t isn't poverty."

CHAPTER IV. THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT
OFFICIALS

If it were possible for literature to use the microscope of the
Leuwenhoeks, the Malpighis, and the Raspails (an attempt once made
by Hoffman, of Berlin), and if we could magnify and then picture the
teredos navalis, in other words, those ship-worms which brought Holland
within an inch of collapsing by honey-combing her dykes, we might have
been able to give a more distinct idea of Messieurs Gigonnet, Baudoyer,
Saillard, Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard and company, borers and
burrowers, who proved their undermining power in the thirtieth year of
this century.

But now it is time to show another set of teredos, who burrowed and
swarmed in the government offices where the principal scenes of our
present study took place.

In Paris nearly all these government bureaus resemble each other. Into
whatever ministry you penetrate to ask some slight favor, or to get
redress for a trifling wrong, you will find the same dark corridors,
ill-lighted stairways, doors with oval panes of glass like eyes, as at
the theatre. In the first room as you enter you will find the office
servant; in the second, the under-clerks; the private office of the
second head-clerk is to the right or left, and further on is that of
the head of the bureau. As to the important personage called, under the
Empire, head of division, then, under the Restoration, director, and now
by the former name, head or chief of division, he lives either above or
below the offices of his three or four different bureaus.

Speaking in the administrative sense, a bureau consists of a
man-servant, several supernumeraries (who do the work gratis for a
certain number of years), various copying clerks, writers of bills and
deeds, order clerks, principal clerks, second or under head-clerk,
and head-clerk, otherwise called head or chief of the bureau. These
denominational titles vary under some administrations; for instance, the
order-clerks are sometimes called auditors, or again, book-keepers.

Paved like the corridor, and hung with a shabby paper, the first room,
where the servant is stationed, is furnished with a stove, a large black
table with inkstand, pens, and paper, and benches, but no mats on which
to wipe the public feet. The clerk's office beyond is a large room,
tolerably well lighted, but seldom floored with wood. Wooden floors and
fireplaces are commonly kept s