Chapter 11. The Corsican Ogre
At the sight of this agitation Louis XVIII. pushed from him violentlythe table at which he was sitting.
“What ails you, baron?” he exclaimed. “You appear quite aghast. Has youruneasiness anything to do with what M. de Blacas has told me, and M. deVillefort has just confirmed?” M. de Blacas moved suddenly towards thebaron, but the fright of the courtier pleaded for the forbearance of thestatesman; and besides, as matters were, it was much more to hisadvantage that the prefect of police should triumph over him than thathe should humiliate the prefect.
“Sire,——” stammered the baron.
“Well, what is it?” asked Louis XVIII. The minister of police, givingway to an impulse of despair, was about to throw himself at the feet ofLouis XVIII., who retreated a step and frowned.
“Will you speak?” he said.
“Oh, sire, what a dreadful misfortune! I am, indeed, to be pitied. I cannever forgive myself!”
“Monsieur,” said Louis XVIII., “I command you to speak.”
“Well, sire, the usurper left Elba on the 26th February, and landed onthe 1st of March.”
“And where? In Italy?” asked the king eagerly.
“In France, sire,—at a small port, near Antibes, in the Gulf of Juan.”
“The usurper landed in France, near Antibes, in the Gulf of Juan, twohundred and fifty leagues from Paris, on the 1st of March, and you onlyacquired this information today, the 3rd of March! Well, sir, what youtell me is impossible. You must have received a false report, or youhave gone mad.”
“Alas, sire, it is but too true!” Louis made a gesture of indescribableanger and alarm, and then drew himself up as if this sudden blow hadstruck him at the same moment in heart and countenance.
“In France!” he cried, “the usurper in France! Then they did not watchover this man. Who knows? they were, perhaps, in league with him.”
“Oh, sire,” exclaimed the Duc de Blacas, “M. Dandré is not a man to beaccused of treason! Sire, we have all been blind, and the minister ofpolice has shared the general blindness, that is all.”
“But——” said Villefort, and then suddenly checking himself, he wassilent; then he continued, “Your pardon, sire,” he said, bowing, “myzeal carried me away. Will your majesty deign to excuse me?”
“Speak, sir, speak boldly,” replied Louis. “You alone forewarned us ofthe evil; now try and aid us with the remedy.”
“Sire,” said Villefort, “the usurper is detested in the south; and itseems to me that if he ventured into the south, it would be easy toraise Languedoc and Provence against him.”
“Yes, assuredly,” replied the minister; “but he is advancing by Gap andSisteron.”
“Advancing—he is advancing!” said Louis XVIII. “Is he then advancing onParis?” The minister of police maintained a silence which was equivalentto a complete avowal.
“And Dauphiné, sir?” inquired the king, of Villefort. “Do you think itpossible to rouse that as well as Provence?”
“Sire, I am sorry to tell your majesty a cruel fact; but the feeling inDauphiné is quite the reverse of that in Provence or Languedoc. Themountaineers are Bonapartists, sire.”
“Then,” murmured Louis, “he was well informed. And how many men had hewith him?”
“I do not know, sire,” answered the minister of police.
“What, you do not know! Have you neglected to obtain information on thatpoint? Of course it is of no consequence,” he added, with a witheringsmile.
“Sire, it was impossible to learn; the despatch simply stated the factof the landing and the route taken by the usurper.”
“And how did this despatch reach you?” inquired the king. The ministerbowed his head, and while a deep color overspread his cheeks, hestammered out:
“By the telegraph, sire.” Louis XVIII. advanced a step, and folded hisarms over his chest as Napoleon would have done.
0141m
“So then,” he exclaimed, turning pale with anger, “seven conjoined andallied armies overthrew that man. A miracle of heaven replaced me on thethrone of my fathers after five-and-twenty years of exile. I have,during those five-and-twenty years, spared no pains to understand thepeople of France and the interests which were confided to me; and now,when I see the fruition of my wishes almost within reach, the power Ihold in my hands bursts and shatters me to atoms!”
“Sire, it is fatality!” murmured the minister, feeling that the pressureof circumstances, however light a thing to destiny, was too much for anyhuman strength to endure.
“What our enemies say of us is then true. We have learnt nothing,forgotten nothing! If I were betrayed as he was, I would console myself;but to be in the midst of persons elevated by myself to places of honor,who ought to watch over me more carefully than over themselves,—for myfortune is theirs—before me they were nothing—after me they will benothing, and perish miserably from incapacity—ineptitude! Oh, yes, sir,you are right—it is fatality!”
The minister quailed before this outburst of sarcasm. M. de Blacas wipedthe moisture from his brow. Villefort smiled within himself, for he felthis increased importance.
“To fall,” continued King Louis, who at the first glance had sounded theabyss on which the monarchy hung suspended,—“to fall, and learn of thatfall by telegraph! Oh, I would rather mount the scaffold of my brother,Louis XVI., than thus descend the staircase at the Tuileries driven awayby ridicule. Ridicule, sir—why, you know not its power in France, andyet you ought to know it!”
“Sire, sire,” murmured the minister, “for pity’s——”
“Approach, M. de Villefort,” resumed the king, addressing the young man,who, motionless and breathless, was listening to a conversation on whichdepended the destiny of a kingdom. “Approach, and tell monsieur that itis possible to know beforehand all that he has not known.”
“Sire, it was really impossible to learn secrets which that manconcealed from all the world.”
“Really impossible! Yes—that is a great word, sir. Unfortunately, thereare great words, as there are great men; I have measured them. Reallyimpossible for a minister who has an office, agents, spies, and fifteenhundred thousand francs for secret service money, to know what is goingon at sixty leagues from the coast of France! Well, then, see, here is agentleman who had none of these resources at his disposal—a gentleman,only a simple magistrate, who learned more than you with all yourpolice, and who would have saved my crown, if, like you, he had thepower of directing a telegraph.” The look of the minister of police wasturned with concentrated spite on Villefort, who bent his head in modesttriumph.
“I do not mean that for you, Blacas,” continued Louis XVIII.; “for ifyou have discovered nothing, at least you have had the good sense topersevere in your suspicions. Any other than yourself would haveconsidered the disclosure of M. de Villefort insignificant, or elsedictated by venal ambition.” These words were an allusion to thesentiments which the minister of police had uttered with so muchconfidence an hour before.
Villefort understood the king’s intent. Any other person would, perhaps,have been overcome by such an intoxicating draught of praise; but hefeared to make for himself a mortal enemy of the police minister,although he saw that Dandré was irrevocably lost. In fact, the minister,who, in the plenitude of his power, had been unable to unearthNapoleon’s secret, might in despair at his own downfall interrogateDantès and so lay bare the motives of Villefort’s plot. Realizing this,Villefort came to the rescue of the crest-fallen minister, instead ofaiding to crush him.
“Sire,” said Villefort, “the suddenness of this event must prove to yourmajesty that the issue is in the hands of Providence; what your majestyis pleased to attribute to me as profound perspicacity is simply owingto chance, and I have profited by that chance, like a good and devotedservant—that’s all. Do not attribute to me more than I deserve, sire,that your majesty may never have occasion to recall the first opinionyou have been pleased to form of me.” The minister of po
lice thanked theyoung man by an eloquent look, and Villefort understood that he hadsucceeded in his design; that is to say, that without forfeiting thegratitude of the king, he had made a friend of one on whom, in case ofnecessity, he might rely.
“’Tis well,” resumed the king. “And now, gentlemen,” he continued,turning towards M. de Blacas and the minister of police, “I have nofurther occasion for you, and you may retire; what now remains to do isin the department of the minister of war.”
“Fortunately, sire,” said M. de Blacas, “we can rely on the army; yourmajesty knows how every report confirms their loyalty and attachment.”
“Do not mention reports, duke, to me, for I know now what confidence toplace in them. Yet, speaking of reports, baron, what have you learnedwith regard to the affair in the Rue Saint-Jacques?”
“The affair in the Rue Saint-Jacques!” exclaimed Villefort, unable torepress an exclamation. Then, suddenly pausing, he added, “Your pardon,sire, but my devotion to your majesty has made me forget, not therespect I have, for that is too deeply engraved in my heart, but therules of etiquette.”
“Go on, go on, sir,” replied the king; “you have today earned the rightto make inquiries here.”
“Sire,” interposed the minister of police, “I came a moment ago to giveyour majesty fresh information which I had obtained on this head, whenyour majesty’s attention was attracted by the terrible event that hasoccurred in the gulf, and now these facts will cease to interest yourmajesty.”
“On the contrary, sir,—on the contrary,” said Louis XVIII., “this affairseems to me to have a decided connection with that which occupies ourattention, and the death of General Quesnel will, perhaps, put us on thedirect track of a great internal conspiracy.” At the name of GeneralQuesnel, Villefort trembled.
“Everything points to the conclusion, sire,” said the minister ofpolice, “that death was not the result of suicide, as we first believed,but of assassination. General Quesnel, it appears, had just left aBonapartist club when he disappeared. An unknown person had been withhim that morning, and made an appointment with him in the Rue Saint-Jacques; unfortunately, the general’s valet, who was dressing his hairat the moment when the stranger entered, heard the street mentioned, butdid not catch the number.” As the police minister related this to theking, Villefort, who looked as if his very life hung on the speaker’slips, turned alternately red and pale. The king looked towards him.
“Do you not think with me, M. de Villefort, that General Quesnel, whomthey believed attached to the usurper, but who was really entirelydevoted to me, has perished the victim of a Bonapartist ambush?”
“It is probable, sire,” replied Villefort. “But is this all that isknown?”
“They are on the track of the man who appointed the meeting with him.”
“On his track?” said Villefort.
“Yes, the servant has given his description. He is a man of from fiftyto fifty-two years of age, dark, with black eyes covered with shaggyeyebrows, and a thick moustache. He was dressed in a blue frock-coat,buttoned up to the chin, and wore at his button-hole the rosette of anofficer of the Legion of Honor. Yesterday a person exactly correspondingwith this description was followed, but he was lost sight of at thecorner of the Rue de la Jussienne and the Rue Coq-Héron.” Villefortleaned on the back of an armchair, for as the minister of police went onspeaking he felt his legs bend under him; but when he learned that theunknown had escaped the vigilance of the agent who followed him, hebreathed again.
“Continue to seek for this man, sir,” said the king to the minister ofpolice; “for if, as I am all but convinced, General Quesnel, who wouldhave been so useful to us at this moment, has been murdered, hisassassins, Bonapartists or not, shall be cruelly punished.” It requiredall Villefort’s coolness not to betray the terror with which thisdeclaration of the king inspired him.
“How strange,” continued the king, with some asperity; “the police thinkthat they have disposed of the whole matter when they say, ‘A murder hasbeen committed,’ and especially so when they can add, ‘And we are on thetrack of the guilty persons.’”
“Sire, your majesty will, I trust, be amply satisfied on this point atleast.”
“We shall see. I will no longer detain you, M. de Villefort, for youmust be fatigued after so long a journey; go and rest. Of course youstopped at your father’s?” A feeling of faintness came over Villefort.
0145m
“No, sire,” he replied, “I alighted at the Hotel de Madrid, in the Ruede Tournon.”
“But you have seen him?”
“Sire, I went straight to the Duc de Blacas.”
“But you will see him, then?”
“I think not, sire.”
“Ah, I forgot,” said Louis, smiling in a manner which proved that allthese questions were not made without a motive; “I forgot you and M.Noirtier are not on the best terms possible, and that is anothersacrifice made to the royal cause, and for which you should berecompensed.”
“Sire, the kindness your majesty deigns to evince towards me is arecompense which so far surpasses my utmost ambition that I have nothingmore to ask for.”
“Never mind, sir, we will not forget you; make your mind easy. In themeanwhile” (the king here detached the cross of the Legion of Honorwhich he usually wore over his blue coat, near the cross of St. Louis,above the order of Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel and St. Lazare, and gave itto Villefort)—“in the meanwhile take this cross.”
“Sire,” said Villefort, “your majesty mistakes; this is an officer’scross.”
“Ma foi!” said Louis XVIII., “take it, such as it is, for I have not thetime to procure you another. Blacas, let it be your care to see that thebrevet is made out and sent to M. de Villefort.” Villefort’s eyes werefilled with tears of joy and pride; he took the cross and kissed it.
“And now,” he said, “may I inquire what are the orders with which yourmajesty deigns to honor me?”
“Take what rest you require, and remember that if you are not able toserve me here in Paris, you may be of the greatest service to me atMarseilles.”
“Sire,” replied Villefort, bowing, “in an hour I shall have quittedParis.”
“Go, sir,” said the king; “and should I forget you (kings’ memories areshort), do not be afraid to bring yourself to my recollection. Baron,send for the minister of war. Blacas, remain.”
“Ah, sir,” said the minister of police to Villefort, as they left theTuileries, “you entered by luck’s door—your fortune is made.”
“Will it be long first?” muttered Villefort, saluting the minister,whose career was ended, and looking about him for a hackney-coach. Onepassed at the moment, which he hailed; he gave his address to thedriver, and springing in, threw himself on the seat, and gave loose todreams of ambition.
Ten minutes afterwards Villefort reached his hotel, ordered horses to beready in two hours, and asked to have his breakfast brought to him. Hewas about to begin his repast when the sound of the bell rang sharp andloud. The valet opened the door, and Villefort heard someone speak hisname.
0147m
“Who could know that I was here already?” said the young man. The valetentered.
“Well,” said Villefort, “what is it?—Who rang?—Who asked for me?”
“A stranger who will not send in his name.”
“A stranger who will not send in his name! What can he want with me?”
“He wishes to speak to you.”
“To me?”
“Yes.”
“Did he mention my name?”
“Yes.”
“What sort of person is he?”
“Why, sir, a man of about fifty.”
“Short or tall?”
“About your own height, sir.”
“Dark or fair?”
“Dark,—very dark; with black eyes, black hair, black eyebrows.”
“And how dressed?” asked Villefort quickly.
“In a blue frock-coat, buttoned up clo
se, decorated with the Legion ofHonor.”
“It is he!” said Villefort, turning pale.
0148m
“Eh, pardieu!” said the individual whose description we have twicegiven, entering the door, “what a great deal of ceremony! Is it thecustom in Marseilles for sons to keep their fathers waiting in theiranterooms?”
“Father!” cried Villefort, “then I was not deceived; I felt sure it mustbe you.”
“Well, then, if you felt so sure,” replied the new-comer, putting hiscane in a corner and his hat on a chair, “allow me to say, my dearGérard, that it was not very filial of you to keep me waiting at thedoor.”
“Leave us, Germain,” said Villefort. The servant quitted the apartmentwith evident signs of astonishment.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated Page 12