, they were
neither more nor less than the protestation of the nobility, the list of
officers who requested commissions under the king of Spain, and the
manifesto prepared by the Cardinal de Polignac and the Marquis de
Pompadour to rouse the kingdom. These different documents were addressed
directly to Philip V.; and a little note--which Dubois recognized as
Cellamare's hand writing--announced that the denouement of the
conspiracy was near at hand; he informed his Catholic majesty, from day
to day, of all the important events which could advance or retard the
scheme. Then came, finally, that famous plan of the conspirators which
we have already given to our readers, and which--left by an oversight
among the papers which had been translated into Spanish--had opened
Buvat's eyes. Near the plan, in the good man's best writing, was the
copy which he had begun to make, and which was broken off at the words,
"Act thus in all the provinces."

Buvat had followed all the working of Dubois's face with a certain
anxiety; he had seen it pass from astonishment to joy, then from joy to
impassibility. Dubois, as he continued to read, had passed,
successively, one leg over the other, had bitten his lips, pinched the
end of his nose, but all had been utterly untranslatable to Buvat, and
at the end of the reading he understood no more from the face of the
archbishop than he had understood at the end of the copy from the
Spanish original. As to Dubois, he saw that this man had come to furnish
him with the beginning of a most important secret, and he was meditating
on the best means of making him furnish the end also. This was the
signification of the crossed legs, the bitten lips, and the pinched
nose. At last he appeared to have taken his resolution. A charming
benevolence overspread his countenance, and turning toward the good man,
who had remained standing respectfully--

"Take a seat, my dear M. Buvat," said he.

"Thank you, monseigneur," answered Buvat, trembling; "I am not
fatigued."

"Pardon, pardon," said Dubois, "but your legs shake."

Indeed, since he had read the proces-verbal of the question of Van der
Enden, Buvat had retained in his legs a nervous trembling, like that
which may be observed in dogs that have just had the distemper.

"The fact is, monseigneur," said Buvat, "that I do not know what has
come to me the last two hours, but I find a great difficulty in
standing upright."

"Sit down, then, and let us talk l