive him by stimulants, at the risk of killing him.

And for what?
To give him up, in case of success, to inevitable execution.III.To desiccate him in my laboratory with the quasi certainty of resuscitating him after the restoration of peace.