had meetings in the Rue
Saint-Jacques. But proceed, I beg of you. How did you obtain these
details?"

"Sire, they are the results of an examination which I have made of a man
of Marseilles, whom I have watched for some time, and arrested on the
day of my departure. This person, a sailor, of turbulent character,
and whom I suspected of Bonapartism, has been secretly to the Island
of Elba. There he saw the grand-marshal, who charged him with an oral
message to a Bonapartist in Paris, whose name I could not extract from
him; but this mission was to prepare men's minds for a return (it is the
man who says this, sire)--a return which will soon occur."

"And where is this man?"

"In prison, sire."

"And the matter seems serious to you?"

"So serious, sire, that when the circumstance surprised me in the midst
of a family festival, on the very day of my betrothal, I left my bride
and friends, postponing everything, that I might hasten to lay at your
majesty's feet the fears which impressed me, and the assurance of my
devotion."

"True," said Louis XVIII., "was there not a marriage engagement between
you and Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran?"

"Daughter of one of your majesty's most faithful servants."

"Yes, yes; but let us talk of this plot, M. de Villefort."

"Sire, I fear it is more than a plot; I fear it is a conspiracy."

"A conspiracy in these times," said Louis XVIII., smiling, "is a thing
very easy to meditate, but more difficult to conduct to an end, inasmuch
as, re-established so recently on the throne of our ancestors, we have
our eyes open at once upon the past, the present, and the future. For
the last ten months my ministers have redoubled their vigilance, in
order to watch the shore of the Mediterranean. If Bonaparte landed at
Naples, the whole coalition would be on foot before he could even reach
Piomoino; if he land in Tuscany, he will be in an unfriendly territory;
if he land in France, it must be with a handful of men, and the result
of that is easily foretold, execrated as he is by the population. Take
courage, sir; but at the same time rely on our royal gratitude."

"Ah, here is M. Dandre!" cried de Blacas. At this instant the minister
of police appeared at the door, pale, trembling, and as if ready to
faint. Villefort was about to retire, but M. de Blacas, taking his hand,
restrained him.

Chapter 11. The Corsican Ogre.

At the sight of this agitation Louis XVIII. pushed from him violently