At half-past six o'clock the session broke up, and the members filed out.
The minister's chasseur came up to find the coachman.
"Hi, Jean!" he called out to him; "Monseigneur has gone with the minister of war; they are going to see the King, and after that they dine together, and we are to fetch him at ten o'clock.

There's a Council this evening." Rabourdin walked slowly home, in a state of despondency not difficult to imagine.

It was seven o'clock, and he had barely time to dress.
"Well, you are appointed ?" cried his wife, joyously, as he entered the salon.
Rabourdin raised his head with a grievous motion of distress and answered, "I fear I shall never again set foot in the ministry." "What ?" said his wife, quivering with sudden anxiety.
"My memorandum on the officials is known in all the offices; and I have not been able to see the minister." Celestine's eyes were opened to a sudden vision in which the devil, in one of his infernal flashes, showed her the meaning of her last conversation with des Lupeaulx.
"If I had behaved like a low woman," she thought, "we should have had the place." She looked at Rabourdin with grief in her heart.

A sad silence fell between them, and dinner was eaten in the midst of gloomy meditations.
"And it is my Wednesday," she said at last.
"All is not lost, dear Celestine," said Rabourdin, laying a kiss on his wife's forehead; "perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to see the minister and explain everything.

Sebastien sat up all last night to finish the writing; the papers are copied and collated; I shall place them on the minister's desk and beg him to read them through.