In speaking thus I gave way to an indignant impulse very excusable in the eyes of anybody who is acquainted with my position here. However, I had said nothing unseemly, but had kept within the limits of language suited to my age and education. (I must have stated somewhere in these memoirs that I passed more than thirty of my sixty-five years as apparitor to the Faculty of Letters at Dijon. Hence my taste for reports and memoirs, and those notions of academic style of which traces will be found in many passages of this lucubration.) I had, I repeat, expressed myself to the Governor with the greatest reserve, refraining from employing any of those insulting words with which every one here regales him during the day, from our two censors, M. de Monpavon, who laughingly calls him _Fleur-de-Mazas_, whenever he comes here, and M. de Bois-l'Hery of the Trompettes Club, who is as vulgar in his language as a groom, and always says to him by way of adieu: "To your wooden bed, flea!" From those two down to our cashier, whom I have heard say to him a hundred times, tapping his ledger: "There's enough in here to send you to the galleys whenever I choose." And yet, for all that, my simple observation produced a most extraordinary effect upon him. The circles around his eyes turned bright yellow, and he said, trembling with anger, the wicked anger of his country: "Passajon, you're a blackguard! One word more and I discharge you." I was struck dumb with amazement. Discharge me--me! And what about my four years' arrears, and my seven thousand francs of advances! As if he read my thoughts as they entered my head, the Governor replied that all the accounts were to be settled, including mine. "By the way," he added, "just call all the clerks to my office. I have some great news to tell them." With that he entered his office and slammed the door behind him. That devil of a man! No matter how well you may know him, know what a liar he is and what an actor, he always finds a way to put you off with his palaver. My account! Why, I was so excited that my legs ran away with me while I was going about to notify the staff.