his scheme for clearing the Landes and founding an industrial centre, where the extinction of pauperism might be attempted on a large scale. He knew that Napoleon frequently came to important determinations at night-time. It was at night that he signed decrees, wrote manifestoes and dismissed his ministers. But presently Rougon began to smile. He had recalled a story of the Emperor wearing a blue apron, and hanging wall-paper at three francs a piece in a room at Trianon, where he intended to lodge a mistress; and he pictured him now, in the silence of his study, cutting out woodcuts and sticking them neatly in a scrap-book. But all at once Rougon found himself raising his arms and involuntarily exclaiming aloud: 'Ah! _his_ friends made him!' Then he hurried back into the château. He was beginning to feel very cold, especially about the legs, which his knee-breeches left uncomfortably exposed. A little before nine o'clock on the following morning Clorinde sent Antonia, whom she had brought with her, to ask Rougon if she and her husband might breakfast with him. He had already ordered a cup of chocolate, but did not touch it till they came. Antonia preceded them, carrying a large silver salver on which their coffee had been brought to their bedroom. 'Ah! this will be more cheerful!' exclaimed Clorinde as she entered. 'You have got the sun on your side. You are much better off than we are.' Then she began to inspect the suite of rooms. It consisted of an ante-chamber, on the right of which there was a little room for a valet. Then there was the guest's bedroom, a spacious apartment hung with cream-coloured chintz having a pattern of big red flowers. There was a large square mahogany bedstead and an immense grate in which some huge logs were blazing. 'Of course! You ought to have complained!' said Rougon. 'I would not have put up with a room looking on to the courtyard. Ah! if people don't assert themselves--I was talking to Delestang about it only last night.' The young woman shrugged her shoulders and replied: 'Oh! he would raise no objection if they wanted to lodge me in a garret!' However, she now wished to examine the dressing-room, all the fittings of which were of Sèvres porcelain, white and gold, with the Imperial monogram. Then she went to look out of the window, and a faint cry of surprise and admiration came from her lips. For leagues in front of her, the lofty trees of the forest of Compiègne spread out like a rolling sea, their huge crests rising and falling in gentle billows, till they faded from sight in the distance. And in the pale sunlight of that October morning, the forest glowed alternately with gold and purple, with the splendour of a gorgeously embroidered mantle spread out from horizon to horizon. 'Come, let us have breakfast!' said Clorinde.