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"'Tis well," resu towards M de Blacas and the minister of police, "I have no further occasion for you, and you may retire; what now remains to do is in the department of the minister of war"

"Fortunately, sire," said M de Blacas, "we can rely on the army; your majesty kno every report confirms their loyalty and attachment"

"Do not mention reports, duke, to me, for I knohat confidence to place in the of reports, baron, what have you learned with regard to the affair in the Rue Saint-Jacques?"

"The affair in the Rue Saint-Jacques!" exclaimed Villefort, unable to repress an excla, he added, "Your pardon, sire, but et, not the respect I have, for that is too deeply engraved in o on, sir," replied the king; "you have to-day earned the right to make inquiries here"

"Sire," interposed the ive your majesty fresh information which I had obtained on this head, when your majesty's attention was attracted by the terrible event that has occurred in the gulf, and now these facts will cease to interest your majesty"

"On the contrary, sir,--on the contrary," said Louis XVIII, "this affair seems to me to have a decided connection with that which occupies our attention, and the death of General Quesnel will, perhaps, put us on the direct track of a great internal conspiracy" At the na points to the conclusion, sire," said the minister of police, "that death was not the result of suicide, as we first believed, but of assassination General Quesnel, it appears, had just left a Bonapartist club when he disappeared An unknown person had been with hi, and made an appointeneral's valet, as dressing his hair at the er entered, heard the street mentioned, but did not catch the nu, Villefort, who looked as if his very life hung on the speaker's lips, turned alternately red and pale The king looked towards him

"Do you not think with me, M de Villefort, that General Quesnel, whom they believed attached to the usurper, but as 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 track of thewith him"