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"Yes, assuredly," replied theby 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 co, of Villefort "Do you think it possible to rouse that as well as Provence?"
"Sire, I a in Dauphine is quite the reverse of that in Provence or Languedoc The mountaineers are Bonapartists, sire"
"Then," murmured Louis, "he ell informed And how many men had he with him?"
"I do not know, sire," answered the lected 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 si and the route taken by the usurper"
"And how did this despatch reach you?" inquired the king The minister bowed his head, and while a deep color overspread his cheeks, he staraph, sire"--Louis XVIII advanced a step, and folded his arms over his chest as Napoleon would have done
"So then," he exclaier, "seven conjoined and allied armies overthrew that man A miracle of heaven replaced me on the throne of my fathers after five-and-twenty years of exile I have, during those five-and-twenty years, spared no pains to understand the people of France and the interests which were confided to me; and nohen I see the fruition of my wishes almost within reach, the power I hold in my hands bursts, and shatters me to ato that the pressure of circu to destiny, was too th to endure
"What our eneotten nothing! If I were betrayed as he was, I would console myself; but to be in the midst of persons elevated by ht to watch over me more carefully than over themselves,--for --after , and perish miserably froht--it is fatality!"
The minister quailed before this outburst of sarcasm M de Blacas wiped the moisture from his brow Villefort smiled within himself, for he felt his increased i Louis, who at the first glance had sounded the abyss on which thesuspended,--"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!"