T seven o'clock on the evening of that day, having as usual replaced all the books which had been taken from their shelves, and having assured himself that he was leaving everything in good order, he quitted the library, double-locking the door after him. According to his usual habit, he dined at the Crèmerie des Quatre évêques, read his newspaper, La Croix, and at ten o'clock went home to his little house in the Rue² du Regard. The good man had no trouble and no presentiment³ of evil; his sleep was peaceful. The next morning at seven o'clock to the minute, he entered the little room leading to the library, and, according to his daily habit, doffed⁴ his grand frock-coat, and taking down an old one which hung in a cupboard over his washstand, put it on. Then he went in to his workroom, where for sixteen years he had been cataloguing six days out of the seven, under the lofty gaze of Alexandre d'Esparvieu. Preparing to make a round of the various rooms, he entered the first and largest, which contained works[26] on theology and religion in huge cupboards whose cornices were adorned⁵ with bronze-coloured busts⁶ of poets and orators⁷ of ancient days.

 

Two enormous globes representing the earth and the heavens filled the window-embrasures. But at his first step Monsieur Sariette stopped dead, stupefied, powerless alike to doubt or to credit what his eyes beheld⁸. On the blue cloth cover of the writing-table books lay scattered⁹ about pell-mell, some lying flat, some standing¹⁰ upright. A number of quartos were heaped up in a

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