IN THAT early autumn of 1926 Paris was just emerging from the paralysis and afterpains of that other war. But to my wife and me it was the most beautiful and most exciting city we had ever seen. This was our first taste of Europe, and France was our first oyster --- and no previous oyster had ever been as zestful and intriguing as this. Every day brought new explorations and new discoveries. Every meal revealed some unpredictable but utterly new dish or sauce. We were typical young Americans who couldn't see enough or get enough of Paris. And then, like hundreds of other transatlantic Americans before and since, we had to take time out.
That was the reason we met Dr. Charles F. Bove --- for the same reason that hundreds of other Americans in Europe and people from the different corners of the world met him sooner or later. But the preface to our own first meeting was rather unique.
You see, we went to the races at Longchamps on a Sunday afternoon; and that wasn't normally the place in which to meet Dr. Bove. We went to the races because neither of us had ever seen a horse race in our lives. So we had to bet our ten or twenty francs, just for the fun of it. Personally that was all I got out of the experiment, except a bit of valuable education.
But not "Madame Stove" (as the French so pleasantly pronounced her name). So far as "Madame Stove" was concerned, she was definitely warm about horses that afternoon. She picked her horses according to the way their names tickled her fancy. Never having bet on a horse in her life, of course she picked six winners without a break. I was thinking of retiring from the very uncertain life of a foreign correspondent, and living comfortably on my wife's intuition about race horses. The next day she was rushed to the American Hospital in Neuilly. A very efficient-looking American doctor made a very thorough examination. When he finally stated what was wrong he seemed to know exactly what he was talking about --- and quite shortly, he proved that he did.
That was where Dr. Charles Bove came in, as the aftermath to a day at the races. When he said he'd have to operate, "Madame Stove" was in far better form than I'd have ever been. "All right," she said. "I've picked six winners-- -,this will be the seventh." I suppose she meant the winner and not the doctor. But the truth was that, as a surgeon, this doctor was no dark horse. He was well up in the front of his field. It was far greater luck to have found him at that moment than to have won a considerable fortune at the races. Dr. Bove has been our family surgeon ever since; and with that, a loyal and always helpful friend.
During the nine years that we lived in Paris our two sons were born in the American Hospital. For these and various reasons we managed to visit the American Hospital a good deal. There were plenty of friends who stayed there at one time or another. You could rarely walk through the hospital corridors without encountering the bustling, energetic figure of Dr. Bove. Of course, he spoke French fluently. After all, he had taken both a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Sorbonne and a degree at the Paris Faculty of Medicine after being mustered out of the A.E.F. as a surgical major. In order to practice medicine in France a foreigner was obliged to make this duplication of study, but he acquired much additional French surgical knowledge while doing it. That went far to explain the ribbon of a knight in the Legion of Honor, a recognition from the French government, which our family surgeon also won.
You might have thought his intensive exposure to things French would have left a noticeable mark on Dr. Bove. On the contrary, he remained as forthrightly and outspokenly American as almost any doughboy in General Pershing's army. Probably that explained in part why many hundreds of Americans, living or traveling in Europe, became his patients. But beyond this was the established fact that Dr. Bove, American surgeon of the American Hospital of Paris for most of the period between the two World Wars, clearly ranked as one of the ablest surgeons in France. The further fact that he was so completely American, in character and manner, merely drew Americans to him more closely. He had one quality especially which greatly impressed both my wife and me when we first met him. He inspired confidence; he even breathed it. With that he proceeded to justify the confidence which he inspired.
Sometimes, when we dropped in at the American Hospital, some of the writing clan ---Ernest Hemingway or William L. Shirer or Julian Street or a cub reporter on the Paris Herald --- would be patients of Dr. Bove. On many occasions the people he had "put under the knife" were notables whom newspapermen had to watch --- but it seemed that they almost always got well. The story was seldom worth more than a paragraph or two. You can't get headlines out of prominent people getting well; especially if they rarely seem to have had a close call. At any rate Alexander Moore, United States Ambassador to Spain, and Ira Nelson Morris, United States Minister to Sweden, were sped on their various duties quite expeditiously by Dr. Bove. Aimee Semple McPherson, the famous California evangelist, was good copy even if she spent many a day in bed --- but she didn't stay there very long. And Dr. Bove never told us what she said. It was correct professional ethics, but really lamentable reserve on the part of a friend.
It seemed as if almost everybody traveling in Europe, and many famous persons living there, sooner or later yielded to the apparently magnetic attraction of Dr. Bove's scalpel. At one time or another he treated Jeanette MacDonald, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Cécile Sorel (the Comtesse de Ségur), Blasco-lbáñez, Mrs. Enzo Fiermonte, the former Mrs. John Jacob Astor, Adolphe Menjou --- I never could keep count of them; and I doubt very much if "Doc" Bove could, unless he had contrived to bring his office books home with him from France late in 1940.
Charles Bove is the only American doctor I happen to have known or heard of who saw and served in France during the two World Wars. But that's his story, not mine. And the extraordinary list of famous patients he has served and brought back to health ---well, they talked to "Doc" but "Doc" never talked about them to me. So that's his story, too --- not to mention all the dramatic unknown Americans who got into trouble or into appendicitis (or both) in Paris between the wars. It's no wonder that Dr. Bove has a passion for writing fiction. But personally, I'll always suspect that nine tenths of any fiction story he spins is straight out of true stories he's never permitted himself to tell.
It's easy to know when a surgeon is really good. He's always busy, and he inevitably has a lot of prominent or famous people as patients. But what you don't hear much about or know much about can be equally important. (I can be frank in this foreword, because it's my foreword --- and "Doc" doesn't know what I'm going to say ---and if this paragraph isn't in, the rest of it won't be either). As I was saying, before I interrupted myself, what the general public seldom knows is how much any good and conscientious doctor undercharges his patients. I happen to know that, because he did that for us, when my wife came "home from the races" and I was a modestly paid beginner as a reporter in Paris --- and afterwards, too. But "Doc" Bove gave his services or operated for a ridiculously small fee for a great many down-at-the-heel American gypsies or poor students --- yes, and poor newspapermen --- throughout the long between-the-wars period in Paris. He never talked about that either. I just happen to know.
I do know that Dr. Bove has written a real book of personal experiences --- and I also know him well enough to know that whatever is bubbling inside of Charles F. Bove is bound to come out. About the "Doc" I have a good deal of his own kind of confidence. He has told plenty that people will like to read. And personally, "Madame Stove" and I are awfully glad that we went to the races. After some twenty years we have plenty of reason to be.
LELAND STOWE
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Foreword by Leland Stowe I - The American Hospital in Paris II - Honeymoon on the Côte d'Azur III - "A Little Love, Loads of Deception --- and then, Good Night" IV - Jackdaws and Jezebels V - The Spirit of Lourdes VI - Tragedy in June VII - Biarritz VIII - The Road Back IX - Escape to Lisbon Postscript |
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