Let us leave Villefort going hell for leather down the road to Paris, having paid for extra horses at every stage, and precede him through the two or three rooms into the little cabinet at the Tuileries, with its arched window, famous for having been the favourite study of Napoleon and King Louis XVIII, and today for being that of King Louis-Philippe.
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"You were saying, Monsieur?" the king asked.
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"That I feel deeply disquieted, Sire."
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Here, seated in front of a walnut table that he had brought back from Hartwell (to which, by one of those foibles usual among great men, he was especially partial), King Louis XVIII was listening without particular attention to a man of between fifty and fifty-two years, grey-haired, with aristocratic features and meticulously turned out, while at the same time making marginal notes in a volume of Horace, the Gryphius edition (much admired, but often inaccurate) which used to contribute more than a little to His Majesty's learned observations on philology.
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"Really? Have you by any chance dreamt of seven fat and seven lean cows?"
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"And I, my dear Duke," replied Louis XVIII, "think you are very ill-informed, because I know for a fact that, on the contrary, the weather down there is excellent."
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"So what other scourge might afflict us, my dear Blacas?"
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"I have every reason to believe, Sire, that there is a storm brewing from the direction of the South."
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"No, Sire, for that would presage only seven years of fertility and seven of famine, and, with a king as far-sighted as Your Majesty, we need have no fear of famine."
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Despite being a man of some wit, Louis XVIII liked to indulge a facile sense of humour.
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"Canimus surdis," the king replied, carrying on with the annotation of his Horace.
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"Sire," M. de Blacas continued, "if only to reassure his faithful servant, might Your Majesty not send some trusty men to Languedoc, to Provence and to the Dauphiné, to give him a report on the feeling of these three provinces?"
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The courtier laughed, to give the impression that he understood the phrase from the poet of Venusia: "Your Majesty may well be perfectly correct to trust in the loyalty of the French, but I think I may not be altogether wrong to anticipate some desperate adventure."
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"By Bonaparte or, at least, those of his faction."
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"My dear Blacas," said the king, "you are interrupting my work with your horrid tales."
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"One moment, my good friend, wait one moment; I have here a most perspicacious note on the line Pastor quum trahiret. Let me finish it and you can tell me afterwards."
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"And you, Sire, are keeping me from my sleep with fears for your safety."
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"By whom?"
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There was a brief silence while Louis XVIII, in handwriting that he made as tiny as possible, wrote a new note in the margin of his Horace; then, when the note was written, he looked up with the satisfied air of a man who thinks he has made a discovery when he has commented on someone else's idea, and said: "Carry on, my dear Duke, carry on. I am listening."
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"Sire," said Blacas, who had briefly hoped to use Villefort to his own advantage, "I have to tell you that this news that troubles me is not some vague whisper, these are no mere unfounded rumours. A right-thinking man who has my entire confidence and was required by me to keep a watch on the South…" (the duke hesitated as he said this) "… has just arrived post-haste to tell me that there is a great danger threatening the king. And so, Sire, I came at once."
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"Mala ducis avi domum," Louis XVIII continued, making another note.
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"Is Your Majesty ordering me to say no more on this topic?"
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"Which one?"
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"Whichever you prefer, over there, on the left."
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"Here, Sire?"
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"Yes, Sire, Monsieur le Baron Dandré," the usher repeated.
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"No, my dear Duke, but stretch out your hand."
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M. Dandré leant elegantly against the back of a chair, resting both hands upon it, and said: "Was Your Majesty good enough to consult my report of yesterday's date?"
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"I tell you the left and you look on the right. I mean my left. There, you have it. You should find a report from the Minister of Police with yesterday's date… But here is Monsieur Dandré himself… You did say Monsieur Dandré, didn't you?" Louis XVIII remarked, turning to the usher who had indeed just announced the Minister of Police.
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"That's it, Baron," Louis XVIII continued, with a faint smile. "Come in, Baron, and tell the duke your most recent news about Monsieur de Bonaparte. Conceal nothing from us, however serious the situation may be. Let's see: is not the island of Elba a volcano, and shall we see war burst from it, bristling and blazing: bella, horrida bella?"
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M. Dandré turned to Louis XVIII, who was busy writing a note and did not even look up. "Bonaparte," the baron continued, "is bored to death. He spends whole days watching his miners at work in Porto-Longone."
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"Yes, of course, but tell the duke what was in this report, because he is unable to find it. Let him know everything that the usurper is doing on his island."
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"Monsieur," the baron said to the duke, "all His Majesty's servants should applaud the latest news that we have received from Elba. Bonaparte…"
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"He scratches himself?" the duke said. "What does Your Majesty mean?"
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"And he scratches himself, as a distraction," said the king.
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"There is more, Monsieur le Duc," said the Minister of Police. "We are almost certain that the usurper will shortly be mad."
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"Mad?"
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"Utterly: his head is softening; sometimes he weeps bitterly, at others he laughs hysterically. On some occasions, he spends hours sitting on the shore playing at ducks and drakes, and when a pebble makes five or six leaps, he seems as satisfied as though he had won another battle of Marengo or Austerlitz. You must agree that these are signs of folly."
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"Yes indeed, my dear Duke. Have you forgotten that this great man, this hero, this demi-god is driven to distraction by a skin ailment, prurigo?"
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"The usurper's conversion!" muttered the duke, looking from the king to Dandré, who were speaking their parts alternately like two Virgilian shepherds. "Has the usurper been converted?"
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"Or of wisdom, Monsieur le Baron, or of wisdom," said Louis XVIII, with a laugh. "The great captains of Antiquity used to replenish their spirits by playing at ducks and drakes; see Plutarch's Life of Scipio Africanus."
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M. de Blacas was left speechless between these two forms of unconcern. Villefort, who had not wished to tell him everything, in order to prevent anyone else from taking away all the advantage that he might gain from his secret, had none the less told him enough to make him very anxious.
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"How is the converted?"
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"Go on, Dandré, go on," said Louis XVIII. "Blacas is not yet convinced. Tell him about the usurper's conversion."
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"Here's the truth of the matter, Duke," the minister said, with the greatest gravity in the world. "Napoleon recently reviewed his men and when two or three of his old grognards, as he calls them, expressed a wish to return to France, he gave them leave and urged them to serve their good king: those were his own words, Monsieur le Duc, I am assured of it."
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The Minister of Police bowed.
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"Absolutely, my dear Duke."
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"To the right principles. Explain it, Baron."
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"Certainly, Duke, at your insistence I shall receive whomever you wish, but I should like to do so fully armed. Minister, do you yet have a more recent report than this one: this is dated February the twentieth, and it is now already March the third!"
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"Go to the Prefecture and if there is not one there," Louis XVIII continued, laughing, "make one. Isn't that the procedure?"
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"So, now, Blacas, what do you think?" the king asked triumphantly, turning his attention for a moment from the scholarly tome that lay open beside him.
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"I say, Sire, that either the Minister of Police is mistaken or I am. But since it is impossible for it to be the Minister of Police, who is responsible for preserving Your Majesty's safety and honour, then I am probably the one who is wrong. However, Sire, in Your Majesty's place I should wish to question the person about whom I spoke. I would even insist that Your Majesty do him this honour."
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"No, Sire, but I have been expecting one at any minute. I have been out since early this morning and it may have arrived in my absence."
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"I shall not tarry, Sire. I shall return in ten minutes."
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"Very well, then go, Monsieur," Louis XVIII said, "and remember that I shall be awaiting your return."
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"Oh, Sire," the minister exclaimed, "thank heaven, on that score there is no need to invent anything. Each day brings the most circumstantial denunciations pouring into our offices, the work of a host of miserable wretches who are hoping for a little gratitude for services that they do not render -- much as they would like to. They wager on chance, in the hope that one day an unexpected event will give some sort of reality to their predictions."
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"Wait, wait," Louis XVIII said. "Blacas, I really must change your coat of arms: I shall give you an eagle with wings extended, grasping in its claws a prey that is trying in vain to escape; with this device: Tenax."
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"I am listening, Sire," said M. de Blacas, wringing his hands in impatience.
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"I should like to consult you about this text: Molli fugiens anhelitu. You know: it concerns the stag fleeing the wolf. You are a great huntsman, I believe, and an expert on wolves. In both those capacities, what do you think of this molli anhelitu?"
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"And I, Sire, shall go to fetch my messenger," said Blacas.
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"He writes to me from there."
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"Sire! This is meagre reward for a poor young man who has come so far and with such ardour to give Your Majesty some important news. If only for the sake of Monsieur de Salvieux, who has recommended him to me, I beg you to receive him well."
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"Does he too speak to you of this conspiracy?"
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"But he is in Marseille."
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"And he is the one who has come from Marseille?"
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"No, but he recommends Monsieur de Villefort to me and instructs me to bring him into Your Majesty's presence."
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"Monsieur de Salvieux, my brother's chamberlain?"
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"He has expended a lot of energy and a lot of trouble, my dear Duke, when we have the telegraph that only takes three or four hours, and does so without making one in the slightest bit out of breath."
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"The same."
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"Yes, Sire."
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"Monsieur de Villefort?" cried the king. "Is this messenger called Monsieur de Villefort?"
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"Admirable, Sire; but my messenger is like the stag that you mention, for he has just covered two hundred leagues by road, in barely three days."
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"This very moment, Duke. Where is he?"
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"Immediately."
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"Sire, I thought that Your Majesty would not know the name."
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"He must be waiting for me below in my carriage."
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"And Your Majesty has given employment to the son of such a man?"
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"Yes, Noirtier."
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"Noirtier, the Girondin? Noirtier the Senator?"
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"Why did you not tell me his name at once?" the king asked, a faint shadow of anxiety appearing on his face.
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"So, should I let him enter, Sire?"
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"Blacas, my friend, you understand nothing. I told you that Villefort was ambitious: to make his way, Villefort will sacrifice everything, even his father."
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"Precisely."
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"Go and fetch him."
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The duke left with the vivacity of a young man, the warmth of his sincere royalism taking twenty years off his age. Left alone, Louis XVIII turned back to his half-open Horace and murmured: "Justum et tenacem propositi virum."
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"His father?"
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"In person."
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"Not so, Blacas, not so. He is a serious young man, well-bred and above all ambitious. And, heavens -- you do know his father's name?"
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The king was sitting exactly where the duke had left him. On opening the door, Villefort found himself directly opposite him, and the young lawyer's first impulse was to stop dead.
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"Monsieur de Villefort," the king went on, "the Duc de Blacas claims that you have something important to tell us."
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M. de Blacas came back up the stairs as fast as he had gone down them, but in the antechamber he was obliged to appeal to the king's authority. Villefort's dusty coat and his general appearance, bearing no relation to the dress of the court, had offended the sensibilities of M. de Brézé, who was astonished that any young man should have the audacity to appear in such clothing before the king. But the duke brushed aside his objections with a single phrase: His Majesty's orders; and, though the master of ceremonies continued to mutter his objections, for form's sake, Villefort was ushered into the royal presence.
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"Come in, Monsieur de Villefort," the king said. "Come in." Villefort bowed and took a few steps forward, waiting for the king to question him.
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"Sire, I believe that it is urgent, but I hope that, thanks to my efforts, it will not be irreparable."
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"Take as long as you wish, Monsieur," said the king, who was starting to succumb to the feelings that he had seen on M. de Blacas' face and which he heard in the strained tones of Villefort's voice. "Speak and, above all, begin at the beginning. I like order in all things."
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"Sire, the duke is right and I hope that Your Majesty will acknowledge the same."
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"Sire," said Villefort, "I shall give Your Majesty a faithful account, but I beg you to excuse me if, in my eagerness, I am unable to give as clear an account as I should wish."
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"Sire, I have driven post-haste to Paris to inform Your Majesty that, in the course of my duties, I have discovered not one of those commonplace and inconsequential plots, the like of which are hatched daily in the lower ranks of the people and of the army, but a veritable conspiracy, a whirlwind that threatens the very throne on which Your Majesty sits. The usurper is fitting out three ships. He is contemplating some adventure that may perhaps be senseless, but none the less fearsome for all that. At this very moment, he has surely left Elba -- to go where? I do not know, but certainly with the intention of landing either at Naples, or on the coast of Tuscany, or even in France. Your Majesty must know that the ruler of the island of Elba has kept in contact both with Italy and with France."
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A rapid glance at the king after this ingratiating preface reassured Villefort of the benevolence of his august listener and he continued:
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"Firstly, before anything else, Monsieur, is the problem as serious, in your opinion, as I have been led to believe?"
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"Sire, it is the result of an interrogation that I carried out on a man from Marseille whom I have had under surveillance for some time and arrested on the day of my departure. This man, a rebellious sailor whose Bonapartist sympathies I suspected, went secretly to the island of Elba. There, he met the Grand Marshal, who entrusted him with a verbal message for a Bonapartist in Paris, whose name I was not able to make him divulge. However, the message was that the Bonapartist was ordered to prepare his supporters for a return -- you understand, these are the words of the interrogation, Sire -- for a return that cannot fail to take place shortly."
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"And where is the man?" Louis XVIII asked.
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"So much so, Sire, that although this event interrupted a family celebration, on the very day of my betrothal, I left everything, my fiancée and my friends, putting all aside to hasten to see Your Majesty, both to inform you of my fears and to assure you of my loyal devotion."
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"Yes, Monsieur, I do know," said the king, deeply troubled. "Quite recently, we have been informed that meetings of Bonapartists have taken place in the Rue Saint-Jacques. But pray continue: how did you obtain this information?"
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"In prison, Sire."
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"You believe the matter to be serious?"
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"That's right," said Louis XVIII. "There was some plan that you should marry Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran, wasn't there?"
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"Yes, yes, but let us return to the plot, Monsieur de Villefort."
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"The daughter of one of Your Majesty's most faithful servants."
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"Sire, I fear that this is no longer merely a plot; I fear we are dealing with a conspiracy."
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The king smiled. "A conspiracy nowadays is an easy matter to contemplate, but harder to put into practice, precisely because, having been recently restored to the throne of our ancestors, we have our eyes fixed on the past, the present and the future. In the past ten months, my ministers have been doubly vigilant, to ensure that the Mediterranean coast is well protected. If Bonaparte were to land at Naples, the entire Coalition would be mobilized against him even before he reached Piombino. If he were to land in Tuscany, he would step on to an enemy shore. If he were to land in France, it would be with a handful of men and we should easily overcome him, hated as he is by the people. So have no fear, Monsieur; but be assured, none the less, of our royal gratitude."
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"Ah, here is Monsieur Dandré!" the Duc de Blacas exclaimed.
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At that moment, as he spoke, the Minister of Police appeared at the door, pale, trembling and staring vacantly, as if dazed by a blinding flash of light.
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Villefort made to retire from the room, but M. de Blacas clasped his hand to restrain him.
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