le," distinguished itself by its
sub-titles in huge print and a whole page of particulars jumbled together
chance-wise. It had at once decided to postpone the famous list of the
thirty-two deputies and senators compromised in the African Railways
affair; and there was no end to the details it gave of the aspect of the
entrance to the Duvillard mansion after the explosion the pavement broken
up, the upper floor rent open, the huge doors torn away from their
hinges. Then came the story of the Baron's son and daughter preserved as
by a miracle, the landau escaping the slightest injury, while the banker
and his wife, it was alleged, owed their preservation to the circumstance
that they had lingered at the Madeleine after Monseigneur Martha's
remarkable address there. An entire column was given to the one victim,
the poor, pretty, fair-haired errand girl, whose identity did not seem to
be clearly established, although a flock of reporters had rushed first to
the modiste employing her, in the Avenue de l'Opera, and next to the
upper part of the Faubourg St. Denis, where it was thought her
grandmother resided. Then, in a gravely worded article in "Le Globe,"
evidently inspired by Fonsegue, an appeal was made to the Chamber's
patriotism to avoid giving cause for any ministerial crisis in the
painful circumstances through which the country was passing. Thus the
ministry might last, and live in comparative quietude, for a few weeks
longer.

Guillaume, however, was struck by one point only: the culprit was not
known; Salvat, it appeared certain, was neither arrested nor even
suspected. It seemed, indeed, as if the police were starting on a false
scent--that of a well-dressed gentleman wearing gloves, whom a neighbour
swore he had seen entering the mansion at the moment of the explosion.
Thus Guillaume became a little calmer. But his brother read to him from
another paper some particulars concerning the engine of destruction that
had been employed. It was a preserved-meat can, and the fragments of it
showed that it had been comparatively small. And Guillaume relapsed into
anxiety on learning that people were much astonished at the violent
ravages of such a sorry appliance, and that the presence of some new
explosive of incalculable power was already suspected.

At eight o'clock Bertheroy put in an appearance. Although he was
sixty-eight, he showed as much briskness and sprightliness as any young
sawbones calling in a friendly way