spect all creeds; he asserted that he was a sober-minded
reformer. Paul Visire and his colleagues desired reforms, and it was in
order not to compromise reform that they proposed none; for they were
true politicians and knew that reforms are compromised the moment they
are proposed. The government was well received, respectable people were
reassured, and the funds rose.

The administration announced that four new ironclads would be put
into commission, that prosecutions would be undertaken against the
Socialists, and it formally declared its intention to have nothing to do
with any inquisitorial income-tax. The choice of Terrasson as Minister
of Finance was warmly approved by the press. Terrasson, an old minister
famous for his financial operations, gave warrant to all the hopes of
the financiers and shadowed forth a period of great business activity.
Soon those three udders of modern nations, monopolies, bill discounting,
and fraudulent speculation, were swollen with the milk of wealth.
Already whispers were heard of distant enterprises, and of planting
colonies, and the boldest put forward in the newspapers the project of a
military and financial protectorate over Nigritia.

Without having yet shown what he was capable of, Hippolyte Ceres was
considered a man of weight. Business people thought highly of him.
He was congratulated on all sides for having broken with the
extreme sections, the dangerous men, and for having realised the
responsibilities of government.

Madame Ceres shone alone amid the Ministers' wives. Crombile withered
away in bachelordom. Paul Visire had married money in the person of
Mademoiselle Blampignon, an accomplished, estimable, and simple lady who
was always ill, and whose feeble health compelled her to stay with her
mother in the depths of a remote province. The other Ministers' wives
were not born to charm the sight, and people smiled when they read
that Madame Labillette had appeared at the Presidency Ball wearing a
headdress of birds of paradise. Madame Vivier des Murenes, a woman of
good family, was stout rather than tall, had a face like a beef-steak
and the voice of a newspaper-seller. Madame Debonnaire, tall, dry,
and florid, was devoted to young officers. She ruined herself by her
escapades and crimes and only regained consideration by dint of ugliness
and insolence.

Madame Ceres was the charm of the Ministry and its tide to
consideration. Young, beautiful, and irreproachable, she