gained the good
graces of a sergeant-at-arms, and who had persuaded the latter to let
them stand before, instead of behind him, as they ought to have done.
The worthy sergeant had recognized the minister's secretary and the
millionnaire, and, by way of paying extra attention to his noble
neighbors, promised to keep their places while they paid a visit to
Beauchamp.

"Well," said Beauchamp, "we shall see our friend!"

"Yes, indeed!" replied Debray. "That worthy prince. Deuce take those
Italian princes!"

"A man, too, who could boast of Dante for a genealogist, and could
reckon back to the 'Divine Comedy.'"

"A nobility of the rope!" said Chateau-Renaud phlegmatically.

"He will be condemned, will he not?" asked Debray of Beauchamp.

"My dear fellow, I think we should ask you that question; you know such
news much better than we do. Did you see the president at the minister's
last night?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Something which will surprise you."

"Oh, make haste and tell me, then; it is a long time since that has
happened."

"Well, he told me that Benedetto, who is considered a serpent of
subtlety and a giant of cunning, is really but a very commonplace, silly
rascal, and altogether unworthy of the experiments that will be made on
his phrenological organs after his death."

"Bah," said Beauchamp, "he played the prince very well."

"Yes, for you who detest those unhappy princes, Beauchamp, and are
always delighted to find fault with them; but not for me, who discover
a gentleman by instinct, and who scent out an aristocratic family like a
very bloodhound of heraldry."

"Then you never believed in the principality?"

"Yes.--in the principality, but not in the prince."

"Not so bad," said Beauchamp; "still, I assure you, he passed very well
with many people; I saw him at the ministers' houses."

"Ah, yes," said Chateau-Renaud. "The idea of thinking ministers
understand anything about princes!"

"There is something in what you have just said," said Beauchamp,
laughing.

"But," said Debray to Beauchamp, "if I spoke to the president, you must
have been with the procureur."

"It was an impossibility; for the last week M. de Villefort has
secluded himself. It is natural enough; this strange chain of domestic
afflictions, followed by the no less strange death of his daughter"--

"Strange? What do you mean, Beauchamp?"

"Oh, yes; do you pretend that all this has been unobserved at the
ministe