Fleury [in the doorway].  “It would be a shameful injustice if Rabourdin lost the place; I swear I’d leave the service.  Did you find that anagram, papa Colleville?”

Colleville.  “Yes, here it is.”

Fleury [leaning over Colleville’s desk].  “Capital! famous!  This is just what will happen if the administration continues to play the hypocrite.” [He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is listening.] “If the government would frankly state its intentions without concealments of any kind, the liberals would know what they had to deal with.  An administration which sets its best friends against itself, such men as those of the ‘Debats,’ Chateaubriand, and Royer-Collard, is only to be pitied!”

Colleville [after consulting his colleagues].  “Come, Fleury, you’re a good fellow, but don’t talk politics here; you don’t know what harm you may do us.”

Fleury [dryly].  “Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do by four o’clock.”

While this idle talk had been going on, des Lupeaulx was closeted in his office with du Bruel, where, a little later, Dutocq joined them.  Des Lupeaulx had heard from his valet of La Billardiere’s death, and wishing to please the two ministers, he wanted an obituary article to appear in the evening papers.

“Good morning, my dear du Bruel,” said the semi-minister to the head-clerk as he entered, and not inviting him to sit down.  “You have heard the news?  La Billardiere is dead.  The ministers were both present when he received the last sacraments.  The worthy man strongly recommended Rabourdin, saying he should die with less regret if he could know that his successor were the man who had so constantly done his work.  Death is a torture which makes a man confess everything.  The minister agreed the more readily because his intention and that of the Council was to reward Monsieur Rabourdin’s numerous services.  In fact, the Council of State needs his experience.  They say that young La Billardiere is to leave the division of his father and go to the Commission of Seals; that’s just the same as if the King had made him a present of a hundred thousand francs,—­the place can always be sold.  But I know the news will delight your division, which will thus get rid of him.  Du Bruel, we must get ten or a dozen lines about the worthy late director into the papers; his Excellency will glance them over,—­he reads the papers.  Do you know the particulars of old La Billardiere’s life?”

Du Bruel made a sign in the negative.

“No?” continued des Lupeaulx.  “Well then; he was mixed up in the affairs of La Vendee, and he was one of the confidants of the late King.  Like Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine he always refused to hold communication with the First Consul.  He was a bit of a ‘chouan’; born in Brittany of a parliamentary family, and ennobled by Louis XVIII.  How old was he? never mind about that; just say his loyalty was untarnished, his religion enlightened,—­the