diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 2d530d50ba..d2817af563 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+2000-01-11  Jean-Marc Lasgouttes  <Jean-Marc.Lasgouttes@inria.fr>
+
+	* src/paragraph.C (BreakParagraph): do not reserve space on text
+	if we don't need to (otherwise, if pos_end < pos, we end up
+	reserving huge amounts of memory due to bad unsigned karma).
+	(BreakParagraphConservative): ditto, although I have not seen
+	evidence the bug can happen here.
+
+	* src/lyxparagraph.h: add a using std::list.
+
 2000-01-11  Juergen Vigna  <jug@sad.it>
 
 	* src/menus.C (MenuDocu): output an Alert if the documentation-file
diff --git a/src/lyxparagraph.h b/src/lyxparagraph.h
index 87deafe22f..067a5ca4a1 100644
--- a/src/lyxparagraph.h
+++ b/src/lyxparagraph.h
@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@
 #include "layout.h"
 #include "support/block.h"
 
-
 #define NEW_INSETTABLE 1
 #define NEW_FONTTABLE 1
 
@@ -35,6 +34,8 @@ class LyXBuffer;
 class TexRow;
 struct LaTeXFeatures;
 
+using std::list;
+
 /// A LyXParagraph holds all text, attributes and insets in a text paragraph
 class LyXParagraph  {
 public:
diff --git a/src/paragraph.C b/src/paragraph.C
index 2bb18268d0..d7c577671d 100644
--- a/src/paragraph.C
+++ b/src/paragraph.C
@@ -1686,7 +1686,8 @@ void LyXParagraph::BreakParagraph(LyXParagraph::size_type pos,
 			pos_first++;
 
 		pos_end = pos_first + par->text.size() - 1;
-		tmp->text.reserve(pos_end - pos);
+		if (pos_end > pos)
+			tmp->text.reserve(pos_end - pos);
 
 		for (i = pos; i <= pos_end; i++) {
 			par->CutIntoMinibuffer(i - pos_first);
@@ -1853,7 +1854,8 @@ void LyXParagraph::BreakParagraphConservative(LyXParagraph::size_type pos)
 		// InsertFromMinibuffer will enlarge the memory (it uses
 		// InsertChar of course). But doing it by hand
 		// is MUCH faster! (only one time, not thousend times!!)
-		tmp->text.reserve(pos_end - pos);
+		if (pos_end > pos)
+			tmp->text.reserve(pos_end - pos);
 
 		for (i = pos; i <= pos_end; i++) {