practician as the other, said as he was dying, that he left two great
doctors behind him, diet and river water.

In 1728, in the time of Law, the most famous charlatan of the first
species, another, Villars by name, confided to some friends that his
uncle who had lived nearly a hundred years, and who died only by
accident, had left him the secret of a water which could easily prolong
life to a hundred and fifty years, provided a man was temperate. When he
saw a funeral pass, he shrugged his shoulders in pity; if the defunct,
he observed, had drunk my water, he would not be where he is. His
friends to whom he gave generously of the water, and who observed the
prescribed regime in some degree, thrived on it and praised it. He then
sold the bottle for six francs; the sale was prodigious. It was water
from the Seine with a little nitre. Those who took it and who subjected
themselves to a certain amount of regime, above all those who were born
with a good constitution, recovered perfect health in a few days. He
said to the others: "It is your fault if you are not entirely cured:
correct these two vices and you will live at least a hundred and fifty
years." Some of them reformed; this good charlatan's fortune increased
like his reputation. The Abbé de Pons, the enthusiast, put him far above
the Maréchal de Villars: "The Maréchal kills men," he said to him, "but
you make them live."

People learned at last that Villars Water was only river water; they
would have no more of it; and went to other charlatans.

It is certain that he had done good, and that the only reproach one
could make against him was that he had sold Seine water a little too
dear. He led men to temperance by which fact he was superior to the
apothecary Arnoult, who stuffed Europe with his sachets against