Chapter 11
The Corsican Ogre.

At the sight of this agitation Louis XVIII. pushed from him
violently the table at which he was sitting.

"What ails you, baron?" he exclaimed. "You appear quite
aghast. Has your uneasiness anything to do with what M. de
Blacas has told me, and M. de Villefort has just confirmed?"
M. de Blacas moved suddenly towards the baron, but the
fright of the courtier pleaded for the forbearance of the
statesman; and besides, as matters were, it was much more to
his advantage that the prefect of police should triumph over
him than that he should humiliate the prefect.

"Sire" -- stammered the baron.

"Well, what is it?" asked Louis XVIII. The minister of
police, giving way to an impulse of despair, was about to
throw himself at the feet of Louis XVIII., who retreated a
step and frowned.

"Will you speak?" he said.

"Oh, sire, what a dreadful misfortune! I am, indeed, to be
pitied. I can never forgive myself!"

"Monsieur," said Louis XVIII., "I command you to speak."

"Well, sire, the usurper left Elba on the 26th February, and
landed on the 1st of March."

"And where? In Italy?" asked the king eagerly.

"In France, sire, -- at a small port, near Antibes, in the
Gulf of Juan."

"The usurper landed in France, near Antibes, in the Gulf of
Juan, two hundred and fifty leagues from Paris, on the 1st
of March, and you only acquired this information to-day, the
4th of March! Well, sir, what you tell me is impossible. You
must have received a false report, or you have gone mad."

"Alas, sire, it is but too true!" Louis made a gesture of
indescribable anger and alarm, and then drew himself up as
if this sudden blow had struck him at the same moment in
heart and countenance.

"In France!" he cried, "the usurper in France! Then they did
not watch over this man. Who knows? they were, perhaps, in
league with him."

"Oh, sire," exclaimed the Duc de Blacas, "M. Dandre is not a
man to be accused of treason! Sire, we have all been blind,
and the minister of police has shared the general blindness,
that is all."

"But" -- said Villefort, and then suddenly checking himself,
he was silent; then he continued, "Your pardon, sire," he
said, bowing, "my zeal carried me away. Will your majesty
deign to excuse me?"

"Speak, sir, speak boldly," replied Louis. "You alone
forewarned us of the evil; now try and aid us with the
remedy."

"Sire," said Villefort, "the usurper is detested in the
south; and it seems to me that if he ventured into the
south, it would be easy to raise Languedoc and Provence
against him."

"Yes, assuredly," replied the minister; "but he is advancing
by Gap and Sisteron."

"Advancing -- he is advancing!" said Louis XVIII. "Is he
then advancing on Paris?" The minister of police maintained
a silence which was equivalent to a complete avowal.

"And Dauphine, sir?" inquired the king, of Villefort. "Do
you think it possible to rouse that as well as Provence?"

"Sire, I am sorry to tell your majesty a cruel fact; but the
feeling in Dauphine is quite the reverse of that in Provence
or Languedoc. The mountaineers are Bonapartists, sire."

"Then," murmured Louis, "he was well informed. And how many
men had he with him?"

"I do not know, sire," answered the minister of police.

"What, you do not know! Have you neglected to obtain
information on that point? Of course it is of no
consequence," he added, with a withering smile.

"Sire, it was impossible to learn; the despatch simply
stated the fact of the landing and the route taken by the
usurper."


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