Chapter 22

CHAPTER XXII

THE NEW CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES

That same day all America heard of the affair of Captain Nicholl
and President Barbicane, as well as its singular _denouement_.
From that day forth, Michel Ardan had not one moment's rest.
Deputations from all corners of the Union harassed him without
cessation or intermission. He was compelled to receive them
all, whether he would or no. How many hands he shook, how many
people he was "hail-fellow-well-met" with, it is impossible
to guess! Such a triumphal result would have intoxicated any
other man; but he managed to keep himself in a state of delightful
_semi_-tipsiness.

Among the deputations of all kinds which assailed him, that of
"The Lunatics" were careful not to forget what they owed to the
future conqueror of the moon. One day, certain of these poor
people, so numerous in America, came to call upon him, and
requested permission to return with him to their native country.

"Singular hallucination!" said he to Barbicane, after having
dismissed the deputation with promises to convey numbers of
messages to friends in the moon. "Do you believe in the
influence of the moon upon distempers?"

"Scarcely!"

"No more do I, despite some remarkable recorded facts of history.
For instance, during an epidemic in 1693, a large number of
persons died at the very moment of an eclipse. The celebrated
Bacon always fainted during an eclipse. Charles VI relapsed
six times into madness during the year 1399, sometimes during
the new, sometimes during the full moon. Gall observed that
insane persons underwent an accession of their disorder twice
in every month, at the epochs of new and full moon. In fact,
numerous observations made upon fevers, somnambulisms, and other
human maladies, seem to prove that the moon does exercise some
mysterious influence upon man."

"But the how and the wherefore?" asked Barbicane.

"Well, I can only give you the answer which Arago borrowed from
Plutarch, which is nineteen centuries old. 'Perhaps the stories
are not true!'"

In the height of his triumph, Michel Ardan had to encounter all
the annoyances incidental to a man of celebrity. Managers of
entertainments wanted to exhibit him. Barnum offered him a
million dollars to make a tour of the United States in his show.
As for his photographs, they were sold of all size, and his
portrait taken in every imaginable posture. More than half a
million copies were disposed of in an incredibly short space of time.

But it was not only the men who paid him homage, but the women
as well. He might have married well a hundred times over, if he
had been willing to settle in life. The old maids, in
particular, of forty years