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CHAPTER 9 Thrown on the Wide World T war was now over. At 6 A.M. on 10 June 1814, "the two English brigades" of the Third Division «were formed in the great square, & the Portuguese brigade"-preparatory to beginning the long march home-«filed through them whilst the air was rent with huzzas & mingled with the mellow sounds of music and thus we parted;' Lesassier wrote. «It was an affecting scene.... The very soldiers were in tears-Not a single division had done this except ours." Lesassier himself moved on to follow his brigade at 7 A.M. It was not a particularly difficult march for him: he still had his servants, his horses, and his mules, and the few petty difficulties involved in caring for the sick and extracting proper respect from the nonmedical officers were no more than he was used to. In his journal, however, the trip through the pretty scenery of southern France, over the mountains and down the coast became a long march toward an uncertain and perilous future, which "presented itselfin the tenfold obscurity of anticipated horror & again & again I would brood over the probability of my too soon wandering on the wide world a forsaken outcast." What was he to do now that the war was ended? He had hoped he might be kept on in the Portuguese service on full pay, but the British establishment in Portugal was greatly reduced at the end ofthe war, and Lesassier, like most other British officers, was told he could «return to England when it suited me." But «What should I do in England?" he wrote, «For it was too true that thenceforward I should have no earthly means ofincreasing ... my half-pay, except by attempting to establish myselfin practice, and ... it was clear nothing could now be more difficult than for a man of my profession to settle in Britain." Each mile closer to Portugal was a mile closer to "the frightful fate that seemed to await me." And when his dog, Capitano, died en route, it seemed «a melancholy coincidence.... During eight years of toil he had been my constant companion, and now, that all was over, he was taken suddenly ill, & died amidst cruel sufferings.... I buried him with my own hands; and I felt-ah! how acute a pang! It seemed as if I were now more forlorn, more destitute than ever. As long as I had been ... in the enjoyment ofaffluence, we had never parted, but now I was thrown on the wide world he likewise was taken from me." After some initial uncertainty, Lesassier was confirmed in his rank as full surgeon, entitled to half-pay for life of£120 per year, an income that would have seemed beyond his wildest dreams ten years earlier. Now, however, he knew better: while he "most 126 CHAPTER 9 devoutly" returned «thanks to The Almighty" that he was better off than many, he regarded his half-pay as no more than a «miserable and uncertain pittance" compared to what he needed to live on. It was in this mood of doubt that Lesassier made his first attempt at private practice since his ill-fated Rochdale venture. The home base of his brigade was the «beautiful little town" of Viana, Portugal, and there he decided to establish himself, rather than returning to Britain, where he «was as complete a stranger as if I were to drop from the Moon." In Viana, in contrast, «I undeniably possessed a high public rank from the elevated military situation I filled in the very brigade belonging to that town. I was, consequently, not merely known, but at the same time, looked up to as occupying the very first place in my profession." In Britain, his meager salary would confine him to «the isolated situation ofa petty village ... or the thinly scattered population of a rude barbarous unpracticable country" in Wales or the Highlands or western Ireland, whereas in Viana, he could mingle with «the first family in the province ... keep a first rate house & garden, a cook & a groom, and a superb English charger on my half-pay." In other words, he hoped that settling in Viana would enable him to keep up the lifestyle he enjoyed in the army: supporting «a peculiarly genteel appearance absolutely independent of private practice." Alas for Lesassier, his judgment in these matters was no better than it had been in Rochdale. All his life he looked for patronage from patients rather than professional contacts to increase...

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