hool of Ecouen, removed so quickly, that the
new secretary began to move in within a very few days of his election.

It was not a long process to settle in rooms which they had surveyed
for years with the minute exactness of envy and hope, till they knew the
very utmost that could be made of every corner. The pieces of furniture
from the Rue de Beaune fell into the new arrangement so smartly, that it
looked as if they were merely returning after a sojourn in the country,
and finding their fixed habitat and natural place of adhesion by the
marks of their own forms upon the floors or panels. The redecoration was
limited to cleaning the room in which Loisillon died, and papering what
had been the reception-room of Villemain and was now taken by Astier
for his study, because there was a good light from the quiet court and
a lofty bright little room, immediately adjoining, for his MSS., which
were transferred there in three journeys of a cab, with the help of Fage
the bookbinder.

[Illustration: With the help of Fage the bookbinder 226]

Every morning, with a fresh delight, he enjoyed the convenience of a
'library' scarcely inferior to the Foreign Office, which he could enter
without stooping or climbing a ladder. Of his kennel in the Rue de
Beaune he could not now think without anger and disgust. It is the
nature of man to regard places in which he has felt pain with an
obstinate and unforgiving dislike. We can reconcile ourselves to living
creatures, which are capable of alteration and differences of aspect,
but not to the stony unchange-ableness of things. Amid the pleasures of
getting in, Astier-Rehu could forget his indignation at the offence of
his wife, and even his grievances against Teyssedre, who received orders
to come every Wednesday morning as before. But at the mere remembrance
of the slope-roofed den, into which he was lately banished for one
day in each week, the historian ground his teeth, and the jaw of
'Crocodilus' reappeared.

Teyssedre, incredible as it may be, was very little excited or impressed
by the honour of polishing the monumental floors of the Palais Mazarin,
and still shoved about the table, papers, and numberless refaits of the
Permanent Secretary with the calm superiority of a citizen of Riom over
a common fellow from 'Chauvagnat.' Astier-Rehu, secretly uncomfortable
under this crushing contempt, sometimes tried to make the savage
feel the dignity of the place upon which his wax-cake was o