The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas

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СКАЧАТЬ you not think with me, M. de Villefort, that General Quesnel, whom they believed attached to the usurper, but who was really entirely devoted to me, has perished the victim of a Bonapartist ambush?”

      “It is probable, sire,” replied Villefort. “But is this all that is known?”

      “They are on the traces of the man who appointed the meeting with him.”

      “On his traces?” said Villefort.

      “Yes, the servant has given his description. He is a man of from fifty to fifty-two years of age, brown, with black eyes, covered with shaggy eyebrows, and a thick moustache. He was dressed in a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to the chin, and wore at his button-hole the rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honour. Yesterday an individual was followed exactly corresponding with this description, but he was lost sight of at the corner of the Rue de la Jussienne and the Rue Coq-Héron.”

      Villefort leaned on the back of an arm-chair, for in proportion as the minister of police spoke, he felt his legs bend under him; but when he learnt that the unknown had escaped the vigilance of the agent who followed him, he breathed again.

      “Continue to seek for this man, sir,” said the king to the minister of police; “for if, as all conspires to convince me, General Quesnel, who would have been so useful to us at this moment, has been murdered, his assassins, Bonapartists or not, shall be cruelly punished.”

      It required all Villefort’s sang-froid not to betray the terror with which this declaration of the king inspired him.

      “How strange!” continued the king, with some asperity, “the police thinks all is said when it says, ‘A murder has been committed,’ and particularly when it adds, ‘And we are on the trace of the guilty persons.’”

      “Sire, your majesty will, I trust, be amply satisfied on this point, at least.”

      “We shall see; I will no longer detain you, baron. M. de Villefort, you must be fatigued after so long a journey, go and repose yourself. Of course you stopped at your father’s?”

      A faintness came over Villefort.

      “No, sire,” he replied, “I alighted at the Hôtel de Madrid, in the Rue de Tournon.”

      “But you have seen him?”

      “Sire, I went straight to the Duc de Blacas.”

      “But you will see him, then?”

      “I think not, sire.”

      “Ah, I forgot,” said Louis, smiling in a manner which proved that all these questions were not made without a motive,—“I forgot you and M. Noirtier are not on the best terms possible, and that this is another sacrifice made to the royal cause, and for which you should be recompensed.”

      “Sire, the kindness your majesty deigns to evince towards me is a recompense which so far surpasses my utmost ambition that I have nothing more to request.”

      “Never mind, sir, we will not forget you, make your mind easy. In the meanwhile” (the king here detached the cross of the Legion of Honour he usually wore over his blue coat, near the cross of Saint Louis, above the order of Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel and Saint Lazare, and gave it to Villefort)—” in the meanwhile take this cross.”

      “Sire,” said Villefort, “your majesty mistakes, this cross is that of an officer.”

      “Ma foi!” said Louis XVIII, “take it, such as it is, for I have not the time to procure you another. Blacas, let it be your care to see that the brevet is made out and sent to M. de Villefort.”

      Villefort’s eyes were filled with tears of joy and pride; he took the cross and kissed it.

      “And now,” he said, “may I inquire what are the orders with which your majesty deigns to honour me?”

      “Take what rest you require, and remember that, unable to serve me here in Paris, you may be of the greatest service to me at Marseilles.”

      “Sire,” replied Villefort, bowing, “in an hour I shall have quitted Paris.”

      “Go, sir,” said the king; “and should I forget you (kings’ memories are short), do not be afraid to bring yourself to my recollection. M. le Baron, send for the minister of war. Blacas, remain.”

      “Ah, sir,” said the minister of police to Villefort, as they left the Tuileries, “you enter by the right door, and your fortune is made.”

      “Will it be long first?” muttered Villefort, saluting the minister, whose career was ended, and looking about him for a hackney-coach. One passed at the moment, which he hailed: he gave his address to the driver, and springing in, threw himself on the seat, and gave loose to dreams of ambition.

      Ten minutes afterwards Villefort reached his hotel, ordered his horses in two hours, and desired to have his breakfast brought to him. He was about to commence his repast when the sound of the bell, rung by a free and firm hand, was heard. The valet opened the door, and Villefort heard his name pronounced.

      “Who could know that I was here already?” said the young man.

      The valet entered.

      “Well,” said Villefort, “what is it?—Who rang?—Who asked for me?”

      “A stranger, who will not send in his name.”

      “A stranger who will not send in his name! What can he want with me?”

      “He wishes to speak to you.”

      “To me?”

      “Yes.”

      “Did he mention my name?”

      “Yes.”

      “What sort of person is he?”

      “Why, sir, a man of about fifty.”

      “Short or tall?”

      “About your own height, sir.”

      “Dark or fair?”

      “Dark—very dark: with black eyes, black hair, black eyebrows.”

      “And how dressed?” asked Villefort quickly.

      “In a blue frock-coat, buttoned up close, decorated with the Legion of Honour.”

      “It is he!” said Villefort, turning pale.

      “Eh, pardieu!” said the individual whose description we have twice given, entering the door, “what a great deal of ceremony! Is it the custom in Marseilles for sons to keep their fathers waiting in their anterooms?”

      “Father!” cried Villefort, “then I was not deceived; I felt sure it must be you.”

      “Well, then, if you felt so sure,” replied the newcomer, putting his cane in a corner and his hat on a chair, “allow me to say, my dear Gérard, that it was not very filial of you to keep СКАЧАТЬ