ll a queer story about
it There are strange things under the dome!

CHAPTER XV.

'It's a scandal.'

'There must be a reply. The Academie cannot be silent under the attack.'

'What are you thinking of? On the contrary, the dignity of the Academie
demands----'

'Gentlemen, gentlemen, the real feeling of the Academie is----'

In their private assembly room, in front of the great chimney-piece
and the full-length portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, the 'deities'
were engaged in a discussion preliminary to the meeting. The cold
smoke-stained light of a Parisian winter's day, falling through the
great lantern overhead, gave effect to the chill solemnity of the marble
busts ranged in row along the walls; and the huge fire in the chimney,
nearly as red as the Cardinal's robe, was not enough to warm the little
council-chamber or court-house, furnished with green leather seats, long
horse-shoe table in front of the desk, and chain-bedecked usher, keeping
the entrance near the place of Picheral, the Secretary.

Generally the best part of the meeting is the quarter of an hour's grace
allowed to late-comers. The Academicians gather in groups with their
backs to the fire and their coat tails turned up, chatting familiarly in
undertones. But on this afternoon the conversation was general and had
risen to the utmost violence of public debate, each new comer joining in
from the far end of the room, while he signed the attendance list.
Some even before entering, while they were still depositing their great
coats, comforters, and overshoes in the empty room of the Academie
des Sciences, opened the door to join in the cries of 'Shame!' and
'Scandalous!'

The cause of all the commotion was this. There had appeared in a morning
paper a reprint of a highly disrespectful report made to the Academie of
Florence upon Astier-Rehu's 'Galileo' and the manifestly apocryphal
and absurd (sic) historical documents which were published with it. The
report had been sent with the greatest privacy to the President of
the Academie Francaise, and for some days there had been considerable
excitement at the Institute, where Astier-Rehu's decision was eagerly
awaited. He had said nothing but, 'I know, I know; I am taking the
necessary steps.' And now suddenly here was this report which they
believed to be known only to themselves, hurled at them like a
bomb-shell from the outer sheet of one of the most widely circulated
of the Parisian newspapers, a