Explore "The Invasion of France in 1814" by Erckmann-Chatrian on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As Hullin, at the head of the mountaineers, was taking his measures for the defence of his country, the madman Yegof, with his tin crown, that sad spectacle of humanity shorn of its noblest attribute, intelligence -- the madman Yegof, his breast exposed to the fierce wind, his feet bare, reckless of cold, like the reptile in his prison, was wandering from mountain to mountain, in the midst of the snows of winter. How comes it that the madman is able to resist the sharpest severity of the atmosphere, while an intelligent being would succumb to it? Does it arise from a more powerful concentration of life, a more rapid circulation of the blood, a state of continued fever? Or is it the effect of the extraordinary excitement of the senses, or any other unknown cause?
Science tells us nothing. She admits only material causes, without giving an account of such phenomena.