The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (19 page)

‘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.

‘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.’

‘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!’

‘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.’

‘Go to the Prefecture and if there is not one there,’ Louis XVIII continued, laughing, ‘make one. Isn’t that the procedure?’

‘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.’

‘Very well, then go, Monsieur,’ Louis XVIII said, ‘and remember that I shall be awaiting your return.’

‘I shall not tarry, Sire. I shall return in ten minutes.’

‘And I, Sire, shall go to fetch my messenger,’ said Blacas.

‘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
.’

‘I am listening, Sire,’ said M. de Blacas, wringing his hands in impatience.

‘I should like to consult you about this text:
Molli fugiens anhelitu
.
¹⁰
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
?’

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘Monsieur de Salvieux, my brother’s chamberlain?’

‘The same.’

‘But he is in Marseille.’

‘He writes to me from there.’

‘Does he too speak to you of this conspiracy?’

‘No, but he recommends Monsieur de Villefort to me and instructs me to bring him into Your Majesty’s presence.’

‘Monsieur de Villefort?’ cried the king. ‘Is this messenger called Monsieur de Villefort?’

‘Yes, Sire.’

‘And he is the one who has come from Marseille?’

‘In person.’

‘Why did you not tell me his name at once?’ the king asked, a faint shadow of anxiety appearing on his face.

‘Sire, I thought that Your Majesty would not know the name.’

‘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?’

‘His father?’

‘Yes, Noirtier.’

‘Noirtier, the Girondin? Noirtier the Senator?’

‘Precisely.’

‘And Your Majesty has given employment to the son of such a man?’

‘Blacas, my friend, you understand nothing. I told you that Villefort was ambitious: to make his way, Villefort will sacrifice everything, even his father.’

‘So, should I let him enter, Sire?’

‘This very moment, Duke. Where is he?’

‘He must be waiting for me below in my carriage.’

‘Go and fetch him.’

‘Immediately.’

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
.’
¹¹

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. 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.

‘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.

‘Monsieur de Villefort,’ the king went on, ‘the Duc de Blacas claims that you have something important to tell us.’

‘Sire, the duke is right and I hope that Your Majesty will acknowledge the same.’

‘Firstly, before anything else, Monsieur, is the problem as serious, in your opinion, as I have been led to believe?’

‘Sire, I believe that it is urgent, but I hope that, thanks to my efforts, it will not be irreparable.’

‘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.’

‘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.’

A rapid glance at the king after this ingratiating preface reassured Villefort of the benevolence of his august listener and he continued:

‘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.’

‘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?’

‘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.’

‘And where is the man?’ Louis XVIII asked.

‘In prison, Sire.’

‘You believe the matter to be serious?’

‘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.’

‘That’s right,’ said Louis XVIII. ‘There was some plan that you should marry Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran, wasn’t there?’

‘The daughter of one of Your Majesty’s most faithful servants.’

‘Yes, yes, but let us return to the plot, Monsieur de Villefort.’

‘Sire, I fear that this is no longer merely a plot; I fear we are dealing with a conspiracy.’

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.’

‘Ah, here is Monsieur Dandré!’ the Duc de Blacas exclaimed.

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.

Villefort made to retire from the room, but M. de Blacas clasped his hand to restrain him.

Louis XVIII, on seeing this ravaged face, thrust away the table before which he was sitting.

‘What is wrong with you, Baron?’ he cried. ‘You seem thunderstruck. Do your troubled appearance and hesitant manner have anything to do with what Monsieur de Blacas was saying and what Monsieur de Villefort has just confirmed to me?’

Meanwhile M. de Blacas had made an urgent movement towards the baron, but the courtier’s terror got the better of the statesman’s pride: in such circumstances, it was far preferable for him to be humiliated by the Prefect of Police than to humiliate him, in view of what was at stake.

‘Sire…’ the baron stammered.

‘Come, come!’ said Louis XVIII.

At this, the Minister of Police gave way to an onrush of despair and threw himself at the king’s feet. Louis XVIII stepped back, raising his eyebrows.

‘Won’t you say something?’ he asked.

‘Oh, Sire, what a terrible misfortune! What will become of me! I shall never recover from it!’

‘Monsieur,’ Louis XVIII said, ‘I order you to speak.’

‘Sire, the usurper left Elba on February the twenty-eighth and landed on March the first.’

‘Where?’ the king asked urgently.

‘In France, Sire, in a little port on the Golfe Juan, near Antibes.’

‘The usurper landed in France, near Antibes, on the Golfe Juan,
two hundred leagues from Paris, on March the first, and it is only today, March the third, that you inform me of it! Well, Monsieur, what you are telling me is impossible: either you have been misinformed, or you are mad.’

‘Alas, Sire, it is only too true!’

Louis XVIII made a gesture of inexpressible anger and alarm, leaping to his feet as though a sudden blow had struck him simultaneously in the heart and across the face.

‘In France!’ he cried. ‘The usurper in France! But was no one watching the man? Who knows, perhaps you were in league with him!’

‘Sire, no!’ the Duc de Blacas cried. ‘A man like Monsieur Dandré could never be accused of treason. We were all blind, Sire, and the Minister of Police was as blind as the rest of us, nothing more.’

‘But…’ Villefort said, then he stopped dead in his tracks. ‘I beg your forgiveness, Sire,’ he said, with a bow. ‘My ardour carried me away. I beg Your Majesty to forgive me.’

‘Speak, Monsieur, speak without fear. You alone warned us of the disease, help us to find the cure.’

‘Sire,’ Villefort said, ‘the usurper is hated in the South. It appears to me that, if he risks his chances there, we can easily rouse Provence and Languedoc against him.’

‘No doubt we can,’ said the minister, ‘but he is advancing through Gap and Sisteron.’

‘Advancing, advancing,’ said Louis XVIII. ‘Is he marching on Paris then?’

The Minister of Police said nothing, but his silence was as eloquent as a confession.

‘What about the Dauphiné?’ the king asked Villefort. ‘Do you think we could raise resistance there as in Provence?’

‘Sire, I regret to inform Your Majesty of an unpalatable truth: feeling in the Dauphiné is not nearly as favourable to us as it is in Provence and Languedoc. The mountain-dwellers are Bonapartists, Sire.’