row. Villefort smiled within himself, for he felt
his increased importance.

"To fall," continued King Louis, who at the first glance had sounded the
abyss on which the monarchy hung suspended,--"to fall, and learn of that
fall by telegraph! Oh, I would rather mount the scaffold of my brother,
Louis XVI., than thus descend the staircase at the Tuileries driven away
by ridicule. Ridicule, sir--why, you know not its power in France, and
yet you ought to know it!"

"Sire, sire," murmured the minister, "for pity's"--

"Approach, M. de Villefort," resumed the king, addressing the young man,
who, motionless and breathless, was listening to a conversation on which
depended the destiny of a kingdom. "Approach, and tell monsieur that it
is possible to know beforehand all that he has not known."

"Sire, it was really impossible to learn secrets which that man
concealed from all the world."

"Really impossible! Yes--that is a great word, sir. Unfortunately, there
are great words, as there are great men; I have measured them. Really
impossible for a minister who has an office, agents, spies, and fifteen
hundred thousand francs for secret service money, to know what is going
on at sixty leagues from the coast of France! Well, then, see, here is a
gentleman who had none of these resources at his disposal--a gentleman,
only a simple magistrate, who learned more than you with all your
police, and who would have saved my crown, if, like you, he had the
power of directing a telegraph." The look of the minister of police was
turned with concentrated spite on Villefort, who bent his head in modest
triumph.

"I do not mean that for you, Blacas," continued Louis XVIII.; "for if
you have discovered nothing, at least you have had the good sense
to persevere in your suspicions. Any other than yourself would have
considered the disclosure of M. de Villefort insignificant, or else
dictated by venal ambition," These words were an allusion to the
sentiments which the minister of police had uttered with so much
confidence an hour before.

Villefort understood the king's intent. Any other person would, perhaps,
have been overcome by such an intoxicating draught of praise; but
he feared to make for himself a mortal enemy of the police minister,
although he saw that Dandre was irrevocably lost. In fact, the
minister, who, in the plenitude of his power, had been unable to unearth
Napoleon's secret, might in despair at his own downfall interrogat