The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (20 page)

‘So, his intelligence is good,’ Louis XVIII muttered. ‘How many men does he have with him?’

‘I do not know, Sire,’ said the Minister of Police.

‘How do you mean, you don’t know! Did you forget to find out that detail? It is a trivial matter, of course,’ he added, with a disdainful smile.

‘I was unable to learn it, Sire. The dispatch contained only the news of the landing and the route taken by the usurper.’

‘And how did you come by this dispatch?’

The minister hung his head and blushed brightly. ‘By the telegraph, Sire,’ he stammered.

Louis XVIII stepped forward and crossed his arms, as Napoleon would have done.

‘You mean,’ he said, going pale with rage, ‘that seven armies overthrew that man; a divine miracle replaced me on the throne of my fathers after twenty-five years of exile; and during those twenty-five years I studied, sounded out and analysed the men and the affairs of this country of France that was promised to me, only to attain the object of all my desires and for a force that I held in the palm of my hand to explode and destroy me!’

‘It is fate, Sire,’ the minister muttered, realizing that such a weight, though light in the scales of destiny, was enough to crush a man.

‘So is it true, what our enemies say about us: nothing learned, nothing forgotten? If I had been betrayed as he was, then that might after all be some consolation; but to be surrounded by people whom I have raised to high office, who should consider my safety more precious than their own, because their interests depend on me – people who were nothing before me, and will be nothing after – and to perish miserably through inefficiency and ineptitude! Oh, yes, Monsieur, you are right indeed: that is fate.’

The minister was crushed beneath the weight of this terrifying indictment. M. de Blacas wiped a brow damp with sweat and Villefort smiled to himself, because he felt his own importance swelling.

‘To fall,’ Louis XVIII continued, having immediately realized the depth of the gulf above which the monarchy was tottering, ‘to fall and to learn of one’s fall through the telegraph! Oh, I should rather mount the scaffold like my brother Louis XVI, than to descend the steps of the Tuileries in this way, driven out by ridicule… Monsieur, you do not know what ridicule means in France; and yet, if anyone ought to know…’

‘Sire,’ the minister mumbled, ‘Sire, for pity’s sake!’

The king turned to the young man who was standing, motionless, at the back of the room, following the progress of this conversation on which hung the fate of a kingdom: ‘Come here, Monsieur de
Villefort, come; and tell this gentleman that it was possible to have foreknowledge of everything, despite his ignorance of it.’

‘Sire, it was materially impossible to guess at plans which that man had hidden from everybody.’

‘ “Materially impossible”! Those are grand words, Monsieur. Unfortunately, grand words are like grand gentlemen: I have taken the measure of both. “Materially impossible” – for a minister, who has his officials, his offices, his agents, his informers, his spies and fifteen hundred thousand francs of secret funds, to know what is happening sixty leagues off the coast of France! Come, come: here is this gentleman who had none of these resources at his disposal, this gentleman, a simple magistrate, who knew more than you did with all your police force, and who would have saved my crown if, like you, he had the right to operate the telegraph.’

The Minister of Police turned with an expression of profound acrimony towards Villefort, who lowered his head with the modesty of triumph.

‘I am not saying this for you, Blacas,’ Louis XVIII went on. ‘Even though you discovered nothing, you did at least have the good sense to persevere in your suspicions: anyone else might have thought Monsieur de Villefort’s revelations insignificant, or else the product of some self-serving ambition.’

The last was an allusion to what the Minister of Police had said with such confidence an hour earlier.

Villefort understood the king’s strategy. Another person might have been carried away, intoxicated by this flattery, but he was afraid of making a mortal enemy of the minister, despite knowing that the man was doomed; because even though, at the height of his power, the minister had been unable to guess Napoleon’s secret, in the final death throes of his fall he might discover Villefort’s; he had only to question Dantès. So Villefort came to the man’s aid instead of adding to his misery.

‘Sire,’ Villefort said, ‘the swiftness of the events proves to Your Majesty that only God, by raising a storm, could have forestalled them. What Your Majesty attributes to profound perspicacity on my part is purely and simply the outcome of chance. All I have done is to use what chance put in my way, as a devoted subject. Do not give me more credit than I deserve, Sire, and you will never have to revise your first opinion of me.’

The Minister of Police thanked the young man with a look, and
Villefort knew that his plan had succeeded: having lost none of the king’s gratitude, he had just made a friend on whom he could count, should need be.

‘Very well,’ said the king; then, turning to M. de Blacas and the Minister of Police: ‘Now, gentlemen, I have no further need of you. You may go. What has to be done from now on falls within the province of the Minister of War.’

‘Thankfully, Sire, we can count on the army,’ said M. de Blacas. ‘Your Majesty knows that every report speaks of its devotion to Your Majesty’s government.’

‘Don’t speak to me of reports, Duke; I know now how much faith I should put in them. But, on that subject, Monsieur le Baron, what further news do you have about the matter of the Rue Saint-Jacques?’

‘The matter of the Rue Saint-Jacques!’ Villefort exclaimed, unable to contain himself. Then he stopped short and said: ‘Forgive me, Sire, my devotion to Your Majesty continually makes me forget, not the respect that I feel for you, which is too deeply engraved on my heart, but the rules of etiquette.’

‘You may speak out, Monsieur,’ said Louis XVIII. ‘Today you have earned the right to ask questions.’

‘Sire,’ the Minister of Police replied, ‘I was on the point of giving Your Majesty the new information that I have gathered about this, when Your Majesty’s attention was distracted by the terrible disaster on the coast. This information can be of no further interest to His Majesty.’

‘On the contrary, Monsieur, this affair seems to me to relate directly to the one uppermost in our minds, and General Quesnel’s death may perhaps put us on the trail of an important internal conspiracy.’

Villefort shuddered at this mention of General Quesnel.

‘Indeed, Sire,’ the Minister of Police continued, ‘everything suggests that he was the victim, not of suicide, as first thought, but of murder. It appears that General Quesnel was coming out of a Bonapartist club when he disappeared. A stranger had visited him the same morning and made an appointment with him in the Rue Saint-Jacques. Unfortunately, the valet, who was doing the general’s hair at the time when the stranger was shown into his dressing-room, clearly heard him mention the Rue Saint-Jacques, but could not remember the number.’

While the Minister of Police was giving this information to the king, Villefort, who appeared to hang on his every word, blushed red, then went pale.

The king turned to him. ‘Don’t you agree with me, Monsieur de Villefort, that General Quesnel, who might have been thought a supporter of the usurper, but who was in reality entirely loyal to me, was the victim of an ambush by the Bonapartists?’

‘It seems probable, Sire,’ said Villefort. ‘Is nothing more known?’

‘We are tracking down the man who made the appointment with him.’

‘Tracking him down?’ Villefort repeated.

‘Yes, the servant gave us a description. He is a man of between fifty and fifty-five years old, with dark eyes overhung by bushy eyebrows, and a moustache. He was dressed in a blue frock-coat and wore the rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole. A man who precisely answers to this description was followed yesterday, but my agent lost him at the corner of the Rue de la Jussienne and the Rue Coq-Héron.’

Villefort had leant against the back of a chair and, while the Minister of Police was speaking, he felt his legs give way beneath him; but when he heard that the stranger had evaded his pursuer, he breathed again.

‘You must track this man down, Monsieur,’ the king told the Minister of Police. ‘If, as everything leads me to believe, General Quesnel, who has been so helpful to us at this time, was a victim of murder, whether or not by Bonapartists, I wish his assassins to be cruelly punished.’

Villefort needed all his self-control to avoid showing the terror he felt on hearing the king’s words.

‘How odd it is!’ the king continued, with a gesture that expressed his irritation. ‘The police consider they have said the last word on the matter when they announce that a murder has been committed; and that they have done everything when they add: “We are tracking down the people responsible.” ’

‘On this, at least, I hope that Your Majesty will have satisfaction.’

‘Very well, we shall see. I shall keep you no longer, Baron. Monsieur de Villefort, you must be tired after your journey; go and rest. You are doubtless staying with your father?’

A cloud passed in front of Villefort’s eyes.

‘No, Sire, I am staying at the Hôtel de Madrid, in the Rue de Tournon.’

‘You have seen him, I suppose?’

‘I asked to be taken directly to the Duc de Blacas, Sire.’

‘But you will see him, nonetheless?’

‘I think not, Sire.’

‘Ah yes, of course,’ Louis XVIII said with a smile, indicating that there had been a motive behind this repeated questioning. ‘I was forgetting the coldness in your relations with Monsieur Noirtier, and that this is another sacrifice you have made to the royal cause, for which I must compensate you.’

‘Sire, the expression of Your Majesty’s goodwill is a reward that so far exceeds my ambitions, and I can have nothing further to ask of my king.’

‘No matter, Monsieur; have no fear, we shall not forget you, and meanwhile…’ The king unpinned the cross of the Legion of Honour which he normally wore on his blue coat, next to the Cross of Saint-Louis and above the medal of the order of Notre-Dame du Mont Carmel et de Saint-Lazare, and, giving it to Villefort, said: ‘Meanwhile, take this cross.’

‘But, Sire,’ Villefort said, ‘Your Majesty is mistaken: this is the cross of an officer of the Legion.’

‘So be it, Monsieur,’ said Louis XVIII, ‘take it for what it is. I have no time to request another. Blacas, ensure that the certificate is delivered to Monsieur de Villefort.’

Villefort’s eyes moistened with a tear of happiness and pride. He took the cross and kissed it.

‘And now,’ he asked, ‘what orders do I have the honour to receive from Your Majesty?’

‘Take the rest that you need and consider that, while you have no power to serve me in Paris, you can be of the greatest service to me in Marseille.’

Villefort bowed. ‘Sire, in an hour I shall have left Paris.’

‘Go then, Monsieur; and if I should forget you – for the memory of kings is short – do not hesitate to make yourself known to me… Monsieur le Baron, give the order to fetch the Minister of War. Blacas, stay here.’

‘Monsieur,’ the Minister of Police said to Villefort as they were leaving the Tuileries, ‘you have come through the right door: your fortune is made.’

‘How long will it last?’ Villefort murmured, taking leave of the minister, whose career was finished, and looking around for a cab to take him home. One passed along the quay, Villefort waved it down and the cab drew over. He gave his address to the driver and leapt inside, where he abandoned himself to his ambitious dreams. Ten minutes later he was home. He ordered his horses to be prepared for him to leave in two hours and asked for dinner to be served.

He was about to sit down at the table when a firm, clear ring sounded at the door. The valet went to open it and Villefort heard someone speak his name.

‘Who can know that I am here so soon?’ he wondered.

At that moment, the valet returned.

‘What is it?’ Villefort answered. ‘Who was that ringing? Who is asking for me?’

‘A stranger who will not give his name.’

‘What anonymous stranger is that? What does he want?’

‘He wishes to speak to Monsieur.’

‘To me?’

‘Yes.’

‘He asked for me by name?’

‘Certainly.’

‘And what does this stranger look like?’

‘He is a man of around fifty, Monsieur.’

‘Short? Tall?’

‘About the same size as Monsieur.’

‘Fair or dark?’

‘Dark, very dark, with black hair, black eyes and black eyebrows.’

‘And dressed?’ Villefort demanded urgently. ‘How is he dressed?’

‘In a long blue frock-coat buttoned from top to bottom, with the decoration of the Legion of Honour.’

‘It is he,’ Villefort murmured, going pale.

‘By heaven!’ The person whose description we have twice given appeared on the doorstep. ‘This is a fine way to treat a man. Is it the custom in Marseille for a son to keep his father waiting at the door?’