Beauchamp proceeded to relate to the young man, who was overwhelmed with shame and grief, the following facts. Two days previously, the article had appeared in another paper besides L’Impartial , and, what was more serious, one that was well known as a government paper. Beauchamp was breakfasting when he read the paragraph. He sent immediately for a cabriolet, and hastened to the publisher’s office. Although professing diametrically opposite principles from those of the editor of the other paper, Beauchamp⁠—as it sometimes, we may say often, happens⁠—was his intimate friend. The editor was reading, with apparent delight, a leading article in the same paper on beet-sugar, probably a composition of his own.

“Ah, pardieu! ” said Beauchamp, “with the paper in your hand, my friend, I need not tell you the cause of my visit.”

“Are you interested in the sugar question?” asked the editor of the ministerial paper.