An inserted question may be: “Re: rue Saint-Honoré. Who aside from Robespierre lived in the house of the cabinetmaker Duplay? What became of him and of Eléonore? Extract from the 1789 speech in which Robespierre demanded that the National Assembly abolish slavery in the colonies and capital punishment in the kingdom itself. How high were the towers of the Bastille?”
And so forth. The apparatus spits out the answers in the required format. The height of the Bastille was seventy-three feet and three inches. Almost no light fell into its courtyard. The promenade on the towers was better; it was considered a privilege.
As for Duplay, there is no need to leaf through the property records and address cadastres – he is instantly found among ten thousand namesakes in the central population register. If he has even the slightest importance, then references lead to further indexes – say, the Archives of Correspondence or the bibliographies. A petrified memory, tremendous – and on the other hand, the sphinx that responds.
— Eumeswil