polishers.

The entry to the workshops and offices was in the Rue de la Federation,
through a large carriage way, whence one perceived the far-spreading
yard, with its paving stones invariably black and often streaked by
rivulets of steaming water. Dense smoke arose from the high chimneys,
strident jets of steam emerged from the roof, whilst a low rumbling and a
shaking of the ground betokened the activity within, the ceaseless bustle
of labor.

It was thirty-five minutes past eight by the big clock of the central
building when Mathieu crossed the yard towards the office which he
occupied as chief designer. For eight years he had been employed at the
works where, after a brilliant and special course of study, he had made
his beginning as assistant draughtsman when but nineteen years old,
receiving at that time a salary of one hundred francs a month. His
father, Pierre Froment,* had four sons by Marie his wife--Jean the
eldest, then Mathieu, Marc, and Luc--and while leaving them free to
choose a particular career he had striven to give each of them some
manual calling. Leon Beauchene, the founder of the works, had been dead a
year, and his son Alexandre had succeeded him and married Constance
Meunier, daughter of a very wealthy wall-paper manufacturer of the
Marais, at the time when Mathieu entered the establishment, the master of
which was scarcely five years older than himself. It was there that
Mathieu had become acquainted with a poor cousin of Alexandre's,
Marianne, then sixteen years old, whom he had married during the
following year.

* Of _Lourdes_, _Rome_, and _Paris_.