There were some whom the clerks saluted in a familiar way, as if they were old acquaintances: intrepid office-seekers, unmoved by any changes in ministerial combinations. Such entered Vaudrey's cabinet in a deliberate, familiar manner, and as if feeling at home. Sulpice had once heard one of them greet an usher by his first name: "Good-morning, Gustave."
The minister asked Gustave: "Who is that gentleman?" The usher replied, with a tinge of respect in his tone: "It is one of our visitors, Monsieur le Ministre, Monsieur Eugène Renaudin. We call him only Monsieur Eugène. We have known him a long time."
This "Monsieur Eugène" had already petitioned for a prefecture, or a sub-prefecture, or—it mattered little—whatever place the minister might choose to give him.
His claims? None: he was an office-seeker.
The minister was already overwhelmed by this vulgar procession of petitioners and intermediaries, when an usher brought him a card bearing this name: Lucien Granet.
In the Chamber it was thought that Granet did not like Vaudrey too well, and Sulpice vaguely scented in him a candidate for his office. The more reason, then, that he should make himself agreeable.
"What does he want?" the minister thought.
This Granet was, moreover, a typical politician; by the side of the minister of to-day, he was the inevitable minister of to-morrow, the positive reformer, the man appointed to cleanse the Augean stables, whose coming, it was said, would immediately mark the end of all abuses, great and small.
"Ah! when Granet is minister!"
The artist without a commission consoled himself with the prospect of the Granet ministry. He would decorate the monuments when Granet became minister. The actress who looked with longing eyes toward the Comédie Française, and dreamed of playing in Molière, had her hopes centered in Granet. Granet promised to every actress an engagement at the Rue de Richelieu. I am waiting for the Granet ministry! was the consolatory reflection, interrupted by sighs, of the licentiates in law. Meanwhile those office-seekers danced attendance on Granet, and their smile was worth to the future Excellency all the sweets of office.