Other men quietly arranged the completed papers in the shelves of a bookcase, partly filled with books bound in black.
Notwithstanding the number of persons assembled in the room, one might have heard the movements of the wings of a fly.

The only interruption to the silence was the sound of pens rapidly gliding over paper, and a shrill voice dictating, stopping every now and then to cough.

This voice proceeded from a great armchair placed beside the fire, which was blazing, notwithstanding the heat of the season and of the country.

It was one of those armchairs that you still see in old castles, and which seem made to read one's self to sleep in, so easy is every part of it.
The sitter sinks into a circular cushion of down; if the head leans back, the cheeks rest upon pillows covered with silk, and the seat juts out so far beyond the elbows that one may believe the provident upholsterers of our forefathers sought to provide that the book should make no noise in falling so as to awaken the sleeper.
But we will quit this digression, and speak of the man who occupied the chair, and who was very far from sleeping.

He had a broad forehead, bordered with thin white hair, large, mild eyes, a wan face, to which a small, pointed, white beard gave that air of subtlety and finesse noticeable in all the portraits of the period of Louis XIII.