Restoration adopt imperial methods so
promptly? Shot, my dear boy? What an idea! Where is the letter you speak
of? I know you too well to suppose you would allow such a thing to pass
you."

"I burnt it, for fear that even a fragment should remain; for that
letter must have led to your condemnation."

"And the destruction of your future prospects," replied Noirtier; "yes,
I can easily comprehend that. But I have nothing to fear while I have
you to protect me."

"I do better than that, sir--I save you."

"You do? Why, really, the thing becomes more and more dramatic--explain
yourself."

"I must refer again to the club in the Rue Saint-Jacques."

"It appears that this club is rather a bore to the police. Why didn't
they search more vigilantly? they would have found"--

"They have not found; but they are on the track."

"Yes, that the usual phrase; I am quite familiar with it. When the
police is at fault, it declares that it is on the track; and the
government patiently awaits the day when it comes to say, with a
sneaking air, that the track is lost."

"Yes, but they have found a corpse; the general has been killed, and in
all countries they call that a murder."

"A murder do you call it? why, there is nothing to prove that the
general was murdered. People are found every day in the Seine, having
thrown themselves in, or having been drowned from not knowing how to
swim."

"Father, you know very well that the general was not a man to drown
himself in despair, and people do not bathe in the Seine in the month of
January. No, no, do not be deceived; this was murder in every sense of
the word."

"And who thus designated it?"

"The king himself."

"The king! I thought he was philosopher enough to allow that there was
no murder in politics. In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well
as I do, there are no men, but ideas--no feelings, but interests; in
politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle, that is all.
Would you like to know how matters have progressed? Well, I will tell
you. It was thought reliance might be placed in General Quesnel; he was
recommended to us from the Island of Elba; one of us went to him, and
invited him to the Rue Saint-Jacques, where he would find some friends.
He came there, and the plan was unfolded to him for leaving Elba, the
projected landing, etc. When he had heard and comprehended all to the
fullest extent, he replied that he was a royalist. Then all looked at