The Prime Minister was the recipient of general approbation.
To the congratulations of the various groups and of notable personages, he replied with simple firmness: "Those are my principles!" and he had seven or eight Socialists put in prison.
The session ended, and Paul Visire, very exhausted, went to take the waters.

Hippolyte Ceres refused to leave his Ministry, where the trade union of telephone girls was in tumultuous agitation.

He opposed it with an unheard of violence, for he had now become a woman-hater.

On Sundays he went into the suburbs to fish along with his colleague Lapersonne, wearing the tall hat that never left him since he had become a Minister.
And both of them, forgetting the fish, complained of the inconstancy of women and mingled their griefs.
Hippolyte still loved Eveline and he still suffered.

However, hope had slipped into his heart.