An hour passed without a sound, without a breath. Then Pascal, who, as
a diversion from his work, had opened a newspaper--_Le Temps_--which
had lain forgotten on the table, uttered a slight exclamation:

"Why! your father has been appointed editor of the _Epoque_, the
prosperous republican journal which has the publishing of the papers
of the Tuileries."

This news must have been unexpected by him, for he laughed frankly, at
once pleased and saddened, and in an undertone he continued:

"My word! If things had been invented, they could not have been finer.
Life is a strange thing. This is a very interesting article."

Clotilde made no answer, as if her thoughts were a hundred leagues
away from what her uncle was saying. And he did not speak again, but
taking his scissors after he had read the article, he cut it out and
pasted it on a sheet of paper, on which he made some marginal notes in
his large, irregular handwriting. Then he went back to the press to
classify this new document in it. But he was obliged to take a chair,
the shelf being so high that he could not reach it notwithstanding his
tall stature.

On this high shelf a whole series of enormous bundles of papers were
arranged in order, methodically classified. Here were papers of all
sorts: sheets of manuscript, documents on stamped paper, articles cut
out of newspapers, arranged in envelopes of strong blue paper, each of
which bore on the outside a name written in large characters. One felt
that these documents were tenderly kept in view, taken out
continually, and carefully replaced; for of the whole press, this